List of spymasters

For the Marvel supervillain, see Spymaster (character). For the Romanian television series, see Spy/Master.

A spymaster is a leader of a group of spies or an intelligence agency.^[1]

List of spymasters

Name	When	Allegiance	Agency/Organization/Service
Motojiro Akashi	1904	Japan	Akashi Kikan
Vera Atkins	1944	United Kingdom	Special Operations Executive
Lavrentiy Beria	1938	Soviet Union	NKVD
Arturo Bocchini	1927–1940	Fascist Italy	OVRA
Wilhelm Canaris	1935	Nazi Germany	Abwehr
Thomas Cromwell	1533	Kingdom of England
William J. Donovan	1941	United States	Office of Strategic Services
Armand Jean du Plessis (Cardinal Richelieu)	1616	Kingdom of France
Allen Dulles	1953	United States	Central Intelligence Agency
Zhou Enlai	1928–1932	Chinese Communist Party[note 1]	Special Service section of the Central Committee Urban Work Committee of the Central Committee
Rafaat Gebril	1973	Egypt	General Intelligence Directorate (Egypt)
Ali Mamlouk	2005–2024	Ba'athist Syria	National Security Bureau General Intelligence Directorate (Syria)
Sándor Goldberger (alias J. Peters)	1930–1948	Soviet Union	Communist Party USA
Sidney Gottlieb	1951–1973	United States	Central Intelligence Agency
Hamid Gul	1987–1989	Pakistan	Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence
Faiz Hameed	2019	Pakistan	Director-General of Inter-Services Intelligence
Isser Harel	1952–1963	Israel	Mossad
R. N. Kao	1968–1977	India	Research and Analysis Wing
Ronnie Kasrils	1983–1989 2004–2008	South Africa	Umkhonto we Sizwe Minister of Intelligence Services
David Kimche	1953–1980	Israel	Mossad
Ivone Kirkpatrick	1918–1918	United Kingdom	British Army, Belgian resistance
Maxwell Knight	1924–1930	United Kingdom	MI5
Dai Li	1928–1946	Republic of China	National Revolutionary Army
Colin Hercules Mackenzie	1940–1946	United Kingdom	Special Operations Executive – Force 136
Yuri Modin	1948–1951	Soviet Union	NKVD
Hugh Montgomery	1953–1981 (CIA) 1981–1985 (INR) 1989–2014 (CIA)	United States	Central Intelligence Agency Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Bhola Nath Mullik	1950–1964	India	Intelligence Bureau
Donald Nichols	1951	United States	6004th Air Intelligence Service Squadron
Manuel Piñeiro	1961–1964	Cuba	Dirección de Inteligencia
Allan Pinkerton	1855–1861	United States	Union Intelligence Service
Wang Puchen	1948–1949	Republic of China	Bureau of Investigation and Statistics
Pyotr Rachkovsky	1885–1902	Russian Empire	Okhrana
Alfred Redl	1903–1913	Austria-Hungary;  Russian Empire[note 2]	Evidenzbureau
Mao Renfeng	1946–1956	Republic of China	Bureau of Investigation and Statistics
Semyon Semyonov	1937–1950	Soviet Union	NKVD
Kang Sheng	1940s–1946	Chinese Communist Party[note 1]	Central Social Affairs Department
Hugh Sinclair	1919–1939	United Kingdom	Secret Intelligence Service
Mansfield Smith-Cumming	1909–1923	United Kingdom	Secret Intelligence Service
Richard Sorge	1920–1941	Soviet Union	Main Intelligence Directorate
Sidney Souers	1946–1946	United States	Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
Gustav Steinhauer	1911–1914	Germany	Nachrichten-Abteilung
William Stephenson	1940–1946	Canada	British Security Co-ordination
Emanuel Sueyro	c. 1620–1629	Spain
Benjamin Tallmadge	1778–1783	United States	Culper Ring
John Thurloe	1653	Commonwealth of England
Liam Tobin	1919	Irish Republic	Irish Republican Army
Francis Walsingham	1573–1590	Kingdom of England
George Washington	1775	United States	Continental Army
William Wickham	1795–1801	United Kingdom
Markus Wolf	1951–1986	East Germany	Main Directorate for Reconnaissance
Shen Zui	1934–1949	Republic of China	Bureau of Investigation and Statistics
Kyrylo Budanov	2020–present	Ukraine	Main Directorate of Intelligence (Ukraine)
Ajit Doval	2014–present	India	National Security Advisor (India)

See also

• List of American spies
• List of British spies
• List of German spies
• List of fictional spymasters

Bibliography

• Gokhale, Nitin. Gentleman Spymaster:R.N.Kao. Bloomsbury Publishing India Pvt Ltd. ISBN 978-9354358913.

Notes

1. Years of service as a spymaster with the Chinese Communist Party predates the foundation of the People's Republic of China (1949)
2. Redl was appointed as the head of counterintelligence at the Evidenzbureau, the Austro-Hungarian military intelligence organization in 1907. However, Redl was already compromised by Russian agents c. 1900, and provided information to the Russian Empire until he was caught by Austro-Hungarian authorities in 1913.