PEOPLE AND PLACES: SPIES, SPIES EVERYWHERE: A Chinese spy ship has been spotted off the coast of Hawaii during a giant U.S.-led naval exercise.

Anna Chapman posing with a gun

Spotlight: Anna Chapman has posed for steamy pictures in Russian Maxim

Seductive: Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd, played by Eva Green, was based on Krystyna Skarbek

Seductive: Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd, played by Eva Green, was based on Krystyna Skarbek

Coco Chanel the Nazi spy: New document reveals that fashion designer worked for Hitler's military intelligence

French documentary claims late fashion designer worked for the Nazis

Had relationship with senior Gestapo officers during Second World War

Code-named 'Westminster'- referring to her affair with Duke of Westminster

Exploited friendship with Winston Churchill to try and strike truce in 1943

Other French stars' relationships with the Nazis also called into question

Edith Piaf, Maurice Chevalier and Sacha Guitry all said to have had links

French researchers claim to have found indisputable evidence that Coco Chanel worked as a spy for the Nazis during the Second World War.

A written record made public for the first time in a documentary broadcast on French television last night is said to prove that the late fashion designer was a member of Abwehr - Adolf Hitler's secret military intelligence agency.

The documentary also raised questions about the role played by other French celebrities during the Second World War, including singers Edith Piaf and Maurice Chevalier and dramatist Sacha Guitry.

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Claim: A document made public for the first time in a documentary broadcast on French television last night is said to prove that Coco Chanel was a member of Abwehr - Adolf Hitler's secret military intelligence agency

The newly revealed document suggests that while working for the Nazis, Coco Chanel (pictured left and right) went by the codename 'Westminster' - a reference to her affair with the Duke of Westminster in the 1920s

L'Ombre d'un Doute [The Shadow of a Doubt], broadcast on the state-owned France 3 channel yesterday evening, countered the French government's official claim that almost every well-known figure from the time either joined the Resistance movement or simply boycotted the Nazis.

Although the claim has long been considered spurious by French historians, the issue of doubt has largely been ignored by mainstream French broadcasters.

Links: Coco Chanel is pictured with Winston Churchill's son Randolph at Ascot in the mid-1930s

According to the documentary, Chanel's involvement with the Nazis began around the time of the collapse of the French army in 1940. She returned to Paris shortly after and moved in to the Ritz Hotel, which was doubling as the Luftwaffe's French headquarters at the time.

She soon began an affair with a senior Gestapo officer by the name of Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage and became so closely acquainted with the Nazi upper echelons that she was sent to Madrid in 1943 where she exploited her past acquaintance with Winston Churchill to try and strike a truce with British officers stationed there.

Churchill allegedly ignored the offer, with historian Henry Gidel saying Chanel 'displayed incredible megalomania and naivety in imagining that she could change Churchill's mind.'

The newly revealed document suggests that while working for the Nazis, Chanel went by the codename 'Westminster' - a reference to her affair with the Duke of Westminster in the 1920s.

Her official Abwehr number was F-7124 according to official Nazi record - which has been secretly held in the French Ministry of Defence archives for the past seven decades.

The host of the documentary, historian ******* Ferrand, went on to claim that Chanel used her Nazi influence to try and reclaim the perfume business she sold to a Jewish family in 1924.

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The documentary claims Edith Piaf (pictured) accepted two invitations to perform at private Nazi functions

Ties: The documentary's claims that singer Maurice Chevalier (left) and dramatist Sacha Guitry (right) were linked to the Nazis largely centred on the idea that the stars' careers flourished in occupied France

Justine Picardie reveals the complexity of Chanel's relationships

Ferrand said the fashion designer had hoped that Nazi rules banning Jews owning businesses may lead to the company being confiscated and given back to her, but it later merged that the Wertheimer family had already sold their stake in Chanel perfume to a German businessman.

The documentary's claims that Piaf, Chevalier and Guitry were linked to the Nazis were less fleshed-out and largely centred on the idea that the stars' careers flourished in occupied France - with Piaf also accepting two invitations to perform at private Nazi functions.

