# Double agent

In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organization for the target organization.
Double agentry may be practiced by spies of the target organization who infiltrate the controlling organization or may result from the turning (switching sides) of previously loyal agents of the controlling organization by the target. The threat of execution is the most common method of turning a captured agent (working for an intelligence service) into a double agent (working for a foreign intelligence service) or a double agent into a re-doubled agent. It is unlike a defector, who is not considered an agent as agents are in place to function for an intelligence service and defectors are not, but some consider that defectors in place are agents until they have defected.
Double agents are often used to transmit disinformation or to identify other agents as part of counter-espionage operations. They are often very trusted by the controlling organization since the target organization will give them true, but useless or even counterproductive, information to pass along.

## Double agents

Examples of known double agents and moles :
| Context | Agent / Code name | Nationality | Loyal to | Spying on | Comments |
| Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1639 – 1651 | Samuel Morland | English | Restoration | Commonwealth of England | |
| Wars of the Three Kingdoms 1639 – 1651 | Richard Willis | English | Commonwealth of England | Restoration | |
| World War I 1914 – 1918 | Mata Hari | Dutch | German Empire | French Third Republic | |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Mathilde Carré "La Chatte" | French | Double-Cross System | Double-Cross System | |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Roman Czerniawski "Brutus" | Polish | Double-Cross System | Double-Cross System | |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Eddie Chapman "ZigZag" | English | Double-Cross System | Double-Cross System | Infiltrated the German Abwehr during World War II whilst feeding intelligence to MI5. He was so trusted by the Germans that he is reportedly the only British citizen to have ever been awarded the Iron Cross. |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Walter Dicketts "Celery" | English | Double-Cross System (1940-1943) | Double-Cross System (1940-1943) | Ex-RNAS officer sent to Lisbon and Germany to infiltrate the Abwehr, report on invasion plans for Britain, and establish the bona fides of Snow (subsequently imprisoned until the end of war). Subjected to an intensive five-day interrogation in Hamburg and survived. Later sent back to Lisbon to persuade Abwehr officer, George Sessler, to defect and worked undercover in Brazil. |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Roger Grosjean "Fido" | French | Double-Cross System | Double-Cross System | French Air Force pilot who worked for the British |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Christiaan Lindemans "King Kong" | Dutch | Abwehr (1944) | SOE (1940-1944) Dutch resistance (1941-1944) | |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Arthur Owens "Snow" | Welsh | Double-Cross System | Double-Cross System | |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Johann-Nielsen Jebsen "Jonny" "Artist" | German | Abwehr (1939-1941) MI6 (1941-1945) | Abwehr (1941-1945) | Anti-Nazi German intelligence officer and British double agent. Jebsen recruited Dušan Popov. |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Ivan Popov "LaLa" "Aesculap" "Dreadnought" "Hans" | Serbian | VOA (1939-1945) Abwehr (1940-1944) MI6 (1941-1945) | Abwehr (1941-1945) | Worked for the Yugoslavian agency VOA, as well as the British MI6 and the German Abwehr. Held the rank of Obersturmbannführer in the Gestapo. Brother of Dušan Popov. |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Dušan Popov "Duško" "Tricycle" "Ivan" | Serbian | VOA (1939-1945) Abwehr (1940-1941) MI6 (1940-1945) | Abwehr (1941-1945) | Worked for the Yugoslavian agency VOA, as well as the British MI6 and the German Abwehr. Held the rank of colonel in the British Army. Brother of Ivan Popov. |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | John Herbert Neal Moe "Mutt and Jeff" | Norwegian | Double-Cross System | Double-Cross System | |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Tor Glad "Mutt and Jeff" | Norwegian | Double-Cross System | Double-Cross System | |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Juan Pujol García "Garbo" | Spanish | Double-Cross System | Double-Cross System | British double agent in German spy service; awarded both an MBE and an Iron Cross |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Johann Wenzel | German | Before 1942  Red Orchestra During 1942  Gestapo | Before 1942  Nazi Germany During 1942  Soviet Union | Member of Red Orchestra spy ring who, after being unmasked by the Gestapo in 1942, fed false information to the Soviet Union from August until his escape in November. Later joined the Belgian Resistance. |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | William Sebold "Tramp" | German U.S. citizen | FBI (1939) | Abwehr (1939) | Coerced by the Abwehr into becoming a spy, exposed the Duquesne Spy Ring to the FBI. |
