Spies & Traitors
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A traitor is a person who betrays a friend, country or principle.
A spy is a person who secretly collects and reports information on the activities, movements, and plans of an enemy or competitor.
If a spy is spying for his own country, he is a patriot. If a spy is spying for another country, he is a traitor.
Famous Spies
See Wikipedia for a list of persons who were convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917.
Armistead was an African American slave that became a double agent spy for the United States in 1781. He pretended to be a British spy and gained the confidence of Generals Arnold and Cornwallis only to gather information about the British plans for troop and arms deployment and send them to American spies. His espionage greatly helped the Americans secure victory during the Battle of Yorktown.
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were a married couple who were convicted of committing espionage during the height of the Cold War. They sold information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union and also recruited spies for the Russians. Upon capture by the FBI, their co-conspirators confessed about the espionage and were not executed while the couple were sentenced with Capital Punishment in 1953.
Other Famous Spies
- Aldrich Ames, Soviet Union Spy
- Giacomo Casanova, Venetian Spy
- Klaus Fuchs, Soviet Union
- Major John André, British Spy
- James Armistead Lafayette
- Frederick Joubert Duquesne, German Spy
- Virginia Hall, US Spy
- Shi Pei Pu, Chinese Spy
- Nathan Hale, Spied For The Continental Army
- Belle Boyd Spied For The Confederates
Famous Traitors
See Wikipedia for a list of people who were convicted of treason by Country.
Arnold was an American general during the American Revolutionary War that immensely contributed to the success of the Americans during numerous battles. However, other officers claimed all his accomplishments, prompting him to sell West Point to the British. After the plan was exposed in 1780, Arnold fled and became a brigadier general of the British Army.
Other Famous Traitors
- Cassius and Brutus
- Judas Iscariot
- Robert Ford who shot Jesse James
- Philippe Pétain
- Ezra Pound, an American expatriate who'd been indicted for treason against the U.S. during World War II
- Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian army officer who spied for the Germans
- The Cambridge Five -- Harold "Kim" Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross
- Robert Hanssen, a 25-year FBI agent and double agent for the Soviet Union.
In 1949, a jury found her guilty on one of eight charges that alleged she broadcast news of American ships that were sunk. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. She was pardoned by President Gerald Ford in 1977.
Resources
- Espionage on Wikipedia
- List of Spies in World War II
- List of American Spies
- List of British Spies
- List of German Spies
- List of Japanese Spies
- List of Imprisoned Spies
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George Parks, in his Revolutionary War pension application from Wilkes County, North Carolina, dated 4-10-1833, noted he served in a company of Minute Men, which was commanded by Capt. William Lenore, whose primary mission was to find men in their neighborhood who belonged to Tory military units who supported England. Some they would hang when they captured them, while others were whipped "nearly to death." They also punished civilians who were judged to be Loyalists, but less severely. "One of the incidents recalled by Parks had involved "Old Solomon Sparks," whom he described as "a celebrated Tory," and whose son, John, fought for the American side. Parks and several other men from Capt. Lenore's company were determined to punish Solomon for his Tory sentiments, but they knew that he was aware of this danger and was usually armed. In order to entice him out of his house unarmed, Parks recalled how he and his comrades had "employed a Whig from a distant neighborhood and a stranger to said Old Tory, to decoy him out of his house without his gun under the pretense of being a traveler & inquiring the road." Parks stated that the stranger "succeeded admirably" and that Solomon had, indeed, stepped outside his house unarmed to point the way for the stranger. "The soldiers, who had been hiding, then grabbed Solomon. He fought bravely without arms," Parks admitted with a certain degree of admiration, and in the fracas, Solomon had "considerably injured this applicant by kicking him." The soldiers had succeeded in overpowering Solomon Sparks, however, and "he was sent down the Yadkin in a canoe ... tied hand and foot, on his back." Although Solomon's plight must have been quite precarious, Parks recalled that "he repeatedly hallowed 'hurra for King George," as he floated helplessly downstream."