114-632: Katyn may refer to: Katyn massacre , a mass execution of Polish generals, military commanders and intelligentsia in 1940 by Soviet organization NKVD Katyń (film) , a 2007 Polish film about the Katyń massacre directed by Andrzej Wajda Katyn (rural locality) , a selo in Smolensk Oblast, Russia, and the site of the Katyn massacre Katyń Memorial (Jersey City) , Jersey City, New Jersey, dedicated to
228-634: A combination of the two." However, espionage and intelligence can be linked. According to the MI5 website, "foreign intelligence officers acting in the UK under diplomatic cover may enjoy immunity from prosecution. Such persons can only be tried for spying (or, indeed, any criminal offence) if diplomatic immunity is waived beforehand. Those officers operating without diplomatic cover have no such immunity from prosecution". There are also laws surrounding government and organisational intelligence and surveillance. Generally,
342-661: A disguised spy and a disguised escaper. It is permissible for these groups to wear enemy uniforms or civilian clothes in order to facilitate their escape back to friendly lines so long as they do not attack enemy forces, collect military intelligence, or engage in similar military operations while so disguised. Soldiers who are wearing enemy uniforms or civilian clothes simply for the sake of warmth along with other purposes rather than engaging in espionage or similar military operations while so attired are also excluded from being treated as unlawful combatants. Saboteurs are treated as spies as they too wear disguises behind enemy lines for
456-563: A disillusioned Jeffery later attributed to the actions of Kim Philby and other high-ranking Communist agents entrenched in the British government. Jeffery tried to inform the British government about the Katyn massacre but was as a result released from the Army. Intelligence agent Espionage , spying , or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information ( intelligence ). A person who commits espionage
570-631: A dozen mostly American and British journalists, accompanied by Kathleen Harriman , the daughter of the new American Ambassador W. Averell Harriman , and John F. Melby , third secretary at the American embassy in Moscow, to Katyn. Some regarded the inclusion of Melby and Harriman as a Soviet attempt to lend official weight to their propaganda. Melby's report noted the deficiencies in the Soviet case: problematic witnesses; attempts to discourage questioning of
684-671: A drastic news item to the German press. I gave instructions to make the widest possible use of the propaganda material. We shall be able to live on it for a couple of weeks." When Goebbels was informed in September 1943 that the German Army had to withdraw from the Katyn area, he wrote a prediction in his diary. His entry for 29 September 1943 reads: "Unfortunately, we have had to give up Katyn. The Bolsheviks undoubtedly will soon 'find' that we shot 12,000 Polish officers. That episode
798-500: A predestined conclusion. It was headed by Nikolai Burdenko , the president of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences , hence the commission is often known as the "Burdenko Commission", who was appointed by Moscow to investigate the incident. Its members included prominent Soviet figures such as the writer Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy , but no foreign personnel were allowed to join the commission. The Burdenko Commission exhumed
912-674: A prison sentence until his death in 2023. Espionage laws are also used to prosecute non-spies. In the United States, the Espionage Act of 1917 was used against socialist politician Eugene V. Debs (at that time the Act had much stricter guidelines and amongst other things banned speech against military recruiting). The law was later used to suppress publication of periodicals, for example of Father Coughlin in World War II . In
1026-483: A prisoner of war. This provision does not apply to citizens who committed treason against their own country or co-belligerents of that country and may be captured and prosecuted at any place or any time regardless whether he rejoined the military to which he belongs or not or during or after the war. The ones that are excluded from being treated as spies while behind enemy lines are escaping prisoners of war and downed airmen as international law distinguishes between
1140-549: A theory of espionage foreshadowing modern police-state methods. During the American Revolution , Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold achieved their fame as spies, and there was considerable use of spies on both sides during the American Civil War . Though not a spy himself, George Washington was America's first spymaster, utilizing espionage tactics against the British. In the 20th century, at
1254-529: A time when the Poles' importance to the Allies, significant in the first years of the war, was beginning to fade. In retrospective review of records, both British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt were increasingly torn between their commitments to their Polish ally and the demands by Stalin and his diplomats. On 24 April 1943, the British government successfully pressured
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#17327649041891368-624: A wedge between Poland, the Western Allies, and the Soviet Union, and reinforcement for the Nazi propaganda line about the horrors of Bolshevism, and American and British subservience to it. After extensive preparation, on 13 April, Reichssender Berlin broadcast to the world that German military forces in the Katyn forest near Smolensk had uncovered "a ditch…28 metres long and 16 metres wide [92 ft by 52 ft], in which
1482-440: Is also employed for an individual who is not an illegal agent, but is an ordinary citizen who is "relocated", for example, a "protected witness". Nevertheless, such a non-agent very likely will also have a case officer who will act as a controller. As in most, if not all synthetic identity schemes, for whatever purpose (illegal or legal), the assistance of a controller is required. Spies may also be used to spread disinformation in
1596-410: Is always directed at the most secret operations of a target country. National and terrorist organizations and other groups are also targeted. This is because governments want to retrieve information that they can use to be proactive in protecting their nation from potential terrorist attacks. Communications both are necessary to espionage and clandestine operations , and also a great vulnerability when
