Spymaster

For other uses, see Spymaster (comics).

A spymaster is a ring leader of a spy ring, run by a secret service.

Historical spymasters

• Cardinal Richelieu (Kingdom of France)
• Dai Li (Republic of China)
• David Kimche (Israel)
• Francis Walsingham (Elizabethan era England)
• Hamid Gul (Pakistan)
• James Jesus Angleton (United States)
• J. Edgar Hoover Longtime head of America's FBI (United States).
• Joseph Peters (Soviet Union)
• George Washington and the Culper Ring (United States)
• Mansfield Smith-Cumming (United Kingdom)
• Markus Wolf, known as "Spymaster's Spymaster" (East Germany)
• Michael Collins (Ireland)
• Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev (Russian Empire)
• R. N. Kao (India)
• Isser Harel (Israel)
• Semyon Semyonov (Soviet Union)
• Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Sengoku era Japan)
• William Stephenson, one of the real-life inspirations for James Bond (Canada, United Kingdom)
• William Wickham (England)

Fictional spymasters

• M, the head of MI6 in Ian Fleming's James Bond series.
• Arvin Sloane, a character in the American TV series Alias
• The fan community of the anime/manga Naruto places Jiraiya as the spymaster for the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
• Lord Varys, the Master of Whisperers, is a spymaster of the King's Small Council in Westeros, from George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice And Fire.
• Hiram Burrows is the Empire Spymaster in the game "Dishonored", who later becomes the first Lord Regent, the main antagonist in the game.
• Colonel Nick Fury is the Marvel spymaster and leading agent of the fictional espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D.
• George Smiley (Britain) and Karla (Soviet Union) in John le Carrée novels.