Throughout history there have been spies. Some have not been very successful while others did a much better job. If one wants to ask the question who was the most famous spy in history, the answer would probably have to be Mata Hari. Mata Hari was a spy employed by the Germans in World War I. Her real name was Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod. The name Mata Hari was her stage name, she was an exotic dancer and prostitute. She had been born in the Netherlands. A rumor had spread  she had some Asian ancestry, but this wasn’t true, both her parents were Dutch and she came from an affluent background. She started out to be a kindergarten teacher, whoever would have thought? The job didn’t last because she was constantly being sexually harassed by her headmaster. She married Rudolph MacLeod and had a couple of children, but he beat her continuously in alcoholic rages. Her children were infected with syphilis from their parents and her son died and later her daughter. Is it any wonder Mata Hari decided to do the things she did? She began to spy for the Germans after becoming famous as an exotic dancer. She was very promiscuous and would flaunt her body every chance she had according to those who knew her. She became the mistress of a multimillionaire, Émile Étienne Guimet. Her act was very provocative and she would take everything off except for her bra. About 1912 her career declined and her last show was performed in early 1915. She was sought out by many men and had sex with high-ranking military officers and many other influential people including politicians. This made her an exceptional spy. Since the Netherlands were neutral, Mata Hari had no trouble crossing borders during the war. It is claimed the Germans forced her to become a spy and if she didn’t  they wouldn’t let her visit her lover who was a Russian pilot in the German Army and had been shot down and blinded. The Germans had even paid her one million francs to seduce a crown prince. The British arrested her in November 1916. They had taken her off her ship. They later released her. The French intercepted messages about the activities of spies which closely matched Mata Hari movements. The strange part of the code the Germans used was known to have been broken before the message was sent. On February 13, 1917 Mata Hari was arrested in her hotel room in France and put on trial for spying and she was charged with conspiracy in the deaths of at least 50,000 troops. It was said neither the French or the British had any concrete evidence against her, but they did find invisible ink in her room. Under pressure she admitted she took money to work as a German spy. She was executed on October 15, 1917.

Aldrich Ames was born in 1941. He managed to obtain a job at the  CIA as an analyst and this was a perfect job for Mr. Raines since he was really a mole for the former KGB, the Soviet intelligence agency. As incredible as it sounds he worked in the CIA thirty-one years doing counterintelligence analysis while obtaining as much information as he could to send back to his  Soviet employers. It is said he had been the most destructive spy up to the time of his arrest. Mr. Ames was born in the United States, in Wisconsin. His father worked for the CIA. I don’t know if this had anything to do with anything important, bit his father had received a negative appraisal for his performance at the CIA when he had served in Asia for three years. While Aldrich was in college he was allowed to work at the CIA for three summers as a low-ranking records analyst. His job was marking classified documents for filing. He failed college and went to work at the CIA as a laborer and painter. Eventually Aldrich took a full-time job at the CIA in a job similar to what he did in the summers. He went back to college and got his degree and eventually he married a lady who also worked for the CIA. She resigned, because there was a rule that prohibited married couples from working at the same office and he had been transferred to Turkey. Later Ames returned to the United States and was sent to the Eastern European division. This was during the Cold War and the perfect place for a spy. He was later transferred to Mexico City, but his wife remained in New York and he started a romance with the cultural attaché of the Colombian embassy who was also a CIA informant. Finally, he was placed at the CIA’s SE division in Washington. He was placed in the Department of Operations which was responsible for Soviet counter intelligence  and this gave him access to all of the CIA’s operations. He separated from his wife and finally divorced her and he had agreed to pay all of the debts plus support for three and a half years and he thought this would bankrupt him and said this is why he became a spy for the Soviet Union, but it seems he was spying way before that event. The CIA realized something was amiss, because by 1985 their spies began to disappear at an alarming rate. As irony would have it, is Soviet handlers apologized for the sudden action to eliminate the American spies and said these decisions were made at the highest levels. It is believed Aldrich received over 4.6 million dollars from the Soviets during his career as a spy. The Soviets did everything they could to cover up Aldrich’s involvement by creating false trails. Eventually a fellow employee reported to the CIA that Aldrich’s lifestyle was far more luxurious than he could afford on his salary. The CIA gave him two polygraph tests, but he passed both of them. It seems no one had noticed the man who was making $60,000 a year salary was living in a home costing more than half a million dollars, was driving a Jaguar car, had phone bills which exceeded $6,000 a month and had credit cards with monthly payments more than his monthly salary. Great job CIA! In 1994 both he and his wife were arrested. She was sentenced to five years for tax evasion and he was sentenced to lifetime imprisonment.

John André was born in 1750 in London. He entered the British army at the age of twenty. He had been captured by the Continental General Richard Montgomery in 1775. He was held prisoner at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but was allowed to go anywhere in the town and live in a private house, because he had given his word he would not escape. He kept his word and was freed in a prisoner exchange in December, 1776. He became a major in the British Army in 1778. He stayed in Philadelphia for nine months living in Benjamin Franklin’s home. It is said under orders he took several valuable items from the home. He became adjutant general to the British Army in America however his rank was still major. He had been secretly negotiating with General Benedict Arnold. Arnold’s wife was a close friend of André. Benedict Arnold was the commander of West Point at the time and André offered Arnold 20,000 pounds to surrender the fort to the British. Benedict Arnold believed he never received the credit for battles which led to great victories for the colonies. André sailed a British ship up the river to the fort and a small boat met him and took him to the shore. The next morning American troops saw the British ship and began firing on it causing damage to the ship, so it had to leave without André. Arnold tried to help André escape through the American lines by providing civilian clothing and a passport which claimed his name was John Anderson. In his sock, there were six papers in Arnold’s handwriting showing the British how to take the fort and its layout. He was eventually stopped by American soldiers. He thought they were Tories, because one of the soldiers was wearing a Hessian overcoat and stupidly confided in them he was a British officer. They then told him they were all Americans and took him into custody. They searched his boots and found the papers. He finally admitted who he was. Washington didn’t want to believe Arnold was a traitor so he sent him a note. The note informed Arnold of the situation. One hour after Arnold received the note Washington arrived with some troops. He was disturbed to see the neglect at West Point which had been part of the plan to weaken its defenses. Arnold was not there to meet him so Washington sent men to arrest him, but it was too late. The fact the British had executed Nathan Hale for being a spy sealed the fate of major André who was executed.