espionage (ĕs`pēənäzh'), the act of obtaining information clandestinely. The term applies particularly to the act of collecting military, industrial, and political data about one nation for the benefit of another. Industrial espionage—the theft of patents and processes from business firms—is not properly espionage at all.

Modern Espionage

Espionage is a part of intelligence activity, which is also concerned with analysis of diplomatic reports, newspapers, periodicals, technical publications, commercial statistics, and radio and television broadcasts. In the last fifty years espionage activity has been greatly supplemented by technological advances, especially in the areas of radio signal interception and high-altitude photography. Surveillance with high-technology equipment on the ground or from high-altitude planes and satellites has become an important espionage technique (see Cuban Missile Crisis Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962, major cold war confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the USSR increased its support of Fidel Castro's Cuban regime, and in the summer of 1962, Nikita Khrushchev secretly decided to
..... Click the link for more information. ). Code making and code breaking (see cryptography cryptography [Gr.,=hidden writing], science of secret writing. There are many devices by which a message can be concealed from the casual reader, e.g., invisible writing, but the term cryptography strictly applies to translating messages into cipher or code.
..... Click the link for more information. ) have become computerized and very effective. The threat of foreign espionage is used as an excuse for internal suppression and the suspension of civil rights in many countries. Espionage is a very important part of guerrilla warfare guerrilla warfare [Span.,=little war], fighting by groups of irregular troops (guerrillas) within areas occupied by the enemy. When guerrillas obey the laws of conventional warfare they are entitled, if captured, to be treated as ordinary prisoners of war; however,
..... Click the link for more information. and counterinsurgency. The defensive side of intelligence activity, i.e., preventing another nation from gaining such information, is known as counterespionage. Under international law, intelligence activities are not illegal; however, every nation has laws against espionage conducted against it.

History

Beginnings through the Nineteenth Century

The importance of espionage in military affairs has been recognized since the beginning of recorded history. The Egyptians had a well-developed secret service, and spying and subversion are mentioned in the Iliad and in the Bible. The ancient Chinese treatise (c.500 B.C.) on the art of war (see Sun Tzu Sun Tzu , fl. c.500–320. B.C., name used by the unknown Chinese authors of the sophisticated treatise on philosophy, logistics, espionage, and strategy and tactics known as The Art of War. It includes many commentaries by later Chinese philosophers.
..... Click the link for more information. ) devotes much attention to deception and intelligence gathering, arguing that all war is based on deception. In the Middle Ages, political espionage became important. Joan of Arc Joan of Arc, Fr. Jeanne D'Arc (zhän därk), 1412?–31, French saint and national heroine, called the Maid of Orléans; daughter of a farmer of Domrémy on the border of Champagne and Lorraine.
..... Click the link for more information. was betrayed by Bishop Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais, a spy in the pay of the English, and Sir Francis Walsingham developed an efficient political spy system for Elizabeth I Elizabeth I, 1533–1603, queen of England (1558–1603). Early Life

The daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, she was declared illegitimate just before the execution of her mother in 1536, but in 1544 Parliament reestablished her in the
..... Click the link for more information. . With the growth of the modern national state, systematized espionage became a fundamental part of government in most countries. Joseph Fouché Fouché, Joseph , b. 1759 or 1763, d. 1820, French revolutionary and minister of police. A teacher in the schools of the Oratorian order, he joined the French Revolution and was elected to the Convention (1792).
..... Click the link for more information. is credited with developing the first modern political espionage system, and Frederick II of Prussia is regarded as the founder of modern military espionage. During the American Revolution, Nathan Hale Hale, Nathan, 1755–76, American soldier, hero of the American Revolution, b. Coventry, Conn. A young schoolteacher when the Revolution broke out, he was commissioned an officer in the Connecticut militia, served in the siege of Boston, then went to take part in
..... Click the link for more information. and Benedict Arnold Arnold, Benedict, 1741–1801, American Revolutionary general and traitor, b. Norwich, Conn. As a youth he served for a time in the colonial militia in the French and Indian Wars. He later became a prosperous trader.
..... Click the link for more information. achieved fame as spies, and there was considerable use of spies on both sides during the U.S. Civil War.

