Famous People Who Spied on the Side Quiz

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.

Answer: Roald Dahl

After Dahl sustained serious injuries while working as a fighter pilot, he was transferred to a desk job at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. His success with the ladies was not lost on British Intelligence. They came up with a plan to have Dahl seduce powerful women and use them to promote Britain's interests in America.

The plan worked. Not only did Dahl rally support for the British cause, he was able to pass stolen documents to the British Government. Incidentally, it was during his work writing propaganda for American newspapers that he discovered his talent for writing.

Answer: Charles "Lucky" Luciano

In 1936 Lucky Luciano was sentenced to 30 to 50 years in prison for prostitution. When the French ocean liner Normandie caught fire and sank in 1942, American government officials suspected sabotage. The dockworkers wouldn't talk because they were all under the control of mobsters. Luciano, who was born in Sicily, had an affinity for America since it was where he had earned his millions and where he had lived since he was ten years old.

He persuaded the dockworkers to reveal their information. For his help, Luciano was released from prison in 1946 having served only ten years.

He continued to aid America in the war efforts by using the dockworkers to supply information to U.S. Naval Intelligence. When the Allies were planning to invade Italy, Luciano offered valuable information on where to counterattack.

As part of the agreement when he was released from prison early, he returned to Sicily and never stepped foot on U.S. soil again.

Answer: Ian Fleming

In reality, Ian Fleming was a desk jockey. He managed communications between the British Admiralty and the branch of intelligence dealing with sabotage behind enemy lines. Fleming was asked to help create an American organization focused on international intelligence gathering.

In 1941 he drew up a detailed chart for the Chief of the OSS. Fleming did manage to witness one actual break-in that became the inspiration for his first Bond novel,"Casino Royale". He watched as British operatives sneaked into the Japanese Consul General's office at Rockefeller Center in New York City.

The operatives cracked a safe and made copies of Japanese codebooks. Now that's worthy of James Bond himself!

Answer: James Hart Dyke

At first Hart Dyke thought it was a joke. He received a mysterious phone call followed by a mysterious meeting in which he was asked to work within M16 as an artist. He took the job and was given complete access to M16 and the lives of its employees. He quietly went about his business, sketching the everyday lives of M16 spies. Hart Dyke wanted to convey the claustrophobic world of M16 spies but also the unglamorous parts, the in-between times of waiting and doing nothing.

His paintings had a dream-like quality even while painting ordinary activities, like a woman carrying a big bag or a hotel room.

He experienced the boredom and anxiety of traveling to shadowy locations while keeping his job secret from everyone but his wife. Exciting as the job was, Hart Dyke returned to civilian life in 2011, glad his job with the M16 was over.

Answer: Robert Baden-Powell

While stationed in South Africa in 1899, Lieutenant-General Baden-Powell managed to defend his territory with cunning and deception. His small army of soldiers were poorly outfitted but Baden-Powell managed to deceive the opposing forces by pretending to plant fake mines on the edge of town and pretending to avoid barbed-wire to fend off the enemy.

After returning home to England in 1903, he used his notoriety to jump-start the scouting movement, all the while working as a spy in the military. In 1915, after he had retired from military duty, Baden-Powell wrote the book "My Adventures as a Spy." In it he recounted stories such as the one in which he caught three spies all on his own.

He died in 1941 and was buried in Kenya, his home for the last years of his life.

Answer: Harry Houdini

At the beginning of his career, Houdini walked into police stations and demanded they lock him up and cuff him. Naturally, this publicity stunt bolstered Houdini's reputation, so much so that he caught the eye of Scotland Yard and British intelligence agencies.

These agencies recruited him to sneak into jail cells throughout Europe and Russia to gather information for them. Houdini agreed to do this only if the agencies in turn agreed to help him in furthering his career. William Melville, head of Scotland Yard, had to get Houdini auditions with London theater managers before the magician consented to do some spying.

Answer: Moe Berg

Morris(Moe)Berg excelled at just about everything he tried. He spoke twelve languages, having graduated from Princeton University with a degree in modern languages. Not content just to play professional baseball, Moe went on to law school and received a law degree in 1930. All this while still playing ball! Good-looking, intelligent and successful, Moe Berg began to mix with the Washington D.C. elite after being traded to play for the Washington Senators.

A big hit on the bleachers and the social scene, he caught the eye of the U.S. government. Recruited to spy on the Japanese in 1934 as part of the American All-Star team, Moe took home movies of Tokyo Harbor, military installations and industrial areas.

In 1944, he was sent on a somewhat dangerous mission to Germany to collect intelligence on Germany's efforts to build an atom bomb. Berg had orders to shoot the lead physicist, Werner Heisenberg, if he thought the scientist was close to developing nuclear weapons. Fortunately, Berg concluded that the Germans were years away from accomplishing this.

Answer: Marcel Petiot

Petiot was a former mental patient who lured his victims with the promise of safe passage to Argentina in exchange for 25,000 francs. His victims, instead, met a gruesome end. He would inject them with cyanide and incinerate the bodies in a pit of quicklime.

The jig was up when the Gestapo picked him up on suspicion that he was using his office for an escape route, the very thing he pretended to do in the first place. He was held for seven months until the police got wind of the bodies in his basement and arrested him again.

When the war ended, he was convicted and guillotined. Petiot was believed to have murdered as many as 63.

Answer: Noel Coward

Coward was sent over from England to drum up support for the Allied cause. The playwright used his celebrity status to deliver top-secret information to top levels of government, including President Franklin Roosevelt. He actually did his job so well that he allegedly appeared on the Nazi Black List of individuals Hitler wanted killed once Germany invaded England. Coward himself wrote in his diary that "my disguise would be my own reputation as an idiot".