1710-420: Is called an espionage agent or spy . Any individual or spy ring (a cooperating group of spies), in the service of a government , company , criminal organization , or independent operation, can commit espionage. The practice is clandestine , as it is by definition unwelcome. In some circumstances, it may be a legal tool of law enforcement and in others, it may be illegal and punishable by law. Espionage
1824-443: Is considered espionage. Many HUMINT activities, such as prisoner interrogation , reports from military reconnaissance patrols and from diplomats, etc., are not considered espionage. Espionage is the disclosure of sensitive information (classified) to people who are not cleared for that information or access to that sensitive information. Unlike other forms of intelligence collection disciplines , espionage usually involves accessing
1938-548: Is considered permissible as many nations recognize the inevitability of opposing sides seeking intelligence each about the dispositions of the other. To make the mission easier and successful, combatants wear disguises to conceal their true identity from the enemy while penetrating enemy lines for intelligence gathering. However, if they are caught behind enemy lines in disguises, they are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status and subject to prosecution and punishment—including execution . The Hague Convention of 1907 addresses
2052-597: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre was a series of mass executions of nearly 22,000 Polish military and police officers , border guards , and intelligentsia prisoners of war carried out by the Soviet Union , specifically the NKVD (the Soviet secret police), at Stalin 's order in April and May 1940. Though
2166-546: Is estimated at 22,000, with a lower limit of confirmed dead of 21,768. According to Soviet documents declassified in 1990, 21,857 Polish internees and prisoners were executed after 3 April 1940: 14,552 prisoners of war (most or all of them from the three camps) and 7,305 prisoners in western parts of the Byelorussian and Ukrainian SSRs. Of them 4,421 were from Kozelsk, 3,820 from Starobelsk, 6,311 from Ostashkov, and 7,305 from Byelorussian and Ukrainian prisons. The head of
2280-399: Is more common usage. A case officer or Special Agent , who may have diplomatic status (i.e., official cover or non-official cover ), supports and directs the human collector. Cut-outs are couriers who do not know the agent or case officer but transfer messages. A safe house is a refuge for spies. Spies often seek to obtain secret information from another source. In larger networks,
2394-405: Is often part of an institutional effort by a government or commercial concern. However, the term tends to be associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies for military purposes. Spying involving corporations is known as industrial espionage . One way to gather data and information about a targeted organization is by infiltrating its ranks. Spies can then return information such as
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#17327649041892508-536: Is one that is going to cause us quite a little trouble in the future. The Soviets are undoubtedly going to make it their business to discover as many mass-graves as possible and then blame it on us." The Polish government-in-exile led by Sikorski insisted on bringing the matter to the negotiation table with the Soviets and on opening an investigation by the International Red Cross . On 17 April 1943
2622-534: Is the person who does the spying. They may be a citizen of a country recruited by that country to spy on another; a citizen of a country recruited by that country to carry out false flag assignments disrupting his own country; a citizen of one country who is recruited by a second country to spy on or work against his own country or a third country, and more. In popular usage, this term is sometimes confused with an intelligence officer , intelligence operative , or case officer who recruits and handles agents. Among
2736-696: Is very much distinct from espionage, and is not illegal in the UK, providing that the organisations of individuals are registered, often with the ICO, and are acting within the restrictions of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). 'Intelligence' is considered legally as "information of all sorts gathered by a government or organisation to guide its decisions. It includes information that may be both public and private, obtained from much different public or secret sources. It could consist entirely of information from either publicly available or secret sources, or be
2850-620: The American Zone of occupied Germany . The U.S. codification of enemy spies is Article 106 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice . This provides a mandatory death sentence if a person captured in the act is proven to be "lurking as a spy or acting as a spy in or about any place, vessel, or aircraft, within the control or jurisdiction of any of the armed forces, or in or about any shipyard, any manufacturing or industrial plant, or any other place or institution engaged in work in aid of
2964-975: The Bible , and the Amarna letters . Espionage was also prevalent in the Greco-Roman world , when spies employed illiterate subjects in civil services . The thesis that espionage and intelligence has a central role in war as well as peace was first advanced in The Art of War and in the Arthashastra . In the Middle Ages European states excelled at what has later been termed counter- subversion when Catholic inquisitions were staged to annihilate heresy . Inquisitions were marked by centrally organised mass interrogations and detailed record keeping. Western espionage changed fundamentally during
3078-585: The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), roughly 320,000 Polish citizens were deported to the Soviet Union (this figure is questioned by other historians, who hold to older estimates of about 700,000–1,000,000). IPN estimates the number of Polish citizens who died under Soviet rule during World War II at 150,000 (a revision of older estimates of up to 500,000). Of the group of 12,000 Poles sent to Dalstroy camp (near Kolyma ) in 1940–1941, mostly POWs, only 583 men survived; they were released in 1942 to join
3192-776: The Office of Strategic Services was founded by Gen. William J. Donovan . However, the British system was the keystone of Allied intelligence. Numerous resistance groups such as the Austrian Maier -Messner Group, the French Resistance , the Witte Brigade , Milorg and the Polish Home Army worked against Nazi Germany and provided the Allied secret services with information that was very important for
