Espionage & Codebreaking Trivia

1. Who was the fourth member of the "Cambridge Spy Ring", who confessed in 1964, but wasn't publicly named until 1979?

From Quiz Stirred Not Shaken

Answer: Anthony Blunt

The "Cambridge Spy Ring" consisted of Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby and Blunt. All were educated at Cambridge University and all worked either for the Foreign Office or British Intelligence. They passed secrets to the Soviets for many years, probably from WWII up to the early 1950s and none of them was ever prosecuted for their crimes. Maclean and Burgess fled UK before they could be questioned in 1951 to a destination unknown, which was revealed as Soviet Union in 1956. Philby, while employed by MI6 and working as a journalist in Middle East, defected to Soviet Union in 1963 and Blunt confessed in 1954 in exchange for immunity from prosecution, Margaret Thatcher revealed his identity in 1979 and this ended Blunt's successful career as an art historian as well as seriously impacting his public life. He died three years later in London, aged 75.

From Quiz Code Breaking

Answer: Moving each letter of the alphabet a fixed number of spaces

One of the earliest known ciphers, "Caesar's Cipher" consists of replacing each letter with a different one the same number of places down the alphabet. e.g. A with D, B with E, C with F etc. Simple, isn't it?

From Quiz We Spy

Answer: Mata Hari

Mata Hari (1876-1917) was notorious as an exotic dancer and a prostitute. Her many lovers included military men, which led to her becoming a spy in WWI. Eventually she worked as a double agent. She was truly shocked upon hearing her guilty verdict. She was bold and insistent on her innocence right up to the end. At her death, she blew a kiss to the priest and her lawyer and faced the firing squad without a blindfold. Today, many believe she was innocent.

From Quiz Americans Committing Espionage against America

Answer: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg

Julius and Ethel were dedicated to passing top-secret information about the US atomic bomb program to the Soviets. Included in the ring were David Greenglass, Harry Gold, Morton Sobell, and the German scientist Klaus Fuchs. Julius was recruited by the Soviets as early as 1942, and passed information to them throughout World War II, concerning work at Los Alamos that he received from Greenglass. He is believed to have turned over classified documents to the Soviets regarding the fledgling atomic program, including sketches of an atomic bomb in 1945. The results of the information provided is believed to have advanced the Soviet nuclear program by years, and helped them achieve the atomic bomb much earlier than would have otherwise been the case. The result is that both were convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917, and sentenced to death. They were both executed by electrocution in 1953.

From Quiz Spies and Spying

Answer: She was most likely innocent of espionage

Mata Hari was a dancer who lived a somewhat scandalous life style. She likely wasn't really bright enough to be trusted as a spy, but her many liaisons with French officers made her suspect. Recent discoveries point out that the French Army was looking for excuses for their military failures. One way was to invent a spy ring that probably didn't really exist.

From Quiz Famous People Who Spied on the Side

Answer: Julia Child

Julia Child joined the OSS, forerunner of the CIA, in 1942 after discovering that, at 6'2" tall, she was too tall for the Women's Army Corps. One of her earliest assignments was to cook up a shark repellent that would protect underwater explosives from being accidentally set off by curious sea creatures. Later she was sent to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and then to China where she worked as Chief of the OSS Registry. The CIA remains mum about what Julia did in that capacity. It was in Ceylon that she met her husband Paul Child, a fellow OSS officer. After they married, Julia quit her job but her husband continued to work for the government. After he was transferred to to the U.S. State Department in Paris, Julia took up cooking to occupy her time. The rest is culinary history.

From Quiz Spies and Spy Rings in WWII

Answer: threatening to kill them

The British discovered that by threatening to kill captured German spies was the most effective method to turn them into double agents. This was done without torture and worked faster than persuasive argument.

From Quiz Psst, Wanna Hear a Secret?

