The Bizarre History Of Secret Agents | Unveiled

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The Bizarre Modern History of Secret Agents</h4>

When it comes to secret agents, we’ve all seen the movies, complete with self-destructing messages, memory wiping flashy things, and all kinds of high octane, edge-of-the-seat, death-defying espionage. But usually, once the thrill of the film has subsided, we’re left thinking; what’s it really like? What really happens if your job is so super-classified that, often, it doesn’t even officially exist?

This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer look at the bizarre modern history of secret agents.

For many, “secret agent” is something of a dream career move. We picture being taken out of the humdrum of our everyday lives and thrown, instead, into a Hollywood-style saga of danger and deceit. But is that kind of explosive expectation actually true to life? In this video, we’ll take a closer look at the history of secret agents, and focus especially on some of the most incredible stories ever to emerge out of this infamously murky world - including some of the most notorious tales of betrayal and double crossing you’ll ever see.

So, what better place to start than in the Cold War? A sustained period of global political tension between the years 1945 and 1991. It provided a nervy backdrop for so much of the twentieth century. Of course, there were moments when the Cold War was particularly felt - such as during the Space Race in the 1950s and ‘60s, or with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. But, in and around all the key dates, the Cold War era was an extremely fertile breeding ground for a range of important spies. American and Soviet intelligence agencies engaged in a relentless battle for supremacy, and the toing and froing gave rise to many heroes for both sides, but also many who turned their backs on their country - figures like Aldrich Ames and Kim Philby.

Aldrich Ames, a one-time high-ranking CIA officer, betrayed America by spying for the Soviet Union. Having been introduced, in the 1980s, as a double agent working for America against the USSR, he soon switched sides and was rewarded handsomely by the Soviets - to the tune of at least four-and-a-half million dollars. In return, Ames divulged all sorts of key details, including outing personnel who were secretly working for America - many of who were swiftly executed. In fact, it was a sudden rush in killings and disappearances of key individuals that led the US to thoroughly investigate the suspected presence of a mole on their side. And, ultimately, in 1994, Ames was arrested. It’s thought his actions compromised more than 100 spy initiatives, and he is currently serving life in prison.

Ames’ story is by no means a one-off, however. For example, on the other side of the Atlantic, and a couple decades earlier, there was one Kim Philby, a British MI6 officer turned Soviet informant. Philby was part of the infamous Cambridge Spy Ring - or the Cambridge Five - a group of British elites who again passed sensitive information to the Soviet Union. In general, the impact of this particular network fueled numerous conspiracy theories about the extent of Soviet influence within Western intelligence. The fact that Philby and others had apparently been working for the USSR since even before the Cold War, during the latter stages of World War Two, caused a wave of distrust against many of the UK and Europe’s high-ranking public figures.

Of course, this ability to sow seeds of doubt with the public is a running theme throughout the history of spying, but perhaps never more so than in today’s world. In the digital age, a new breed of secret agent has clearly emerged - the masters of cyber espionage. Here, agents operate in the shadows of the internet, manipulating code and infiltrating networks to gather intelligence. The us-and-them nature of traditional spying becomes muddied in this new reality, though, with the internet and, increasingly, artificial intelligence showing little concern for national borders. Today, national secrets can more simply be leaked to the rest of the world. The story of Edward Snowden and the instance of the WannaCry attack stand as testament to the new power of cyber warfare.

Snowden, a former NSA contractor, leaked thousands of classified documents in 2013, exposing the extent of global surveillance programs - most notably relating to the so-called Five Eyes Network, an intelligence alliance made up of the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Snowden's revelations ignited debates on privacy and government overreach, solidifying his place in history as a major digital-era whistleblower and disruptor. It would appear as though Snowden was officially working for no one, although he was apparently against the status quo of US politics and surveillance policy. Regardless, he ended up gaining citizenship in Russia, with his story coming to mirror so much of what has gone before in terms of geopolitical tension, high-profile betrayals, and the ongoing narrative of Russia vs America.

Four years after Snowden’s break from the US and world headlines were dominated by the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017, which locked down hundreds of thousands of computers across multiple countries and over many key institutions and companies - including police agencies, technology companies, communications networks, and national health services. The stories of Snowden and WannaCry are not linked - with the global hack reportedly traced to agents in North Korea - but WannaCry did prove to be another key moment in a new era of espionage. It showed just how interconnected the contemporary world had become. And, despite all the positives that that connectivity brings, it showed how potentially vulnerable key data is. Add into the mix that WannaCry was also developed out of EternalBlue - a hack program developed by the NSA in America - and the boundaries blur even more.

That’s not to say that your more “traditional” super spy doesn’t still exist. They do, although perhaps not exactly as they are in spy novels and films. Today, many of the most secretive missions (on behalf of America, at least) are carried out by special operations forces, like the Navy SEALs and Delta Force. One of the highest profile hits in recent times came via Operation Neptune Spear - through which SEAL Team Six caught and killed the founder of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden. The mission was carried out in collaboration with the CIA’s Special Activities Center, or SAC (then known as the Special Activities Division, or SAD), an arm of US national security that specializes in covert operations.

To take us full circle, the SAC is rooted back in World War Two and the early days of the Cold War. During World War Two, America had the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS. This was an intelligence agency formed to infiltrate behind enemy lines, such as by training covert operatives to place within the Nazi regime. As successful as it proved to be, the OSS was disbanded shortly after the War and shortly before the formation of the CIA,  a group that now - according to data leaked by Edward Snowden - ranks as the most well-funded of all America’s intelligence groups. 

In the modern world, then, spying is big business, and it’s only set to get bigger. With the continual advent of artificial intelligence, self-learning tools that are predicted to proliferate across all aspects of national security, many are forecasting an explosion of spy data available over the next few years. And, again as AI doesn’t really recognise national borders, that will likely be the same for all countries. Indeed, many commentators have expressed some doubt over whether America will be able to retain its status as the most powerful nation on Earth within this new age, with Russia and especially China thought to have accelerated way ahead in terms of AI research.

In many ways, gone are the days when secret agents were lone figures liaising with the enemy or conducting top secret missions. Now, as Snowden aimed to show and as events like WannaCry have already proven, global espionage plays out across a network. It’s the job of national security groups to navigate through that network, seemingly with the side’s best interests at heart. However, spying, surveillance and privacy are all very much hot topics for debate in modern times. And accusations of overreach, or of government conspiracy, are never too far away whenever mention of hidden operatives comes up.

In this video, we’ve focussed on contemporary spying between nations of Earth. But, of course, there’s a whole other angle we might’ve pursued, what with the mounting pressure regarding UAP. We’ll take a closer look at the real life Men in Black in a follow up video, so watch this space. But, for now, that’s the bizarre modern history of secret agents.