page_title: History of espionage
section_title: Counterespionage
hierarchical_section_title: History of espionage / 20th century / Second World War / Counterespionage
context_page_description: Spying, as well as other intelligence assessment, has existed since ancient times. In the 1980s scholars characterized foreign intelligence as "the missing dimension" of historical scholarship." Since then a large popular and scholarly literature has emerged. Special attention has been paid to World War II, as well as the Cold War era that was a favorite for novelists and film makers.
context_section_description: Informants were common in World War II. In November 1939, the German Hans Ferdinand Mayer sent what is called the Oslo Report to inform the British of German technology and projects in an effort to undermine the Nazi regime.  The Réseau AGIR was a French network developed after the fall of France that reported the start of construction of V-weapon installations in Occupied France to the British.
  The MI5 in Britain and the FBI in the U.S. identified all the German spies, and "turned" all but one into double agents so that their reports to Berlin were actually rewritten by counterespionage teams.  The FBI had the chief role in American counterespionage and rounded up all the German spies in June 1941. Counterespionage included the use of turned Double Cross agents to misinform Nazi Germany of impact points during the Blitz and internment of Japanese in the US against "Japan's wartime spy program".  Additional WWII espionage examples include Soviet spying on the US Manhattan project, the German Duquesne Spy Ring convicted in the US, and the Soviet Red Orchestra spying on Nazi Germany.
caption: Secrecy campaigns were designed to stop spreading negative rumors or true facts that might depress morale—foiling spies was not the goal.[90]
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