3306-690: The Polish Armed Forces in the East . According to Tadeusz Piotrowski , "during the war and after 1944, 570,387 Polish citizens had been subjected to some form of Soviet political repression ". As early as 19 September, the head of the NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria , ordered the secret police to create the Main Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees to manage Polish prisoners. The NKVD took custody of Polish prisoners from
3420-674: The Uniform Code of Military Justice . The United States, like most nations, conducts espionage against other nations, under the control of the National Clandestine Service . Britain's espionage activities are controlled by the Secret Intelligence Service . Source: A spy is a person employed to seek out top secret information from a source. Within the United States Intelligence Community , " asset "
3534-659: The Vietnam War . Some Islamic countries, including Libya , Iran and Syria , have highly developed operations as well. SAVAK , the secret police of the Pahlavi dynasty , was particularly feared by Iranian dissidents before the 1979 Iranian Revolution . Today, spy agencies target the illegal drug trade and terrorists as well as state actors. Intelligence services value certain intelligence collection techniques over others. The former Soviet Union, for example, preferred human sources over research in open sources , while
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3648-441: The death penalty . Venice became obsessed with espionage because successful international trade demanded that the city-state could protect its trade secrets . Under Queen Elizabeth I of England ( r. 1558–1603 ), Francis Walsingham ( c. 1532–1590) was appointed foreign secretary and intelligence chief. The novelist and journalist Daniel Defoe (died 1731) not only spied for the British government, but also developed
3762-727: The invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany began. Consequently, Britain and France, fulfilling the Anglo-Polish and Franco-Polish treaties of alliance , declared war on Germany. Despite these declarations of war, the two nations undertook minimal military activity during what became known as the Phoney War . The Soviet invasion of Poland began on 17 September, in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact . The Red Army advanced quickly and met little resistance, as Polish forces facing them were under orders not to engage
3876-615: The prosecutors general of the Soviet Union (1990–1991) and the Russian Federation (1991–2004) confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres, but refused to classify this action as a war crime or as an act of mass murder. The investigation was closed on the grounds that the perpetrators were dead, and since the Russian government would not classify the dead as victims of the Great Purge , formal posthumous rehabilitation
3990-565: The 1947 National Security Act created the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to coordinate intelligence and the National Security Agency for research into codes and electronic communication. In addition to these, the United States has 13 other intelligence gathering agencies; most of the U.S. expenditures for intelligence gathering are budgeted to various Defense Dept. agencies and their programs. Under
4104-583: The Czech František Hájek , with their countries becoming satellite states of the Soviet Union, were forced to recant their evidence, defending the Soviets and blaming the Germans. The Croatian pathologist Eduard Miloslavić managed to escape to the US. The only civilian invited as a witness was Frank Stroobant, a British citizen deported from Guernsey and camp senior of Ilag VII. The Katyn massacre
4218-627: The German charges. They claimed the Polish prisoners of war had been engaged in construction work west of Smolensk, and consequently were captured and executed by invading German units in August 1941. The Soviet response on 15 April to the initial German broadcast of 13 April, prepared by the Soviet Information Bureau , stated "Polish prisoners-of-war who in 1941 were engaged in construction work west of Smolensk and who...fell into
4332-682: The German-Fascist invaders set up another commission, the Special Commission for Determination and Investigation of the Shooting of Polish Prisoners of War by German-Fascist Invaders in Katyn Forest [ pl ] (Специальная комиссия по установлению и расследованию обстоятельств расстрела немецко-фашистскими захватчиками в Катынском лесу (близ Смоленска) военнопленных польских офицеров). The commission's name implied
4446-412: The Germans; in turn, the Soviets received 13,575 Polish prisoners from the Germans. Soviet repressions of Polish citizens occurred as well over this period. Since Poland's conscription system required every nonexempt university graduate to become a military reserve officer, the NKVD was able to round up a significant portion of the Polish educated class as prisoners of war. According to estimates by
4560-669: The Hague Convention of 1907, these Germans were classified as spies and tried by a military tribunal in Washington D.C. On August 3, 1942, all eight were found guilty and sentenced to death. Five days later, six were executed by electric chair at the District of Columbia jail. Two who had given evidence against the others had their sentences reduced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to prison terms. In 1948, they were released by President Harry S. Truman and deported to
4674-532: The Katyn affair gives little further insight. In his memoirs, he refers to the 1944 Soviet inquiry into the massacre, which found the Germans responsible, and adds, "belief seems an act of faith." At the beginning of 1944, Ron Jeffery , an agent of British and Polish intelligence in occupied Poland, eluded the Abwehr and travelled to London with a report from Poland to the British government. His efforts were at first highly regarded, but subsequently ignored, which
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4788-473: The Merkulov-Kruglov report, and Burdenko was likely aware of the cover-up. He reportedly admitted something like that to friends and family shortly before his death in 1946. The Burdenko Commission's conclusions would be consistently cited by Soviet sources until the official admission of guilt by the Soviet government on 13 April 1990. In January 1944, the Soviets also invited a group of more than