The documentary claimed that officials in post-War France scrubbed the celebrities' records of Nazi links and invented ties to the Resistance movement in order to help rebuild the country's reputation.
AT LEAST 1,000 ex-Nazis were hired by the U.S. as spies during the Cold War... and the CIA even helped them move to America

Newly disclosed government records indicate the CIA and FBI ignored potential war crimes when they hired these ex-Nazis in the 1950s and 1960s

Turned Nazis performed a variety of spy tasks from training for a possible invasion of USSR to laying communication cables in East Germany

While death camp wardens and Gestapo officers were being tried at Nuremberg in the aftermath of World War II, the U.S. was putting other former Nazis on the payroll.

It has been revealed through recently disclosed government documents and interviews that at least 1,000 ex-Nazis were recruited by the American military, FBI and CIA to become Cold War spies and informants, the New York Times reports.

Not only did they hire former Third Reich members suspected of carrying out war crimes, they went so far as to help their spies immigrate to the U.S. and cover up their involvement in the war in an attempt to protect them from the U.S. Justice Department's own Nazi hunters.

And that estimate is considered conservative by the historians who were tasked by the government to declassify the war-crime records.

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Working for us: It has been revealed that at least 1,00 former Nazi police officials and collaborators were recruited by the FBI and CIA in the aftermath of World War II to become Cold War spies for the U.S. Above, Adolph Hitler greets SS officers at his birthday on April 20, 1937

'U.S. agencies directly or indirectly hired numerous ex-Nazi police officials and East European collaborators who were manifestly guilty of war crimes,' University of Florida historian Norman Goda told the Times. 'Information was readily available that these were compromised men.'

Records reveal that these spies and informants were recruited from every level of the fallen Nazi regime, from SS officers to Adolf Eichmann's own mentor and 'master race' proselytizer.

U.S. agencies directly or indirectly hired numerous ex-Nazi police officials and East European collaborators who were manifestly guilty of war crimes. Information was readily available that these were compromised men

Norman Goda, historian, University of Florida

In the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and CIA Chief Allen Dulles were in agreement that these former Nazis would be more helpful to the U.S. as Soviet spies than in prison.

In Maryland, Army officials trained Nazi officers for a possible invasion of Russia while in Connecticut an ex-Nazi guard was hired to study Soviet-bloc postage stamps for possible hidden messages.

In Virginia, a former top adviser to Hitler himself gave classified briefings on the Soviets while ex-SS officers living in East Germany lay surveillance cables and tracked train movements.

However, the records also showed that many of these former Nazis ended up not being effective spies, and some were even double agents.

One of the more senior Nazis recruited by the U.S. was Aleksandras Lileikis, who was connected to the mass murder of 60,000 Jews in a Lithuanian ghetto.

Nazi spies found on the coast of Maine in 1942

War criminal: The CIA knew of Aleksandras Lileikis' possible connection to the mass murder of Jews in Vilna, Lithuania, but they hired him anyway to become a spy in East Germany in 1952. Four years later they helped him move to the U.S. (his immigration picture on the right)

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Above, a view of the ghetto in Vilna, Lithuania where nearly 60,000 Jews stayed before their deportation to death camps

Lileikis also worked for the CIA after the war, and the agency even wrote in documents their knowledge of his war crimes.

They wrote that Lileikis worked 'under the control of the Gestapo during the war' and that he 'was possibly connected with the shooting of Jews in Vilna'.

Lileikis was hired to spy in East Germany in 1952, and the agency paid him $1,700 a year and eventually helped him immigrate to the U.S. four years later.

He lived here for forty years before he was discovered in 1994 living outside Boston, and prosecutors moved to put to deport him.

A CIA lawyer called the Justice Department telling them 'you can't file this case.' The CIA and Justice Department allegedly came to an agreement that Lileikis would not be put on trial if the agency turned over their evidence showing the former Nazi was turned into a U.S. spy.

Ultimately, they let Lileikis get deported before making public their embarrassing past of hiring ex-Nazis.

And even though they wrote about his involvement in the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto in internal memos, their official comment was that they were not aware of any war crimes.

'There is no evidence, that this Agency was aware of his wartime activities,' the CIA said in a 1995 statement.

Another senior Nazi turned-American-spy was Otto von Bolschwing, who was a mentor and top aide to Adolph Eichmann - one of the masterminds of the Holocaust.

It shouldn't have happened. He never should have been admitted to the United States. It wasn't consistent with out values as a country.

Gus von Bolschwing, son of ex-Nazi turned U.S. spy Otto von Bolschwing

Despite writing papers on how to terrorize Jews, the CIA hired Bolschwing as a spy in Europe and eventually moved his family to New York City in 1954 as 'a reward for his loyal postwar service and in view of the innocuousness of his [Nazi] party activities'.

