Spy Web

During World War II, German intelligence spread its tentacles across the globe, operating throughout occupied and neutral Europe, and even as far afie...

Berlin has always been a hotbed of espionage. Uncover the secrets under the Kaiser, during the tyranny that was Hitler's Third Reich, and throughout t...

An unprepossessing Victorian Mansion 50 miles north of London, Bletchley Park started life as Station X before developing into the most potent deciphe...

Established by President Truman, the CIA became a global agency for collecting and evaluating intelligence through covert action. It has a fascinating...

The fascinating story of 20th-century efforts by all sides to break down the enemy's signals security, to protect the sender's signals, and penetrate...

The FBI serves as a national police force investigating interstate crime. However, it also handles violations of U.S espionage laws by foreign agents....

Born in the crucible of Israel's war of independence and honed in the constant struggle for survival, the Mossad gained a fearsome reputation for ruth...

During both World Wars, Britain's counter-espionage service proved highly effective - no enemy spies operated for more than a few days, and many were...

Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, and employer of the fictional James Bond, grew out of the need to combat imperial German and later Bolshevik am...

This episode focuses on the Komitet Gosudarstvennoe Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security), the agency of the former Soviet Union responsible for...

One of the Soviet Union's greatest espionage operations ended in 1951 when two diplomats at the British Foreign Office fled from Southampton Dock. Unc...

Britain's secret wartime Special Operation Executive was responsible for recruiting and training hundreds of secret agents, who were systematically dr...

Take a look at America's Office of Strategic Services, which was modelled on the British Special Operation Executive. William J. Donovan established t...

In one of the deadliest and most difficult conflicts the world had ever witnessed, straightforward warfare was not enough. The Vietnam War demanded se...

Mata Hari, Sidney Reilly, Lawrence of Arabia, Cicero, Lonsdale, the Lucy Spy Ring: these are just a few of the most daring and outrageous spy cases in...

The balloon first gave mankind the ability to look down on the battlefield; then came ever more sophisticated aircraft with cameras. Today, much of th...

During World War II, the Soviet government operated a large spy ring that sought atomic secrets in Great Britain, Canada, and the US. The success of t...

The Cheka was the infamous Bolshevik organisation which took control of Russia as Lenin's feared secret police. It was licensed to carry out execution...

Aircraft were first used to drop agents behind enemy lines during World War I. The skills of the first pioneers were rediscovered twenty years later w...

This organisation traces its roots back to 1776 and the spying service set up by George Washington. Since then the service has distinguished itself th...

From its early beginnings with General John J Pershing and his Mexican expedition of 1916, the US Air Intelligence arm has a fascinating history, span...

Sometimes referred to as the 'Fourth Department, Russian military intelligence', it was created in 1918 and produced a network of spies which operated...

Throughout the Twentieth Century, in all the major conflicts, both sides have operated intelligence collection ships. In World War II, the warships of...

Japan's traditional fascination with the West led at the beginning of the 20th century to the foundation of an elaborate spying network based on the n...

At the beginning of the 20th century, the French had a sophisticated intelligence network active during World War I, which went on to confront the Bol...

The US's longest surviving intelligence service was created in 1882. One of its most prominent divisions was the American Photographic Interpretation...