In the Twentieth Century

By World War I, all the great powers except the United States had elaborate civilian espionage systems and all national military establishments had intelligence units. To protect the country against foreign agents, the U.S. Congress passed the Espionage Statute of 1917. Mata Hari Mata Hari , 1876–1917, Dutch dancer and spy in German service during World War I. Her real name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle. A dancer in Paris, she joined the German secret service in 1907, and during the war she betrayed important military secrets confided
..... Click the link for more information. , who obtained information for Germany by seducing French officials, was the most noted espionage agent of World War I. Germany and Japan established elaborate espionage nets in the years preceding World War II. In 1942 the Office of Strategic Services was founded by Gen. William J. Donovan Donovan, William Joseph , 1883–1959, American lawyer, director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), b. Buffalo, N.Y. Distinguished service in World War I won him medals and the nickname Wild Bill Donovan.
..... Click the link for more information. . However, the British system was the keystone of Allied intelligence.

Since World War II, espionage activity has enlarged considerably, much of it growing out of the cold war cold war, term used to describe the shifting struggle for power and prestige between the Western powers and the Communist bloc from the end of World War II until 1989.
..... Click the link for more information. between the United States and the former USSR. Russia and the Soviet Union have had a long tradition of espionage ranging from the Czar's Okhrana to the Committee for State Security (the KGB), which also acted as a secret police secret police, policing organization operating in secrecy for the political purposes of its government, often with terroristic procedures. The Nature of a Secret Police

..... Click the link for more information. force. In the United States the 1947 National Security Act created the Central Intelligence Agency Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), independent executive bureau of the U.S. government established by the National Security Act of 1947, replacing the wartime Office of Strategic Services (1942–45), the first U.S. espionage and covert operations agency.
..... Click the link for more information. (CIA) to coordinate intelligence and the National Security Agency National Security Agency (NSA), an independent agency within the U.S. Dept. of Defense. Founded by presidential order in 1952, its primary function is to encode and decode communications intelligence and to protect U.S. signals and information systems.
..... Click the link for more information. for research into codes and electronic communication. In addition to these, the United States has 13 other intelligence gathering agencies; most of the U.S. expenditures for intelligence gathering are budgeted to various Defense Dept. agencies and their programs. Under the intelligence reorganization of 2004, the director of national intelligence is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the activities and budgets of the U.S. intelligence agencies.

Famous cold war espionage cases include Alger Hiss Hiss, Alger , 1904–96, American public official, b. Baltimore. After serving (1929–30) as secretary to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Hiss practiced law in Boston and New York City.
..... Click the link for more information. and Whittaker Chambers Chambers, Whittaker, 1901–61, U.S. journalist and spy, b. Philadelphia. He joined the U.S. Communist party in 1925 and wrote for its newspaper before engaging (1935–38) in espionage for the USSR.
..... Click the link for more information. and the Rosenberg Case Rosenberg Case, in U.S. history, a lengthy and controversial espionage case. In 1950, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Julius Rosenberg (1918–53), an electrical engineer who had worked (1940–45) for the U.S.
..... Click the link for more information. . In 1952 the Communist Chinese captured two CIA agents, and in 1960 Francis Gary Powers, flying a U-2 reconnaissance mission over the Soviet Union for the CIA, was shot down and captured. During the cold war, many Soviet intelligence officials defected to the West, including Gen. Walter Krivitsky, Victor Kravchenko, Vladimir Petrov, Peter Deriabin Pawel Monat, and Oleg Penkovsky, of the GRU (Soviet military intelligence). Among Western officials who defected to the Soviet Union are Guy F. Burgess and Donald D. Maclean of Great Britain in 1951, Otto John of West Germany in 1954, William H. Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell, U.S. cryptographers, in 1960, and Harold (Kim) Philby Philby, Kim (Harold Adrian Russell Philby), 1912–88, British double agent; son of Harry St. John Bridger Philby, better known as Kim Philby, worked for many years as a Soviet spy within the British intelligence service.
..... Click the link for more information. of Great Britain in 1962. U.S. acknowledgment of its U-2 flights and the exchange of Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel in 1962 implied the legitimacy of some espionage as an arm of foreign policy.

