The Significance of the Use of Espionage During the Cold War

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The Significance of the Use of Espionage During the Cold War

During the Cold War there was an increase in the amount of funding and

resources devoted to espionage which was helpful to both the USA and

USSR. Because there was no fighting spies became the main use in the

battle for supremacy.

The definition of espionage is the act or practice of spying or of

using spies to obtain secret information, as about another government.

It is whereby governments gain the systematic use of spies to get

military or political secrets. It was used to gain information on the

enemy as well as to increase the influence upon areas where conflicts

of ideologies where being fought over.

The Soviet espionage was organised by the KGB, formed in 1954 the KGB

rose to half a million staff and their main role was to gather

intelligence material on western technology and military operations.

The Soviet spies were most influential for securing the information

required to make the atomic bombs. The amount of information they

gathered was said to have been 'huge, inestimable, and significant for

our state and science'. Famous spies such as Julius Rosenberg and

Harry Gold were said to have provided US communist's atomic secrets,

which would make there way to the Kremlin. British spies Burgess,

Philby and Maclean were recruited by the Soviets while studying at

Cambridge and later passed important British secrets to the Soviets.

On the American side the CIA was established in 1947 and was ordered

to collect and analyse information on threats to US security as well

as to perform other functions, which was by undermining the enemy by

covert means. During the Truman presidency the CIA powers were rarely

used, but once Eisenhower came to office this attitude changed and the

CIA became expanded its operations greatly under the influence of

Eisenhower. The biggest success of the CIA is said to have been the

overthrow of the left-wing government in Guatemala, 1954 and also the

overthrow of the left-wing government of Allende in Chile, 1973.

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