FILE 004 / REDACTED
Spies, moles, daring rescues, and the people who blew the whistle. Real intelligence history, pulled from the declassified files.
SUBMIT INTEL
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FORMER CIA OFFICER
The first public confirmation of CIA waterboarding came from him in 2007. He later served 30 months in prison for identifying a covert officer to a journalist. His full profile, timeline, books, and sources live on the home page.
RAND CORPORATION ANALYST
He leaked a secret Defense Department history of the Vietnam War to the press, showing the public had been misled about the war for years. The Supreme Court ruled newspapers could publish it.
He was charged under the Espionage Act, but in 1973 the judge dismissed the case over government misconduct, including a break-in at his psychiatrist’s office. He died in 2023.
SENIOR NSA OFFICIAL
He raised alarms inside the NSA about a wasteful surveillance program and privacy concerns, then spoke to a reporter. In 2010 he was charged under the Espionage Act.
In 2011 the felony charges were dropped. He pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor and got probation and community service.
NSA CONTRACTOR
He gave journalists a huge cache of classified documents showing the NSA was collecting Americans’ phone records in bulk, along with other surveillance programs. Congress ended that bulk phone program in 2015.
He was charged under the Espionage Act and has lived in Russia since 2013. Supporters call him a whistleblower; critics say his leaks went far beyond what was needed and harmed national security.
CIA COUNTERINTELLIGENCE OFFICER
While working inside the CIA, he secretly sold secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia for nearly nine years. His betrayal exposed CIA sources, and several of them were executed.
Arrested in 1994, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
OVER THE SOVIET UNION
A CIA U-2 spy plane flown by Powers was shot down deep inside the Soviet Union. The U.S. first claimed it was a weather plane, until the Soviets revealed they had the pilot alive.
In 1962 he was traded for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel on the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin, the story behind the film Bridge of Spies.
TEHRAN, IRAN
Six American diplomats escaped during the Iran hostage crisis and hid with Canadian officials. CIA officer Tony Mendez got them out by posing them as a Canadian film crew scouting a fake sci-fi movie.
All six made it home. The CIA’s role stayed secret until 1997 and later inspired the film Argo.
CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION
Senator Frank Church led an investigation that exposed CIA assassination plots, FBI spying on Americans, and illegal NSA surveillance.
It led to permanent intelligence committees in Congress and the 1978 law that created the secret FISA court for surveillance warrants.
Analyst’s note: whistleblower cases are still argued about. These summaries give the facts of each case and both sides where people disagree; the links go deeper.