4902-659: The NKVD Administration for Affairs of Prisoners of War and Internees , Pyotr Soprunenko [ ru ] , a Major-General born near Kiev in the Ukrainian SSR was involved in "selections" of Polish officers to be executed at Katyn and elsewhere. Soprunenko was an NKVD captain in early 1940 and headed the organization, also called the Directorate for Prisoners of War Affairs & Internees, from September 1939 to February 1943. In this capacity, he
5016-624: The NKVD executed almost half the Polish officer corps. Altogether, during the massacre, the NKVD executed 14 Polish generals: Leon Billewicz (ret.), Bronisław Bohatyrewicz (ret.), Xawery Czernicki (admiral), Stanisław Haller (ret.), Aleksander Kowalewski [ pl ] , Henryk Minkiewicz (ret.), Kazimierz Orlik-Łukoski , Konstanty Plisowski (ret.), Rudolf Prich (killed in Lviv ), Franciszek Sikorski (ret.), Leonard Skierski (ret.), Piotr Skuratowicz , Mieczysław Smorawiński , and Alojzy Wir-Konas (promoted posthumously). Not all of
5130-615: The NKVD had about 40,000 Polish POWs: 8,000–8,500 officers and warrant officers, 6,000–6,500 officers of police, and 25,000 soldiers and non-commissioned officers who were still being held as POWs. In December, a wave of arrests resulted in the imprisonment of additional Polish officers. Ivan Serov reported to Lavrentiy Beria on 3 December that "in all, 1,057 former officers of the Polish Army had been arrested". The 25,000 soldiers and non-commissioned officers were assigned to forced labor (road construction, heavy metallurgy). Once at
5244-477: The Poles had proof the Soviets were responsible for the massacre. Churchill reportedly stated "The Bolsheviks can be very cruel." According to Raczyński "[Churchill... without committing himself, showed by his manner that he had no doubt of it." In 1947, the Polish Government in exile 1944–1946 report on Katyn was transmitted to Telford Taylor . The Soviet government immediately denied
5358-498: The Poles to withdraw the request for a Red Cross investigation, and Churchill assured Stalin: "We shall certainly oppose vigorously any 'investigation' by the International Red Cross or any other body in any territory under German authority. Such an investigation would be a fraud and its conclusions reached by terrorism." Unofficial or classified UK documents concluded Soviet guilt was a "near certainty", but
5472-475: The Polish government issued a statement on this issue, asking for a Red Cross investigation, which was rejected by Stalin, who used the fact that Germans also requested such an investigation as a "proof" of Polish-German conspiracy, and which led to a deterioration of Polish-Soviet relations. According to the Polish diplomat Edward Bernard Raczyński , Raczyński and General Sikorski met privately with Churchill and Alexander Cadogan on 15 April 1943, and told them
5586-579: The Red Army had recaptured Smolensk , around September–October 1943, NKVD forces began a cover-up operation. They destroyed a cemetery the Germans had permitted the Polish Red Cross to build and removed other evidence. Witnesses were "interviewed" and threatened with arrest for collaborating with the Nazis if their testimonies disagreed with the official line. As none of the documents found on
5700-609: The Red Army, and proceeded to organise a network of reception centres and transit camps, and to arrange rail transport to prisoner-of-war camps in the western USSR. The largest camps were at Kozelsk ( Optina Monastery ), Ostashkov ( Stolobny Island on Lake Seliger near Ostashkov), and Starobilsk . Other camps were at Jukhnovo (rail station Babynino ), Yuzhe (Talitsy), rail station Tyotkino (90 kilometres (56 mi) from Putyvl ), Kozelshchyna , Oranki, Vologda (rail station Zaonikeevo ), and Gryazovets . Kozelsk and Starobelsk were used mainly for military officers, while Ostashkov
5814-572: The Red Cross . After the Vistula–Oder offensive where the mass graves fell into Soviet control, the Soviet Union claimed the Nazis had killed the victims, and it continued to deny responsibility for the massacres until 1990, when it officially acknowledged and condemned the killings by the NKVD, as well as the subsequent cover-up by the Soviet government . An investigation conducted by the office of
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#17327649041895928-656: The Renaissance when Italian city-states installed resident ambassadors in capital cities to collect intelligence. Renaissance Venice became so obsessed with espionage that the Council of Ten , which was nominally responsible for security , did not even allow the doge to consult government archives freely. In 1481 the Council of Ten barred all Venetian government officials from making contact with ambassadors or foreigners. Those revealing official secrets could face
6042-808: The Soviet Union for the CIA, was shot down and captured. During the Cold War, many Soviet intelligence officials defected to the West, including Gen. Walter Krivitsky , Victor Kravchenko , Vladimir Petrov , Peter Deriabin, Pawel Monat and Oleg Penkovsky of the GRU . Among Western officials who defected to the Soviet Union are Guy Burgess and Donald D. Maclean of Great Britain in 1951, Otto John of West Germany in 1954, William H. Martin and Bernon F. Mitchell , U.S. cryptographers, in 1960, and Harold (Kim) Philby of Great Britain in 1962. U.S. acknowledgment of its U-2 flights and
6156-402: The Soviet version. Later, Churchill sent a copy of the report to Roosevelt on 13 August 1943. The report deconstructed the Soviet account of the massacre and alluded to the political consequences within a strongly moral framework but recognized there was no viable alternative to the existing policy. No comment by Roosevelt on the O'Malley report has been found. Churchill's own post-war account of
6270-414: The Soviets were behind the massacre they even included some Allied prisoners of war, among them writer Ferdynand Goetel , a Polish Home Army prisoner from Pawiak . After the war, Goetel escaped with a fake passport due to an arrest warrant issued against him. Jan Emil Skiwski was a collaborator. Józef Mackiewicz has published several texts about the crime. Two of the 12, the Bulgarian Marko Markov and
6384-505: The Soviets. About 250,000 to 454,700 Polish soldiers and policemen were captured and interned by the Soviet authorities. Most were freed or escaped quickly, but 125,000 were imprisoned in camps run by the NKVD . Of these, 42,400 soldiers, mostly of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity serving in the Polish Army, who lived in the territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union , were released in October. The 43,000 soldiers born in western Poland, then under Nazi control, were transferred to
