Kingruv

resource notes

Pascali's Island a movie
Interesting perspective of a forgotten agent in a remote outpost before WWI.

Vlad Dracul
The storied life of Vlad the Impaler and Societi Ordo Draconis. While Vlad was known for impaling at least 100,000 Ottoman soldiers and 10's of thousands of others including many of his own people, less is written of his direction of the Society of the Dragon. In league with other kingdoms and principalities in the region, Vlad used spies to help him check and finally stop the Muslim advance into eastern Europe. While he is considered noble by modern Romanians, his personal motives and real grievances against the Ottoman Turks show he learned from his former captors.

James Jesus Angleton

William Donovan

Enter the Past Tense, by Roland Haas
The dismal account of life and double life for one former agent. Contemporary Insight into Cold War operators
Short book

Hasan bin Sabbah
The man behind the “Old Man in the Mountain” Some say he was a tall tale. Some serious modern day students have another look.
In similar fashion there was a great deal of espionage performed in ancient Japan and pre-China inter dynastic kingdoms.
Really until the modern era most craft trained spies were of a paramilitary nature.

Igor Orlov 1930's to 1960's
Able to thwart US counter iintelligence for 2 decades in Washington pretending to become a normalized American. Deep background cover prepared for years before coming to America.

The Roman Catholic Church 400 AD to present
There was an almost continuous thread of espionage from the end of the Roman Empire in the Catholic Church hitting peaks during the Crusades (not just with the Templars who had their own thing going) and again during the Reformation. The Catholic Church doesn't see their activities as espionage but their activities have all the hallmarks of it. Some of the activities involved almost all aspects of checking on kings and courts under their control. A broad target was any anabaptist group that pressed open preaching native language scriptures and Gospel for the common man. The used more than the inquisition to suppress groups like this
A high tempo of espionage/counter-espionage began with Henry VIII splitting with the Pope over his divorce. This was a primer for what became 400 years of British Intelligence.
Out of the mix of this, between Britain and France spying on one another, evolved American Intelligence in its truly nascent state.

The Byzantine Empire 4th Century to 15th Century
During the latter period of the empire, a heavy reliance on espionage became standard. Whole networks were established to assist in retaking lands lost to the Muslims.

Ian Fleming
I believe some of the background Fleming had for JB was based on his travels and spying on the US for Britain during WWII in Washington DC.

For online resources check the public pages at the CI Centre here in Northern Va.
Most is geared towards current trends and operations in counterintelligence.
In particular: cicentre.com/podcasts.html
(Put the above in with appropriate header or put it in google for proper formatting and you're good to go.
I guarantee this is a safe site.