San Antonio College Library

"To gain the upper hand in conflict the ability to know what your enemy is planning is vital. Massive amounts of money have been spent and many lives have been lost in pursuit of this objective. From biblical times to the present day, leaders have employed espionage on and off the battlefield in the quest for victory. Tactics might differ, from dirty tricks and theft to interrogation and torture, but the aim is the same - to outmanoeuvre your enemy...

Almost from the moment in 1940 that Otto Frisch and Rudofl Peierls suggested, from their small office in the University of Birmingham, that an atomic weapon could be miniaturized and delivered to its target by aircraft, the concept of atomic espionage can be said to have existed. No sooner had the famous Frisch-Peierls Memorandum been received by the British War Cabinet than a Soviet mole, John Cairncross, passed the details on to his Soviet contact....