Answer: Mata Hari

Born in Holland in 1876 as Margarethe Zelle, Mata Hari was an exotic dancer in Paris. She posed as a Princess from Java, and in this disguise was the mistress of several high ranking military officers, putting her in a position to hear much secret information. Because Holland stayed neutral during WW1 she was, as a Dutch National, able to move around without interference, even crossing borders with comparative freedom. She was once questioned by British Intelligence and claimed she was spying on the Germans for the French, which they accepted. In early 1917 an intercepted message stating that good intelligence was being received from an agent in France allowed the French Intelligence Services to identify her, and in February 1917 she was arrested. She was tried for espionage, found guilty and executed in September 1917. After her execution French Intelligence denied that she was in fact a double agent spying for them as well, and the truth of this will probably never be known. Ethel Rosenberg spied for the Russians. Belle Boyd was a Confederate spy. Violette Szabo was a member of British Intelligence who was executed by the Germans, and is the subject of the film "Carve Her Name With Pride".

From Quiz The Real 'Windtalkers'

Answer: Navajo

On a lesser scale, Commanche and Meskwaki speakers were employed by the US Army in Normandy and North Africa, but by far the biggest employer of Native American codetalkers was the US Marines who only recruited Navajo. The Navajo Nation straddles the borders of Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, covering an area of more than 27,000 square miles. In the 2000s it is home to more than 170,000 Navajo and has its own flag and government. As an example of one of the many ironies of 1940s cultural ideology, whilst the Navajo codetalkers were utilising their language to such good effect on the frontline of the Pacific War, Navajo schoolchildren were being punished for speaking their own language at reservation schools.

From Quiz WWII Codenames and Nicknames

Answer: Overlord

Overlord referred to the entire operation, and not just D-Day. Neptune was the codename for the actual beach landings. Before Overlord was settled on, the preliminary operation plans were known as Sledgehammer and Roundup.

From Quiz U.S. Secret Service Code Names

Answer: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was the wife of President John F. Kennedy. Her public image was one of style and grace. "Lace" was chosen for her to show her feminine and delicate demeanor.

From Quiz Names of the Communist Secret Services

Answer: KGB

Cheka was a name of part of the original Soviet state security from 1917-1922. NKVD was one of the names of part of the Soviet state security from 1922-1954. KGV is short for King George V. The KGB (from 1954-91) was replaced by the Federal Security Service (FSB) in 1991, with the fall of communist power. Yuri Andropov led the KGB from 1967-1982. He became leader of the Soviet Union late in 1982 and appeared to want to drag the Soviet Union out from the stagnation of the Brezhnev era, but died in early 1984.

From Quiz The British Intelligence Services

Answer: GCCS

GCHQ were previously known as Government Code and Cipher School. GC&CS were responsible for communications and decrypting messages. The most famous example of this was when the British decrypted the ENIGMA Machine messages in the Second World War.

From Quiz Can You Crack the Code?

Answer: 29

In May of 1942, there were twenty-nine Navajo Code Talkers that attended boot camp at Camp Elliot in San Diego, California.

From Quiz Catch the Soviet Mole

Answer: Documents on naval movements and positions.

How he was caught: His ex-wife turned him in in 1985.

From Quiz Alphabet Soup

Answer: KGB

KGB stands for "Komitet Gosudarstvenoy Bezoposnosti" (please excuse the awkward looking transliteration from the Cyrillic alphabet). This is translated from the Russian as "Committee for State Security".

From Quiz Soviet Spies

Answer: Cheka

In order to prevent a counter-revolution Dzerzhinsky adopted terror tactics, a position supported by Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. Thousands were executed. The Okhranka, by the way, was the tsarist secret police while the OGPU and KGB were later incarnations of the Soviet security apparatus. The Cheka was originally known as the Vecheka.

From Quiz Enigma and Bletchley Park Codebreakers

Answer: Arthur Scherbius

The Enigma code machine was first patented as a commercial encryption device in 1918 by a German inventor named Arthur Scherbius, but wasn't sold commercially until 1923. German banks and railways were among its first customers, but the German military was quick to see its potential and modified it for military use. They added a plugboard (similar to an old-fashioned telephone switchboard), which allowed an operator to plug pairs of letters together in an absolutely astronomical number of combinations. Karl Dönitz, Joseph Goebbels and Albert Speer were all significant German figures in World War II. Scherbius died in 1929. Historical note: Karl Dönitz was the top commander (Grand Admiral) of the German Kriegsmarine (Navy) during most of WWII. Just before Hitler committed suicide on 30 April 1945, Dönitz was named by Hitler as his successor as Head of State. Germany's surrender to the Allies on 7 May 1945 was signed by Alfred Jodl (acting as Dönitz's representative). Joseph Goebbels was the German Minister of Propaganda during WWII, and he had a huge influence in shaping German public opinion through speeches, staging spectacular public assemblies, and censoring the daily news. He and his wife Magda committed suicide on 1 May 1945, after first poisoning their six young children. Magda had said she didn't want her children growing up hearing their father branded a war criminal. Albert Speer served as Hitler's Minister of Armaments and War Production during WWII. He was convicted at the Nuremberg war crimes trials for his use of slave labor and spent 20 years in Spandau prison.