6498-442: The United States and some other jurisdictions can only occur if they take up arms or aids the enemy against their own country during wartime), or even executed, as the Rosenbergs were. For example, when Aldrich Ames handed a stack of dossiers of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents in the Eastern Bloc to his KGB-officer "handler", the KGB "rolled up" several networks, and at least ten people were secretly shot. When Ames
6612-437: The United States has tended to emphasize technological methods such as SIGINT and IMINT . In the Soviet Union, both political ( KGB ) and military intelligence ( GRU ) officers were judged by the number of agents they recruited. Espionage agents are usually trained experts in a targeted field so they can differentiate mundane information from targets of value to their own organizational development. Correct identification of
6726-421: The adversary has sophisticated SIGINT detection and interception capability. Spies rely on COVCOM or covert communication through technically advanced spy devices. Agents must also transfer money securely. Reportedly Canada is losing $ 12 billion and German companies are estimated to be losing about €50 billion ($ 87 billion) and 30,000 jobs to industrial espionage every year. In espionage jargon, an "agent"
6840-466: The alliance with the Soviets was deemed to be more important than moral issues; thus the official version supported the Soviets, up to censoring any contradictory accounts. Churchill asked Owen O'Malley to investigate the issue, but in a note to the Foreign Secretary he noted: "All this is merely to ascertain the facts, because we should none of us ever speak a word about it." O'Malley pointed out several inconsistencies and near impossibilities in
6954-523: The bodies of 3,000 Polish officers were piled up in 12 layers". The broadcast went on to charge the Soviets with carrying out the massacre in 1940. The Germans brought in a European Red Cross committee called the Katyn Commission , comprising 12 forensic experts and their staff, from occupied Belgium , Bulgaria , Croatia , Denmark , Finland , Vichy France , Hungary , Italy , the occupied Netherlands , Romania , Switzerland , and occupied Bohemia and Moravia . The Germans were so intent on proving
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#17327649041897068-441: The bodies, rejected the 1943 German findings the Poles were shot by the Soviet army, assigned the guilt to the Nazis, and concluded all the shootings were done by German occupation forces in late 1941. It is uncertain how many members of the commission were misled by the falsified reports and evidence, and how many actually suspected the truth. Cienciala and Materski note the commission had no choice but to issue findings in line with
7182-502: The body involved should be issued with some form of warrant or permission from the government and should be enacting their procedures in the interest of protecting national security or the safety of public citizens. Those carrying out intelligence missions should act within not only RIPA but also the Data Protection Act and Human Rights Act. However, there are spy equipment laws and legal requirements around intelligence methods that vary for each form of intelligence enacted. In war, espionage
7296-424: The camps, from October 1939 to February 1940, the Poles were subjected to lengthy interrogations and constant political pressure by NKVD officers, such as Vasily Zarubin . The prisoners assumed they would be released soon, but the interviews were in effect a selection process to determine who would live and who would die. According to NKVD reports, if a prisoner could not be induced to adopt a pro-Soviet attitude, he
7410-493: The dead had dates later than April 1940, the Soviet secret police planted false evidence to place the apparent time of the massacre in mid-1941, when the German military had controlled the area. NKVD operatives Vsevolod Merkulov and Sergei Kruglov issued a preliminary report, dated 10–11 January 1944, that concluded the Polish officers were shot by German soldiers. In January 1944, the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission for ascertaining and investigating crimes perpetrated by
7524-639: The early 21st century, the act was used to prosecute whistleblowers such as Thomas Andrews Drake , John Kiriakou , and Edward Snowden , as well as officials who communicated with journalists for innocuous reasons, such as Stephen Jin-Woo Kim . As of 2012 , India and Pakistan were holding several hundred prisoners of each other's country for minor violations like trespass or visa overstay, often with accusations of espionage attached. Some of these include cases where Pakistan and India both deny citizenship to these people, leaving them stateless . The BBC reported in 2012 on one such case, that of Mohammed Idrees, who
7638-457: The exchange of Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel in 1962 implied the legitimacy of some espionage as an arm of foreign policy. China has a very cost-effective intelligence program that is especially effective in monitoring neighboring countries such as Mongolia , Russia and India . Smaller countries can also mount effective and focused espionage efforts. For instance, the Vietnamese communists had consistently superior intelligence during
7752-432: The executed were ethnic Poles, because the Second Polish Republic was a multiethnic state, and its officer corps included Belarusians, Ukrainians, and Jews. It is estimated about 8% of the Katyn massacre victims were Polish Jews . 395 prisoners were spared from the slaughter, among them Stanisław Swianiewicz and Józef Czapski . They were taken to the Yukhnov camp or Pavlishtchev Bor and then to Gryazovets. Up to 99% of
7866-470: The executioners had difficulty killing so many people in one night. The following transports held no more than 250 people. The executions were usually performed with German-made .25 ACP Walther Model 2 pistols supplied by Moscow, but Soviet-made 7.62×38mmR Nagant M1895 revolvers were also used. The executioners used German weapons rather than the standard Soviet revolvers, as the latter were said to offer too much recoil, which made shooting painful after
7980-437: The fate of the Polish prisoners was raised soon after Operation Barbarossa began in June 1941. The Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet government signed the Sikorski–Mayski agreement , which announced the willingness of both to fight together against Nazi Germany and for a Polish army to be formed on Soviet territory. The Polish general Władysław Anders began organizing this army, and soon he requested information about
