We have always been fascinated by the mysterious world of espionage. John le Carré's early career in MI5 and MI6, Britain's intelligence services, were the basis for his novels, including The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Russia Houseand Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Ian Fleming's James Bond, the British Secret Service agent known as 007, is universally familiar. Mr. Moto, Jack Ryan, the Pink Panther, Mission: Impossible, and even Austin Powers fill movie theaters with ease.
But fictionalized spies don't always match the real McCoy. For every Culper Ring—the spy ring that provided information to George Washington about the British—there were homegrown American traitors like Benedict Arnold, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Aldrich Ames.
There's also the Cambridge Five. The members of this infamous spy ring—Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross—attended Cambridge University in the 1930s. The Soviet Union recruited them to steal British government secrets and intelligence, and their espionage was so successful that even the KGB reportedly had serious doubts about their authenticity. All five members died without being prosecuted for their crimes.
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