Spies

(Newser) - Quantum of Solace doesn't quite measure up to its predecessor, but that's because the Bond makers set the bar so high with Casino Royale , say critics. Daniel Craig returns for his second outing as the superspy, and his cold-blooded but charismatic performance ensures that his "place as the best Bond since Sean Connery remains secure," Joe Neumaier writes in the New York Daily News. More »

(Newser) - Daniel Craig is cutting the camp in his latest turn as super-spy James Bond. In the new 007 film, Quantum of Solace , Craig doesn't instruct a bartender on how to make his cocktail, and there's no "Bond, James Bond" introduction, USA Today reports. "I'm as big a fan as anybody of all his catchphrases and the martini," he said. "But I want to find a new way of doing them." More »

(Newser) - The first shot of a new cold war with Russia may have been fired into a CIA station chief's head in 1993, the Wall Street Journal reports. A vodka-swilling villager was swiftly jailed for the killing of Freddie Woodruff, the top US spy in newly independent Georgia, but that man, rotting in a Tbilisi jail today, says he was framed, and key witnesses have since changed their testimony. More »

(Newser) - Best remembered as one of Scarlett O'Hara’s love interests in Gone with the Wind , actor Leslie Howard was also a British secret agent who died returning from a clandestine war mission on behalf of Winston Churchill, the Guardian reports. The Luftwaffe shot down Howard's plane in 1943 after the actor delivered a secret message to Francisco Franco. More »

(Newser) - The woman set to be Israel's next prime minister started her career as an elite Mossad agent in Paris, the Times of London reports. Tzipi Livni was part of a covert cell in the city during the early '80s, when it was a hotspot in the spy agency's battle with Palestinian militants and with those helping Saddam Hussein get nuclear technology. More »

(Newser) - A co-defendant of Julius and Ethel  Rosenberg has admitted for the first time that he was a Soviet spy—and that she was innocent. Morton Sobell, 91, passed military secrets to the Communists in World War II when the nations were still allies, he told the New York Times . Sobell, who served 18 years for espionage, said Julius did pass secrets but Ethel, executed with her husband in 1953, was guilty of nothing more than being Mrs. Rosenberg. More »

(Newser) - The Bush administration conducted an extensive spying operation on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders even while seeking to win their trust, according to a new book from the Washington Post 's Bob Woodward. The book portrays an administration hamstrung by indecision as its Iraq strategy fell apart in 2006, and a detached president orchestrated "overconfident" briefings on the situation. More »

(Newser) - A federal appeals court today threw out former CIA spy Valerie Plame's lawsuit against Dick Cheney and a group of former Bush White House officials for leaking her identity to the public. The court ruled that Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and former State Department official Richard Armitage were acting within their official duties when they conspired to reveal Plame's identity to the press, Reuters reports. More »

(Newser) - A sweeping overhaul of spy powers will give the director of national intelligence broad new authority, reports the Wall Street Journal . Mike McConnell will be able to command information-sharing between agencies, hire and fire agency heads, and make major purchase decisions under a new executive order signed yesterday by President Bush and to be announced today, say officials briefed on the changes. More »