Confessions of spy

Official Secrets: How a Real-Life Spy Tried to Stop the Iraq War

Former British intelligence officer Katharine Gun didn’t set out to become a whistle-blower. But, in 2003, when she came across an email suggesting that the United States and the U.K. governments were intending to blackmail members of the United Nations to authorize an invasion of Iraq, Gun—then just 28—felt morally obligated to leak the letter.

“At the time, I was really focused on the Iraq invasion issue,” Gun told Vanity Fair this month, ahead of the August 30 premiere of Official Secrets, an intelligence thriller recounting this terrifying chapter of her life and starring Keira Knightley. “I was very much aware of what the leaders of our countries, Tony Blair and George W. Bush, were saying at the time.… I had bought a couple of books which had been rushed into print at that point—one called War Plan Iraq and the other was called Target Iraq.… I was convinced that there was nothing Iraq had done [to warrant the invasion]. When I saw the red flag…it was like, Oh, my gosh, this is so explosive. They’re lying about what their motives are…that immediately made me think, I have got to get this out. If people knew about this, nobody would support this invasion.”

Confessions of spy

Russian spy who posed as a Canadian for more than 20 years

“A spy has to be an actor, but an actor that doesn’t need a public or a stage, and doesn’t require the approval of others,” says Elena Vavilova, as she sips a cappuccino in a Moscow cafe.

Vavilova acted the part of a Canadian woman named Tracy Foley, an identity stolen for her by the KGB, for two decades. Almost no one knew her real identity, not even her own children. She was an “illegal”, a deep-cover Russian operative sent to the west along with her husband Andrei Bezrukov, who used the name Donald Heathfield.

Vavilova and Bezrukov were arrested at their Boston home in 2010, part of a group of 10 Russian spies detained by the FBI, most of them illegals living in the US as ordinary Americans or Canadians. They were deported to Russia in a spy swap that included media favourite Anna Chapman and also involved four Russians accused of spying for the west travelling in the other direction, including Sergei Skripal, who was infamously poisoned in Salisbury last year...

Confessions of spy

Female spy spills MI6 secrets including details over agency’s ‘Q’

Thousands of listeners tuned in to hear the agent discuss what life is like for a real James Bond.

The agent given the name “Emma” has her vice distorted as she chatted to Radio 2 host Chris Evans on Tuesday morning.

“Emma” revealed similarities in her life to the 007 films - like calling her bosses by just one letter.

She said: “Our boss is the chief and we call him C.

“I’ll tell you something he writes in green ink - it’s only him - he’s the only one allowed to use green ink.

“I think Mansfield Cumming, our chief way back when, used green ink and the tradition stuck.

“Down in our stationery cupboard there aren’t any other green pens on offer.”

Confessions of spy

CIA ignored rise of ISIS since 2013, Syrian rebel ‘spy chief’ says

The Free Syrian Army’s spymaster, codenamed “M”, in an exclusive to Le Monde, told the newspaper he had been sending “very detailed reports” on Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), based on field data from his agents, to his CIA contacts for two years.

The intelligence gave critical insight into IS’ pivot to Iraq and Syria, and included GPS coordinates, maps, photographs, phone numbers and even IP addresses, "M" said.

“From the moment Daesh (an Arabic pejorative acronym for IS) had 20 members to when it had 20,000, we have shown everything to the Americans. When we asked them what they did with this information, they always gave evasive answers, saying it was in the hands of decision-makers.”