Cold War espionage describes the intelligence gathering activities during the Cold War between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Because each side was preparing to fight the other, intelligence on the opposing side's intentions, military, and technology was of paramount importance. To gather this information, the two relied on a wide variety of military and civilian agencies. While several such as the CIA and KGB became synonymous with Cold War espionage, many other organizations played key roles in the collection and protection of the secction concerning detection of spying, and analysis of a wide host of intelligence disciplines.
Soviet espionage in the United States during the Cold War was an outgrowth of World War II nuclear espionage, and Cold War espionage was depicted in works such as the James Bond and Matt Helm books and movies.
| Date | Topic | Event This list is incomplete; you can help by editing it. |
|---|---|---|
| 1941-08-10 | Nuclear espionage | USSR ! The GRU reestablished contact with Klaus Fuchs, who transferred from the British Tube Alloys program to the US Manhattan Project in 1943. |
| 1942 | Nuclear espionage | USSR ! US communist Jacob Golos placed the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg cell of engineers in direct contact with Soviet intelligence operatives in New York. |
| 1944 | Nuclear espionage | USSR ! Yuri Modin began leading the Cambridge Five ring of atomic spies. |
| 1946-12-20 | VENONA Project | US ! Meredith Gardner's codebreaking discovered the Soviet spying within the Manhattan Project. |
| 1949 | Nuclear espionage | USSR ! A Mossad agent assumed, seeing CIA agent James Jesus Angleton dining with Cambridge Five mole Kim Philby, that the former had turned the latter into a triple agent. |
| 1959-06 | Corona (satellite) | US ! Discoverer 4 was the first CORONA satellite with an IMINT camera. |
| 1959-10-15 | Active measures | USSR ! Ukrainian politician Stepan Bandera was assassinated on KGB orders. |
| 1960 | 1960 U-2 incident | US ! Pilot Francis Gary Powers' Lockheed U-2 spy plane was downed by a Soviet SAM (he was convicted of espionage & exchanged in 1962 for spy Rudolph Abel.) |
| 1962-10-26 | Cuban Missile Crisis | USSR ! Under the pseudonym of Aleksandr Fomin, the KGB Station Chief in Washington proposed the crisis' diplomatic solution. |
| 1964 | Operation Neptune | USSR ! A ruse was used to indicate West Germany's spies remaining from WWII had been exposed. |
| 1985-03-23 | Military Liaison Missions | US ! On a mission to photograph a Soviet tank storage building, US intelligence officer Major Arthur D. Nicholson was killed by a Soviet soldier. |
Famous quotes containing the words cold war, cold, war and/or espionage:
“Let us not be deceived—we are today in the midst of a cold war.”
—Bernard Baruch (1870–1965)
“When we think of him, he is without a hat, standing in the wind and weather. He was impatient of topcoats and hats, preferring to be exposed, and he was young enough and tough enough to enjoy the cold and the wind of those times.... It can be said of him, as of few men in a like position, that he did not fear the weather, and did not trim his sails, but instead challenged the wind itself, to improve its direction and to cause it to blow more softly and more kindly over the world and its people.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“We hoped for a happy termination of this terrible war long before this; but God knows best, and has ruled otherwise.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilisation. It’s a lout’s game.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)