8094-416: The first dozen executions. Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin , chief executioner for the NKVD, is reported to have personally shot and killed 7,000 of the condemned, some as young as 18, from the Ostashkov camp at Kalinin prison, over 28 days in April 1940. After the condemned individual's personal information was checked and approved, he was handcuffed and led to a cell insulated with stacks of sandbags along
8208-464: The graves were in the forest of Goat Hill near Katyn. He passed the reports to his superiors (sources vary on when exactly the Germans became aware of the graves – from "late 1942" to January–February 1943, and when the German top decision makers in Berlin received those reports [as early as 1 March or as late as 4 April]). Joseph Goebbels saw this discovery as an excellent tool to drive
8322-598: The hallmarks of a genocide . The order to execute captive members of the Polish officer corps was secretly issued by the Soviet Politburo led by Joseph Stalin . Of the total killed, about 8,000 were officers imprisoned during the 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland , another 6,000 were police officers, and the remaining 8,000 were Polish intelligentsia the Soviets deemed to be " intelligence agents and gendarmes , spies and saboteurs, former landowners, factory owners and officials". The Polish Army officer class
8436-476: The hands of the German-Fascist hangmen". In response to Polish demands, Stalin accused the Polish government of collaborating with Nazi Germany and broke off diplomatic relations with it. The Soviet Union also started a campaign to get the Western Allies to recognize the pro-Soviet government-in-exile of the Union of Polish Patriots led by Wanda Wasilewska . Having retaken the Katyn area almost immediately after
8550-650: The height of World War I , all great powers except the United States had elaborate civilian espionage systems, and all national military establishments had intelligence units. In order to protect the country against foreign agents, the U.S. Congress passed the Espionage Act of 1917 . Mata Hari , who obtained information for Germany by seducing French officials, was the most noted espionage agent of World War I. Prior to World War II , Germany and Imperial Japan established elaborate espionage nets. In 1942
8664-611: The intelligence reorganization of 2004, the director of national intelligence is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the activities and budgets of the U.S. intelligence agencies. In the Cold War , espionage cases included Alger Hiss , Whittaker Chambers and the Rosenberg Case. In 1952 the Communist Chinese captured two CIA agents and in 1960 Francis Gary Powers , flying a U-2 reconnaissance mission over
8778-520: The killings also occurred in the Kalinin and Kharkiv NKVD prisons and elsewhere, the massacre is named after the Katyn forest , where some of the mass graves were first discovered by German Nazi forces in 1943. The massacre is qualified as a crime against humanity , crime against peace , war crime and Communist crime and according to a resolution of the Polish parliament or Sejm , it bears
8892-653: The locals about a mass grave of Polish soldiers at Kozelsk near Katyn; finding one of the graves, they reported it to the Polish Underground State . The discovery was not seen as important, as nobody thought the discovered grave could contain so many victims. In early 1943, Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff , a German officer serving as the intelligence liaison between the Wehrmacht 's Army Group Centre and Abwehr , received reports about mass graves of Polish military officers. These reports stated
9006-449: The massacre, according to the historian Gerhard Weinberg , was that Stalin wanted to deprive a potential future Polish military of a large portion of its talent. The Soviet leadership, and Stalin in particular, viewed the Polish prisoners as a "problem" as they might resist being under Soviet rule. Therefore, they decided the prisoners inside the "special camps" were to be shot as "avowed enemies of Soviet authority". The number of victims
9120-564: The missing Polish officers. During a personal meeting, Stalin assured him and Władysław Sikorski , the Polish Prime Minister, all the Poles were freed, and not all could be accounted because the Soviets "lost track" of them in Manchuria . Józef Czapski investigated the fate of Polish officers between 1941 and 1942. In 1942, with the territory around Smolensk under German occupation, captive Polish railroad workers heard from
9234-508: The more common practice is to recruit a person already trusted with access to sensitive information, sometimes a person with a well-prepared synthetic identity (cover background), called a legend in tradecraft , may attempt to infiltrate a target organization. These agents can be moles (who are recruited before they get access to secrets), defectors (who are recruited after they get access to secrets and leave their country) or defectors in place (who get access but do not leave). A legend
9348-451: The most common forms of agent are: Less common or lesser known forms of agent include: Espionage against a nation is a crime under the legal code of many nations. In the United States, it is covered by the Espionage Act of 1917 . The risks of espionage vary. A spy violating the host country's laws may be deported, imprisoned, or even executed. A spy violating its own country's laws can be imprisoned for espionage or/and treason (which in
9462-437: The national defence with an intent, or reason to believe, that the information may be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation". Black's Law Dictionary (1990) defines espionage as: "... gathering, transmitting, or losing ... information related to the national defense ". Espionage is a violation of United States law, 18 U.S.C. §§ 792 – 798 and Article 106a of
9576-438: The organization can be complex with many methods to avoid detection, including clandestine cell systems . Often the players have never met. Case officers are stationed in foreign countries to recruit and supervise intelligence agents, who in turn spy on targets in the countries where they are assigned. A spy need not be a citizen of the target country and hence does not automatically commit treason when operating within it. While