But when Eichmann was captured living in Argentina in 1960, Bolschwing feared he too would be exposed and put on trial as a conspirator with the creator of the 'Final Solution'.

The CIA however reassured Bolschwing that they would protect him, and he did live freely in the U.S. for another 20 years before Nazi hunters tracked him down and moved to deport him from the country. Bolschwing agreed to give up his citizenship in 1981, and he died a few months later.

Bolschwing's son, 75-year-old Gus Von Bolschwiung, is critical of his father's post-war counter-intelligence career.

'They used him, and he used them,' Gus von Bolschwing told the Times. 'It shouldn’t have happened. He never should have been admitted to the United States. It wasn’t consistent with our values as a country'

None of these ex-Nazi spies are known to be alive today.

Eichmann's man: Otto von Bolschwing (left) was a mentor and top aide to Adolph Eichmann (right), one of the masterminds of the Holocaust. He was hired by the U.S. to spy in Europe in the aftermath of World War II. He lived in the U.S. for more than two decades before he was discovered by Nazi hunters and deported

It was one of Churchill’s most daring – and successful – plans of World War II. The creation of a secret spy network manned by ordinary men and women desperate to do their bit to beat the Nazis.

Now the daring exploits of these half-forgotten heroes of the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, are fully revealed in a new TV series, Secret War.

Take the amazing story of the Polish aristocrat Krystyna Skarbek. She joined the fight against Hitler when she was parachuted into France, where she employed her magnetic and flirtatious personality to persuade the Gestapo to release a team of fellow SOE agents they had captured.

Seductive: Casino Royale's Vesper Lynd, played by Eva Green, was based on Krystyna Skarbek

James Bond author Ian Fleming, who is thought to have been Krystyna’s lover, based Bond girl Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale and Tatiana Romanova in From Russia With Love on her. Tragically, after being awarded the OBE and George Medal for her exploits, Krystyna was stabbed to death in London by a spurned lover in 1952.

Equally fearless was Violette Szabo, whose story was featured in the classic film Carve Her Name With Pride. Violette was the daughter of an English father and a French mother, and married to a French Foreign Legion officer.

After her husband’s death at the battle of El Alamein, Violette was desperate to fight the Nazis. She completed her first mission in occupied France successfully, despite being arrested and talking her way out of trouble. She was not so lucky on her next mission, which coincided with D-Day. She ran into an SS Panzer Division while working with the French Resistance, and was wounded and captured in a shoot-out.

Tortured by the Gestapo in Paris, she gave nothing away and was executed at Ravensbruck concentration camp. She was 23. Her daughter Tania went to Buckingham Palace to collect her mother’s George Cross in 1946, aged just four.

Clever: Krystyna Skarbek used her 'flirtatious personality'

Bruno Gimpel is one of the Secret War's few survivors. 'I was only 17 in 1944, and was running around with a revolver and a sub-machine gun,’ he recalls proudly. ‘What boy wouldn’t have enjoyed that?’

Bruno’s war began in June 1940 when, as the 13-year-old youngest son of an Italian banker living in London, he heard Italy’s Fascist dictator, Mussolini, had joined Hitler’s war against Britain.

‘My father and elder brother were interned as enemy aliens, and my mother and I were put on a troop ship with other members of Britain’s Italian community, and swapped in neutral Lisbon for a ship carrying Italy’s British community.’

After the Allies invaded Italy in 1943, Bruno and his mother took to the hills, where the 16- year-old was contacted by an SOE mission parachuted in to make contact with Italian partisans fighting behind the German lines. ‘I was recruited because I could speak English and Italian,’ says Bruno, who had a ringside seat for some of the war’s fiercest fighting – including Operation Tombola, when an SAS unit of just 40 men stormed the German 51st Division HQ manned by over 300 soldiers.

Did Bruno ever think his life might end violently? ‘When you are young you don’t think about such things,’ he answers modestly.

After the war, Bruno became an accountant in Milan. He looks back on his days as a guerrilla fighter as the most fulfilling of his life. And the best memory of all? ‘Getting my own back on my two elder brothers who sat out the war in England. They’d always looked down on me as a bambino, but the war made me a man.’

