Double-dealing is all part of the spying game but marriage adds an extra layer of complexity to any operation. This week, we highlight some of the most notorious couples in espionage from Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to the Maryland ‘peanut butter’ nuclear spies. We also feature double agents who pulled off the greatest escapes in Cold War history and get up close and personal with two deadly couples: CIA spies Aldrich and Rosario Ames and MI6’s Kim Philby and his wife Litzi.
Nuclear spies
Navy engineer Jonathan Toebbe was an aspiring double agent who conducted ‘dead-drops’ of US nuclear secrets with agents he believed to be foreign spies. He dropped flash drives in a peanut butter sandwich and discarded a chewing gum wrapper while his wife acted as a lookout. But was teacher Diana Toebbe really the brains behind the double dealings? Court documents reveal an explosive tale.
British-KGB double agent Kim Philby bragged about how he stole MI6 secrets after his first wife introduced him to the Soviet Secret Police: “It is a very, very dirty story but after all, our work does imply getting dirty hands from time to time.” Philby was the most ruthless of the Cambridge Five spies. On the 60th anniversary of his 1963 defection, we dug up five shocking revelations about how Philby plied his tradecraft.
As the sun set over Santa Fe, CIA officers Mary and Edward Lee Howard gave their FBI surveillance team the slip. As Mary turned a corner, Howard rolled out of the car into the bushes. A dummy popped up in his place. Howard resurfaced in Moscow and declared his innocence - but innocent of what? Was he a KGB spy or a patsy for a much darker operation? Howard’s death was as mysterious as his life.
When FBI Special Agent Les Wiser Jr. was summoned to the Washington field office, his boss told him about Aldrich Ames, a CIA agent who might be working for the Russians. Was Wisner interested in heading up the investigation? There was no time for deep covers. Les would only have a small team and they’d need to study Ames and his wife forensically from afar. Wisner recounts the spy hunt of a lifetime.
Get a FREE copy of a hot new thriller, spy story, or crime novel every Monday with a special Story Mondays ticket to SPYSCAPE HQ. Next Monday it's License to Parent by former CIA officer Christina Hillsberg, described by Working Mother as “If Mr. and Mrs. Smith had kids and wrote a parenting book, this is what you’d get: a practical guide for how to utilize key spy tactics to teach kids important life skills - from self-defense to effective communication to conflict resolution.” Don't miss your FREE copy when you experience SPYSCAPE HQ next Monday.
Robert and his brother Michael were aged six and 10 when their parents Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for conspiring to pass intelligence about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. The 1950s case still isn’t closed. Robert, a retired lawyer, is fighting to have his mother exonerated and there are unsettling questions about her death sentence. SPYSCAPE examines the nuclear fallout.
Gillian Blake was home with her young boys when a British Foreign Office official knocked on her door, poured himself a whiskey, and explained that her husband was a traitor working for the Soviets. George Blake was sentenced to 42 years but before the MI6 officer’s case could be heard, Blake escaped through a prison window and used a ladder made of rope and knitting needles to scale a wall. It was just the start of his extraordinary story.