9690-688: The organization in which they are planted, such as giving false reports about their country's military movements, or about a competing company's ability to bring a product to market. Spies may be given other roles that also require infiltration, such as sabotage . Many governments spy on their allies as well as their enemies, although they typically maintain a policy of not commenting on this. Governments also employ private companies to collect information on their behalf such as SCG International Risk , International Intelligence Limited and others. Many organizations, both national and non-national, conduct espionage operations. It should not be assumed that espionage
9804-451: The penalties for being caught are often severe. Espionage has been recognized as of importance in military affairs since ancient times. The oldest known classified document was a report made by a spy disguised as a diplomatic envoy in the court of King Hammurabi , who died in around 1750 BC. The ancient Egyptians had a developed secret service, and espionage is mentioned in the Iliad ,
9918-423: The penalty for espionage in many countries was execution. This was true right up until the era of World War II ; for example, Josef Jakobs was a Nazi spy who parachuted into Great Britain in 1941 and was executed for espionage. In modern times, many people convicted of espionage have been given penal sentences rather than execution. For example, Aldrich Hazen Ames is an American CIA analyst, turned KGB mole, who
10032-517: The place where the desired information is stored or accessing the people who know the information and will divulge it through some kind of subterfuge . There are exceptions to physical meetings, such as the Oslo Report , or the insistence of Robert Hanssen in never meeting the people who bought his information. The US defines espionage towards itself as "the act of obtaining, delivering, transmitting, communicating, or receiving information about
10146-527: The problems to tensions caused by the Kashmir conflict . Espionage is illegal in the UK under the National Security Act 2023 , which repealed prior Official Secrets Acts and creates three separate offences for espionage. A person is liable to be imprisoned for life for committing an offence under Section 1 of the Act, or 14 years for an offence under Sections 2 and 3 Government intelligence
10260-551: The public May Day holiday. Some 3,000 to 4,000 Polish inmates of Ukrainian prisons and those from Belarus prisons were probably buried in Bykivnia and in Kurapaty respectively, about 50 women including two sisters, Klara Auerbach-Margules and Stella Menkes, among them. Lieutenant Janina Lewandowska , daughter of Gen. Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki , was the only woman POW executed during the massacre at Katyn. The question about
10374-476: The purpose of acquiring intelligence are not considered spies but are lawful combatants entitled to be treated as prisoners of war upon capture by the enemy. Article 30 states that a spy captured behind enemy lines may only be punished following a trial. However, Article 31 provides that if a spy successfully rejoined his own military and is then captured by the enemy as a lawful combatant, he cannot be punished for his previous acts of espionage and must be treated as
10488-507: The purpose of waging destruction on an enemy's vital targets in addition to intelligence gathering. For example, during World War II , eight German agents entered the U.S. in June 1942 as part of Operation Pastorius , a sabotage mission against U.S. economic targets. Two weeks later, all were arrested in civilian clothes by the FBI thanks to two German agents betraying the mission to the U.S. Under
10602-654: The remaining prisoners were killed. People from the Kozelsk camp were executed in Katyn Forest; people from the Starobelsk camp were killed in the inner NKVD prison of Kharkiv and the bodies were buried near the village of Piatykhatky ; and police officers from the Ostashkov camp were killed in the internal NKVD prison of Kalinin ( Tver ) and buried in Mednoye . All three burial sites had already been secret cemeteries of
10716-504: The rough insulation in the execution cell, the pistol gunshots were masked by the operation of loud machines (perhaps fans) throughout the night. Some post-1991 revelations suggest prisoners were also executed in the same manner at the NKVD headquarters in Smolensk , though judging by the way the corpses were stacked, some captives may have been shot while standing on the edge of the mass graves. This procedure went on every night, except for
10830-407: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Katyn . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Katyn&oldid=1176233995 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
10944-473: The size and strength of enemy forces . They can also find dissidents within the organization and influence them to provide further information or to defect. In times of crisis, spies steal technology and sabotage the enemy in various ways. Counterintelligence is the practice of thwarting enemy espionage and intelligence-gathering. Almost all sovereign states have strict laws concerning espionage, including those who practice espionage in other countries, and
11058-435: The status of wartime spies, specifically within "Laws and Customs of War on Land" (Hague IV); October 18, 1907: Chapter II Spies". Article 29 states that a person is considered a spy who, acts clandestinely or on false pretences, infiltrates enemy lines with the intention of acquiring intelligence about the enemy and communicate it to the belligerent during times of war. Soldiers who penetrate enemy lines in proper uniforms for
11172-633: The suspicion the conclusions were what the State Department wanted to hear. The journalists were less impressed and not convinced by the staged Soviet demonstration. An example of Soviet propaganda spread by some Western Communists is Alter Brody's monograph Behind the Polish-Soviet Break (with an introduction by Corliss Lamont ). The growing Polish-Soviet tension was beginning to strain Western-Soviet relations at
11286-545: The target at its execution is the sole purpose of the espionage operation. Broad areas of espionage targeting expertise include: Although the news media may speak of "spy satellites" and the like, espionage is not a synonym for all intelligence-gathering disciplines. It is a specific form of human source intelligence ( HUMINT ). Codebreaking ( cryptanalysis or COMINT ), aircraft or satellite photography ( IMINT ), and analysis of publicly available data sources ( OSINT ) are all intelligence gathering disciplines, but none of them