| World War II 1939 – 1945 | Larissa Swirski "Queen of Hearts" | Russian Spanish | Abwehr MI6 (1943-1945) | Nazi Germany | Recruited by the Nazis in Ceuta; changed alliances after learning about the concentration camps. Role in preventing the Nazis from taking Gibraltar. |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Aldrich Ames | American | KGB | CIA (1957-1994) | |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | John Cairncross "Liszt" | Scottish | MGB Cambridge Five | MI5 (1941-1944) GC&CS (1942-1943) MI6 (1944-1945) | |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Anthony Blunt "Johnson" | English | NKVD Cambridge Five | MI5 | |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Guy Burgess "Hicks" | English | MGB Cambridge Five | MI5 (1939-1941) Foreign Office (1944-1956) | |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Donald Maclean "Homer" | English | MGB Cambridge Five | MI5 MI6 | |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Kim Philby "Stanley" | English Born in India | MGB Cambridge Five | MI6 | |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | George Blake | Dutch | KGB | MI6 | |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Oleg Gordievsky "Sunbeam" "Nocton" "Pimlico" "Ovation" | Russian | MI6 (1968-2008) | KGB (1963-1985) | Abducted in Moscow in 1985; escaped to the United Kingdom two months later. |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Sjam Kamaruzaman | Indonesia | Indonesia Communist Party | Indonesian Army | Head of the Indonesian Communist Party Special Bureau which was tasked to gathering information and intelligence and was the mastermind of 30th September Movement. |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Matei Pavel Haiducu | Romanian | DST (1981) | DIE (1975-1982) | Defected to France in 1981. |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Dmitri Polyakov | Ukrainian | FBI CIA | GRU | Executed in 1988. |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Robert Hanssen | American | GRU | FBI | Worked for the FBI and sold information to the Soviet Union as a mole. |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Oleg Penkovskiy "Hero" | Russian | CIA MI6 | GRU | A colonel with GRU informed the U.K. and the U.S. about the Soviet emplacement of missiles in Cuba; executed by the Soviets in 1963. |
| Cold War 1947 – 1991 | Stig Bergling | Swedish | GRU | SÄPO | Among other things, handed over the entire Swedish "FO-code", a top secret list of Sweden's defence establishments, coastal artillery fortifications and mobilization stores. Convicted in 1979 and sentenced to life imprisonment for treason. |
| Basque conflict 1959 – 2011 | Mikel Lejarza "El Lobo" | Basque | CESID | ETA | |
| Northern Ireland conflict 1968 – 1998 | Denis Donaldson | Northern Irish | MI5 PSNI | Provisional IRA Sinn Féin | Assassinated at his cottage in County Donegal after being exposed by a Northern Ireland newspaper, The Derry Journal. |
| Northern Ireland conflict 1968 – 1998 | "Kevin Fulton" | Northern Irish | Royal Irish Rangers Int Corps | Provisional IRA | |
| Northern Ireland conflict 1968 – 1998 | Freddie Scappaticci "Stakeknife" | Irish | FRU | Provisional IRA ISU | |
| Northern Ireland conflict 1968 – 1998 | Robert Nairac | English born in Mauritius | British Army | Provisional IRA | Murdered by the Provisional IRA in County Louth in 1977. |
| South African espionage in Zimbabwe and the Gukurahundi 1980 – 1987 | Matt Calloway | Zimbabwean | NIS | CIO | |
| South African espionage in Zimbabwe and the Gukurahundi 1980 – 1987 | Philip Conjwayo | Zimbabwean South African citizen | NIS | CIO | |
| South African espionage in Zimbabwe and the Gukurahundi 1980 – 1987 | Geoffrey Price | Zimbabwean | NIS | CIO | |
| South African espionage in Zimbabwe and the Gukurahundi 1980 – 1987 | Michael Smith | Zimbabwean South African citizen | NIS | CIO | |
| South African espionage in Zimbabwe and the Gukurahundi 1980 – 1987 | Kevin Woods | Zimbabwean South African citizen | NIS | CIO | |
| Global War on Terrorism 2001 – | Aimen Dean | United Kingdom (born Bahraini) | Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) | al-Qaeda | Dean's cover was reportedly blown by Ron Suskind who, using CIA sources who had received intelligence under the Five Eyes UKUSA Agreement, disclosed his identity with details that could only be sourced to Dean in an excerpt of The One Percent Doctrine for Time. |
| Global War on Terrorism 2001 – | "April Fool" | American | United States | Iraq | Allegedly, an American officer who provided false information to Saddam Hussein |
| Global War on Terrorism 2001 – | Iyman Faris | U.S. citizen | al-Qaeda | FBI | |

## Re-doubled agent

A re-doubled agent is an agent who gets caught as a double agent and is forced to mislead the foreign intelligence service. F.M. Begoum describes the re-doubled agent as "one whose duplicity in doubling for another service has been detected by his original sponsor and who has been persuaded to reverse his affections again".
* Vitaly Yurchenko

## Triple agent

A triple agent is a spy who pretends to be a double agent for one side while they are truthfully a double agent for the other side. Unlike a re-doubled agent, who changes allegiance due to being compromised, a triple agent usually has always been loyal to their original side. It may also refer to a spy who works for three opposing sides, such that each side thinks the spy works for them alone.
Notable triple agents include:
* Abdul Razak Hussein
* Ibrahim Ismail
* Humam Khalil
* Katrina Leung

## Events in which double agents played an important role

* Babington plot
* Battle of Lexington
* Battle of Normandy
* Camp Chapman attack
* Cold War
* Duquesne Spy Ring
* Gukurahundi
* Stormontgate
* Vietnam War
* War on Terrorism
* Yom Kippur War