A Chinese spy ship has been spotted off the coast of Hawaii during a giant U.S.-led naval exercise.

The vessels crashed the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) drill which involves 22 countries, 40 ships and more than 250,000 soldiers.

Despite the potential threat to U.S. security, Beijing's defence ministry said they had the right to send in the intelligence boats, even though four ships and 1,000 of their soldiers were already part of the operation.

U.S. Marine Corps have shown off a new amphibious vehicle in Hawaii (shown). The Ultra Heavy-lift Amphibious Connector (Uhac) can travel on land and sea.

Warfare: The Chinese vessels were spotted at the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) drill where the U.S. Navy was showing off one of its new amphibious vehicles (pictured)

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Presence: The Chinese naval destroyer Haikou (left) and frigate Yueyang were already involved in the drill

The Navy played down any intelligence risk associated with the vessels and noted that China also sent a similar ship to monitor the same exercise two years ago.

'We've taken all necessary precautions to protect our critical information,' said Captain Darryn James, chief spokesman of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. 'We expect this ship will remain outside of U.S. territorial seas and not operate in a manner that disrupts the ongoing Rim of the Pacific maritime exercise.'

In a statement, China's Defence Ministry, said its naval vessels had the right under international law to operate 'in waters outside of other country's territorial waters'.

'China respects the rights granted under international law to relevant littoral states, and hopes that relevant countries can respect the legal rights Chinese ships have,' it added.

U.S. officials hope China's participation in RIMPAC will help resolve tensions but analysts believe their presence may help Beijing strengthen its naval capability,

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Military might: The drill off the coast of Hawaii involves 22 nations, as well as 49 surface ships (including new U.S. machinery), and more than 200 aircraft

The U.S. also conducts surveillance operations in international waters and airspace and the Navy did not voice protest over the appearance of the vessel.

Still, James said he was unaware of any participant doing something similar since the RIMPAC drills began in 1971.

'To my knowledge, this is the first time a nation has ever sent a surveillance ship near Hawaii while also having invited ships participating in the RIMPAC exercise,' James said.

The Chinese ships participating in the drills are missile destroyer Haikou, missile frigate Yueyang, supply ship Qiandaohu and hospital ship Peace Ark.

Future of warfare: The US displayed a prototype of its new amphibious transport vehicle, the Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connecter (UHAC). It can drive onto the shore and scale objects up to three metres high on land

The exercises come at a time when tensions are high between Beijing and U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines over China's pressing of territorial claims in the South and East China Seas.

They also come after a dispute between China and Vietnam that led to one of the worst breakdowns in ties since they fought a brief war in 1979.

A Chinese spy ship has been spotted off the coast of Hawaii during a giant U.S.-led naval exercise.

The vessels crashed the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) drill which involves 22 countries, 40 ships and more than 250,000 soldiers.

Despite the potential threat to U.S. security, Beijing's defence ministry said they had the right to send in the intelligence boats, even though four ships and 1,000 of their soldiers were already part of the operation.

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Warfare: The Chinese vessels were spotted at the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) drill where the U.S. Navy was showing off one of its new amphibious vehicles (pictured)

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Future of warfare: The US displayed a prototype of its new amphibious transport vehicle, the Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connecter (UHAC). It can drive onto the shore and scale objects up to three metres high on land

The exercises come at a time when tensions are high between Beijing and U.S. allies such as Japan and the Philippines over China's pressing of territorial claims in the South and East China Seas.

They also come after a dispute between China and Vietnam that led to one of the worst breakdowns in ties since they fought a brief war in 1979.

During the drill, the U.S. Marines displayed a prototype of its new amphibious transport vehicle.

The Ultra Heavy-Lift Amphibious Connecter (UHAC) concept is designed to power across the water with a payload of nearly 200 tons at up to 20 knots (23 mph).

It is capable of driving up on to the shore and over the top of obstructions up to 10 ft (3 m) high

Russian spy chiefs ordered Anna Chapman to seduce whistleblower Edward Snowden, claims defector

Ex-KGB agent Boris Karpichkov makes claims over proposal background

Alleges that plan was launched for Chapman to keep Snowden in Moscow

This would be so the Russians could continue to question him, he claims

They apparently met just once - but Chapman proposed in tweet last year

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Ex-spy: Anna Chapman has become a celebrity in Russia since she was deported there four years ago

Former intelligence agent Anna Chapman was told by Russian spy chiefs to seduce Edward Snowden, a defector claimed today.