11400-712: The victims of the Great Purge of 1937–1938. Later, recreational areas of NKVD/KGB were established there. Detailed information on the executions in the Kalinin NKVD prison was provided during a hearing by Dmitry Tokarev, former head of the Board of the District NKVD in Kalinin. According to Tokarev, the shooting started in the evening and ended at dawn. The first transport, on 4 April 1940, carried 390 people, and
11514-509: The victims of the Katyn massacre Katyn war cemetery , a Polish military cemetery in the village of Katyn, Smolensk Oblast, Russia National Katyń Memorial , Baltimore, Maryland, dedicated to the victims of the Katyn massacre See also [ edit ] Khatyn , a village in Belarus, in Lahojsk district, Minsk Voblast, whose population was massacred in 1943 Topics referred to by
11628-417: The walls, and a heavy, felt-lined door. The victim was told to kneel in the middle of the cell and was then approached from behind by the executioner and immediately shot in the back of the head or neck. The body was carried out through the opposite door and laid in one of the five or six waiting trucks, whereupon the next condemned was taken inside and subjected to the same treatment. In addition to muffling by
11742-518: The war effort. Since the end of World War II , the activity of espionage has enlarged, much of it growing out of the Cold War between the United States and the former USSR . The Russian Empire and its successor, the Soviet Union , have had a long tradition of espionage ranging from the Okhrana to the KGB (Committee for State Security), which also acted as a secret police force. In the United States,
11856-411: The witnesses; statements of the witnesses obviously being given as a result of rote memorization; and that "the show was put on for the benefit of the correspondents." Nevertheless, Melby, at the time, felt on balance the Soviet case was convincing. Harriman's report reached the same conclusion and after the war both were asked to explain why their conclusions seemed to be at odds with their findings, with
11970-502: Was arrested by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he faced life in prison; his contact, who had diplomatic immunity , was declared persona non grata and taken to the airport. Ames' wife was threatened with life imprisonment if her husband did not cooperate; he did, and she was given a five-year sentence. Hugh Francis Redmond , a CIA officer in China, spent nineteen years in a Chinese prison for espionage—and died there—as he
12084-505: Was beneficial to Nazi Germany, which used it to discredit the Soviet Union. On 14 April 1943, Goebbels wrote in his diary : "We are now using the discovery of 12,000 Polish officers, killed by the GPU , for anti-Bolshevik propaganda on a grand style. We sent neutral journalists and Polish intellectuals to the spot where they were found. Their reports now reaching us from ahead are gruesome. The Führer has also given permission for us to hand out
12198-454: Was convicted of espionage in 1994; he is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in the high-security Allenwood U.S. Penitentiary . Ames was formerly a 31-year CIA counterintelligence officer and analyst who committed espionage against his country by spying for the Soviet Union and Russia . So far as it is known, Ames compromised the second-largest number of CIA agents, second only to Robert Hanssen , who also served
12312-453: Was declared a "hardened and uncompromising enemy of Soviet authority". On 5 March 1940, pursuant to a note to Stalin from Beria, six members of the Soviet Politburo – Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov , Lazar Kaganovich , Kliment Voroshilov , Anastas Mikoyan , and Mikhail Kalinin – signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries" kept at camps and prisons in occupied western Ukraine and Belarus. The reason for
12426-552: Was deemed inapplicable. In November 2010, hoping to improve relations with Poland, the Russian State Duma approved a declaration condemning Stalin and other Soviet officials for ordering the massacre. In 2021, the Russian Ministry of Culture downgraded the memorial complex at Katyn on its Register of Sites of Cultural Heritage from a place of federal to one of only regional importance. On 1 September 1939,
12540-411: Was held under Indian police control for approximately 13 years for overstaying his 15-day visa by 2–3 days after seeing his ill parents in 1999. Much of the 13 years were spent in prison waiting for a hearing, and more time was spent homeless or living with generous families. The Indian People's Union for Civil Liberties and Human Rights Law Network both decried his treatment. The BBC attributed some of
12654-705: Was operating without diplomatic cover and immunity. In United States law, treason, espionage, and spying are separate crimes. Treason and espionage have graduated punishment levels. The United States in World War I passed the Espionage Act of 1917. Over the years, many spies, such as the Soble spy ring , Robert Lee Johnson , the Rosenberg ring , Aldrich Hazen Ames , Robert Philip Hanssen , Jonathan Pollard , John Anthony Walker , James Hall III , and others have been prosecuted under this law. From ancient times,
12768-624: Was reportedly involved in the planning and operational control of the executions, in following with Beria's and Merkulov's orders. Those who died at Katyn included soldiers (an admiral, two generals, 24 colonels, 79 lieutenant colonels, 258 majors, 654 captains, 17 naval captains, 85 privates, 3,420 non-commissioned officers , and seven chaplains), 200 pilots, government representatives and royalty (a prince, 43 officials), and civilians (three landowners, 131 refugees, 20 university professors, 300 physicians; several hundred lawyers, engineers, and teachers; and more than 100 writers and journalists). In all,
12882-558: Was representative of the multi-ethnic Polish state; the murdered included ethnic Poles, Ukrainians , Belarusians , and 700–900 Polish Jews . The government of Nazi Germany announced the discovery of mass graves in the Katyn Forest in April 1943. Stalin severed diplomatic relations with the London-based Polish government-in-exile when it asked for an investigation by the International Committee of
12996-410: Was used mainly for Polish Scouting , gendarmes , police officers, and prison officers. Some prisoners were members of other groups of Polish intelligentsia, such as priests, landowners, and law personnel. The approximate distribution of men throughout the camps was as follows: Kozelsk, 5000; Ostashkov, 6570; and Starobelsk, 4000. They totalled 15,570 men. According to a report from 19 November 1939,
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