From Quiz Codebreaking in WWII

Answer: 3

The first Enigma machines used 3 rotors. As the war progressed, some of the Germans went to a 4 rotor Enigma machine.

From Quiz WW II, Spying 123

Answer: The Mafia

The Italian Mafia provided German supply and troop strength information to allied forces prior to the invasion.

From Quiz WW2 Code Names

Answer: El-Alamein minefields

From Quiz Espionage

Answer: SAVAK

One of the most ruthless secret services in the world during its time. The SAVAK failed to gauge and inform the Shah about the extent of the rebellion. He was also falsely assured that the Army completely supported him.

From Quiz Spies And Spy Agencies

Answer: Rudolph Ivonovich Abel

Abel operated in the U.S. from 1948 to 1961 under the name Emil R. Goldfus. Maki was Abel's assistant.

From Quiz Stirred Not Shaken

Answer: Aldrich Ames

Just two years into his spying career, Ames was suspected by co-workers of espionage due to the fact he was living well beyond his means, and although investigated by CIA and FBI, he passed two polygraph tests and was able to continue. By the time of his arrest, he had compromised over 100 CIA agents and caused the execution of at least 10 but he was living in a half million dollar house, driving a luxury Jaguar and had credit cards on which the minimum monthly payment exceeded his monthly salary of $5000.

From Quiz Code Breaking

Answer: The Vigenere Cipher

The Cipher was formed in 1553 By Giovani Battista Bellaso, a well-known Italian cryptologist of his time. The name of the cipher was mistakenly attributed to Blaise de Vigenère 30 years after, when he created his own version of the code based on Bellaso's. The encryption method was so strong that it was only 300 years after, in 1854, that the famous mathematician Charles Babbage managed to break a variant of it.

From Quiz We Spy

Answer: Sidney Reilly

Sidney Reilly (1873-1925) is the model for James Bond and his real life exploits make even Bond look tame. His fame as an adventurer, spy and "ladies' man" were legendary especially after his unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Bolshevik government in 1918.

From Quiz Americans Committing Espionage against America

Answer: John A. Walker, Jr.

John Walker started his spying career in 1968 by walking into the Soviet embassy in Washington D.C. and selling them a few classified codes he had access to. What followed was over a million U.S. Naval codes that allowed the USSR to know were all U.S. submarines were at all times. When it came time for Walker to retire he recruited his older brother Arthur, a close friend, Senior Chief Petty Officer Jerry Whitworth, his son Michael and even tried to get his daughter, but she was being discharged from the army to have a baby. John A. Walker, Jr. was finally arrested after his ex-wife turned him in. Walker was convicted of espionage and sentenced to life in prison.

From Quiz Code Breakers

Answer: Caesar cipher

The Caesar cipher was used by Julius Caesar during his military campaigns. The encoding and decoding was accomplished with the use of a device containing two dials. The innermost dial is rotated so that a letter can be encoded with a displaced letter from one to twenty-five spaces away. Decoding required knowing how many letters apart the coded letter was displaced from the correct letter. As such, it was a relatively simple code to break by any literate code breaker.

From Quiz Spies and Spying

Answer: None

Spying activities had no overall organizationn charged with overseeing them. The OSS (Office of Strategic Services), the forerunner of the CIA, wasn't created until 1940.

From Quiz Spies and Spy Rings in WWII

Answer: code breaking

The primary mission of ULTRA during WWII was the decryption of Axis radio communication or, to put it simply, code breaking.

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Last Updated Apr 13 2024 5:47 AM

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