Ex-KGB agent Boris Karpichkov alleged that a plan was launched for Chapman, 32, to keep US whistleblower Snowden, 31, in Moscow - so the Russians could continue to question him.

The two were said to have met just once - but Chapman proposed in a tweet in July 2013.

Mr Karpichkov told journalist Nigel Nelson for the Sunday People: ‘If Snowden had accepted he would have a right to Russian citizenship. That would lock him in Russia. As a citizen he’d need permission to leave.’

Mr Karpichkov - who fled to Britain after 15 years as a KGB agent, but is still in contact with sources in Moscow - said Snowden became ‘concerned about what the consequences would be’ of being attached to Chapman.

Former Conservative MP Rupert Allason, better-known now as spy writer Nigel West, said that Chapman was ‘sophisticated enough to live with an American’.

Mr Allason told the Sunday People: ‘There aren’t many of those in the FSB (formerly the KGB). She would be prepared to use her obvious gifts.’

In September 2013, Chapman refused to answer questions about the proposal in a bizarre five-minute interview with NBC, and walked out after she was asked about the tweet. She has never publicly commented on it.

Chapman, the daughter of a senior KGB agent, was arrested in 2010 with nine others, accused of working for a spy ring for Russia's external intelligence agency.

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Edward Snowden is wanted in the US after leaking classified details of government surveillance programmes

Anna Chapman was arrested in 2010 with nine others, accused of working for a spy ring for Russia's external intelligence agency. She pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy and was deported back to Russia in 2010

She pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy and was deported back to Russia in July 2010 as part of a prisoner swap. She has since become a celebrity in Russia. She married British public schoolboy Alex Chapman in 2002 and the pair moved to London, but divorced in 2006. When unmasked as a Russian agent, she was stripped of her British passport.

Since returning to Moscow, Chapman - dubbed a 'femme fatale' - has carved out a lucrative career as a TV presenter, model and owner of a fashion brand.

Question: They were said to have met just once - but Chapman proposed to Snowden in a tweet in July 2013

In the spotlight: Since returning to Moscow, Chapman has carved out a lucrative career as a TV presenter, model and owner of a fashion brand

Snowden left his long-term girlfriend Lindsay Mills in Hawaii when he fled the US, and was granted asylum in Moscow in August 2013, after six weeks of waiting at the city's airport.

In the summer Snowden was reunited in Russia with Miss Mills, a pole-dancer. The pair were pictured together on a theatre date in Moscow. Snowden now has a three-year residency permit.

He is wanted in the US after leaking classified details of government surveillance programmes. His critics view him as a traitor, while supporters see him as a hero who spoke up for civil liberties.

Ten of the greatest: Espionage coups

From the Enigma cipher machine used during World War II to the Cambridge spies, The Enigma cipher machine was the basis of German secret communications during World War II. The chances of anyone who didn't know the settings being able to break it were infinitesimal, and so the Germans believed it to be impregnable. The code-breakers at Bletchley Park, a collection of Britain's most brilliant mathematicians and intellectuals, were aided in their task by a design flaw in the machine and errors by German operators. From 1940 they were decrypting German intelligence signals picked up by wireless intercept stations and producing a stream of material codenamed 'Ultra', which Churchill described as the secret weapon that won the war.

The Engima cipher machine was the basis of German secret communications during World War II but there was a design flaw in the machine and errors by German operators

2. GEORGE SCOVELL, 1812

Scovell was a forerunner of the code-breakers of the 20th century. A member of Wellington's staff during the Peninsular War with the French, Scovell was responsible for intercepting and decoding the enemy's communications, which then were made by enciphered dispatch. In spring 1811 the French, aware that their codes were being cracked, introduced something more sophisticated. Scovell cracked it in two days. At the end of 1811 they brought in the Great Paris Code. Scovell set to work, and by December 1812, when a letter to Napoleon was intercepted, he was able to decipher it and thus provide Wellington with information vital to his victory in June 1813. In later life he was knighted and became a general and Governor of the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.