China has a very cost-effective intelligence program that is especially effective in monitoring neighboring countries. Smaller countries can also mount effective and focused espionage efforts. The Vietnamese Communists, for example, had consistently superior intelligence during the Vietnam War Vietnam War, conflict in Southeast Asia, primarily fought in South Vietnam between government forces aided by the United States and guerrilla forces aided by North Vietnam.
..... Click the link for more information. . Israel probably has the best espionage establishment in the world. Some of the Muslim countries, especially Libya, Iran, and Syria, have highly developed operations as well. Iran's Savak was particularly feared by Iranian dissidents before the Iranian Revolution.

Bibliography

See A. Ind, A Short History of Espionage (1963); R. W. Rowan and R. G. Deindorfer, Secret Service: Thirty-Three Centuries of Espionage (rev. ed. 1967); R. Friedman, Advanced Technology Warfare (1985); G. Treverton, Covert Action (1989); J. Keegan, Intelligence in War (2003).

espionage

Practice of obtaining military, political, commercial, or other secret information by means of spies or illegal monitoring devices. It is sometimes distinguished from the broader category of intelligence gathering by its aggressive nature and its illegality. Counterespionage efforts are directed at detecting and thwarting espionage by others.

Espionage

a crime involving the secret gathering or stealing of information (including economic information) that constitutes state secrets with the intent of turning the information over to another state to the detriment of the state from which the information was taken. Espionage is treated as a crime by the legal systems of all countries. It is one type of subversive activity used by imperialist intelligence services against the USSR and other countries of the socialist camp.

Under Soviet criminal law, espionage is defined as an especially dangerous state crime involving the transmission, or the stealing or gathering with the intent to transmit, of military or state secrets to a foreign state or organization or to agents thereof. It may also include the transmission of other information to be used against the interests of the USSR or the collection of such information on commission from a foreign intelligence agency.

Espionage is considered to have been committed from the moment that the information is obtained, regardless of whether or not it has been transmitted. An unsuccessful attempt to obtain espionage information—for example, an attempt to buy a state secret from a person who legally possesses it—constitutes attempted espionage. If classified state or military information has been obtained and transmitted, the actions of the guilty person are defined as espionage, whether he acted on his own initiative or on commission from a foreign state or organization or from agents thereof. Obtaining and transmitting other information is defined as espionage if these actions are performed on commission from foreign intelligence bodies and if the information is obtained or transmitted for use against the interests of the USSR.

Espionage committed by a citizen of the USSR is treason against the homeland. It carries a sentence of ten to 15 years’ deprivation of freedom with confiscation of property, with or without additional exile for a term of two to five years, or execution with confiscation of property (art. 64 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and the corresponding articles of the criminal codes of the other Union republics). Espionage committed by a foreigner or person without citizenship is punishable by deprivation of freedom for seven to 15 years with confiscation of property, with or without additional exile for a term of two to five years, or by execution with confiscation of property (art. 65 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and the corresponding articles of the criminal codes of the other Union republics).

Espionage is used extensively by the bourgeois states. The USA, for example, has a special intelligence agency known as the Central Intelligence Agency. Intelligence divisions within other departments and ministries also perform espionage and intelligence-gathering activities. At the same time, every capitalist state maintains extremely harsh punishments for espionage committed against it. In accordance with the criminal code of France, espionage is punished by execution. The penalty under British law is execution or hard labor.

Liability for military espionage—that is, secretly and under false pretenses collecting information about the enemy in a zone of military action for the purpose of transmitting the information to one’s own command—is regulated by international law under the Statute on the Laws and Customs of Land Warfare, which is appended to the Hague Convention of 1907. A state that has arrested a spy has the right to punish him according to the state’s discretion, after a legal trial.

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