Sir George Sovell was responsible for intercepting and decoding the enemy's communications during the Peninsula War with the French
3. THE CAMBRIDGE SPIES, 1934

Probably the ablest group of spies ever to work for a foreign intelligence service. They were recruited during the Thirties by Arnold Deutsch of the OGPU, predecessor of the KGB. First was Kim Philby, who later joined MI6. Philby recommended Donald Maclean of the Foreign Office and Guy Burgess of the BBC and later MI6. Burgess recommended Anthony Blunt, who worked for MI5; Blunt recommended John Cairncross of the Foreign Office. Between them these five provided their Soviet masters with a stream of information from the heart of the British government.

Anthony Blunt and four others formed the ablest group of spies ever to work for a foreign intelligence service
4. ELYESA BAZNA (CICERO), 1943

Elyesa Bazna (Cicero), valet to the British ambassador to Turkey during WWII, photographed documents and sold the film to the Germans - but they didn't make as much use of his material as they could have. After the war, when Bazna tried to spend his ill-gotten gains, he discovered the Germans had paid him in counterfeit money. He was played by James Mason in Five Fingers in 1952.

James Mason (right) played Elyesa Bazna (Cicero) in Five Fingers in 1952

5. APHRA BEHN, 1666

Aphra Behn was a writer whose wit and ability brought her to the attention of the court of Charles II. After the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1665, Behn was recruited to go as a political spy to Antwerp. She cultivated many contacts and sent a stream of reports back home, notably giving advance warning of a Dutch operation to sail up the Thames and burn the English ships. Unfortunately most of her information was disregarded and she was never paid. Having spent all her money in the King's service, she was thrown into a debtors' prison. On her release, disgusted with political service, she supported herself by writing and became one of the first English female professional writers.

Aphra Behn was recruited to go as a political spy to Antwerp in 1665 after the outbreak of the Second Anglo-Dutch War
6. KLAUS FUCHS, 1944

In 1949, to the shock of Western governments, the Soviet Union exploded a test atomic bomb - a coup for the Russians, but the beginning of a new, more dangerous, phase in the Cold War.

At about the same time, newly decrypted Soviet intelligence messages revealed that plans of the first US atomic bomb had been leaked late in WWII by a British scientist.

An investigation pointed to several possible traitors, and under questioning Klaus Fuchs, a physicist who had worked in the U.S. on the Manhattan Project, admitted he had given the Soviets all the information he had about the bomb. Fuchs, a German communist who had come to Britain before the war and had been given British nationality to work on top-secret projects, was one of several scientists to betray atomic secrets.

Physicist Klaus Fuchs (left) admitted he had given the Soviet Union all the information he had about the atomic bomb (right) which they exploded in 1944

Colonel Oleg Penkovsky provided MI6 with details about Soviet missiles in 1960
7. OLEG PENKOVSKY, 1962

Penkovsky was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) officer, who first approached the Americans in 1960, but was rejected by the CIA. MI6 believed he was genuine, and in their hands he provided details about Soviet missiles and guidance systems, which revealed that the Soviets weren't as advanced as the West had thought.

His information proved vital in defusing the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was betrayed, arrested in October 1962 and executed. His courier, British businessman Greville Wynne, was arrested and later released in a spy swap.
8. FRANCIS WALSINGHAM, 1586

I've never much liked Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's spymaster, but I admire the patience and tradecraft that brought about his great espionage coup. Elizabeth refused to condemn Mary Queen of Scots without evidence of a plot, so Walsingham sent an agent to Mary, posing as a Catholic friend, who suggested to her a secret system of communicating via messages stuffed in beer casks. She later used the system to give her consent to an invasion plot by Anthony Babington, with Spanish collusion. Babington was arrested and died under torture and Elizabeth agreed to Mary's execution.

Francis Walsingham (left) tricked Mary Queen of Scots (left, being executed) into giving her consent to an invasion plot against Elizabeth I

9. CROSS SYSTEM, 1941

The messages deciphered at Bletchley Park gave MI5 early warning of German spies being sent to Britain, with the result that most were easily picked up and imprisoned or executed. It occurred to MI5 that it would be more useful to persuade the captured spies, in return for their lives, to work for the British by double-crossing the Germans, and thus began the Double Cross system, by which a stream of disinformation was fed to the Nazis. By spring 1942, it was clear that MI5 controlled all the agents operating in Britain and that the Germans were being successfully deceived by their inaccurate reports. Double Cross agents fed false information on the location of V1 and V2 rocket landings, causing the programming to be altered, and played a vital part in misleading Hitler about the location of the D-Day landings.