before the gallows where he reportedly uttered his famous final
words: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
Astatue of Nathan Hale is now located in front of Central Intelli-
gence Agency(CIA) headquarters, inscribed with his statement.HALL, VIRGINIA (1906–1982).The first female agent of the Office
of Strategic Services(OSS), Virginia Hall was the unlikeliest spy.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she had long wanted to enter America’s
foreign service but was turned down because she was a woman miss-
ing a leg that she had lost in a hunting incident in Turkey. When
World War IIcame, she enlisted with the British Special Opera-
tions Executive(SOE), for whom she organized a spy network in
Vichy France and liaised with the French underground. Her daring
escapades brought her to the attention of both the German Gestapo—
the Germans referred to her as the woman with a limp—and the
American OSS. However, her tradecraft was such that she eluded the
Germans and helped coordinate airdrops in support of the Allied
landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944. Both the British and Ameri-
can governments awarded her their countries’highest decorations af-
ter the war. Virginia Hall joined the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) in 1947 and retired in 1966.HANSSEN, PHILIP (ROBERT) (1945– ).Robert Hanssen, a senior spe-
cial agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with more than
27 years of experience, was arrested in February 2001 on charges of
spying for the Soviet Unionand its successor, Russia. According to
postmortem damage assessments, Hanssen provided the Russians with
more than 6,000 pages of highly classified documentary material, and
he compromised numerous human sources and technical operations of
extraordinary importance and value. Hanssen spied for the Russians
from 1979 until his arrest, and he received more than $600,000 in cash
and diamonds for his espionage. To date, he is the highest-ranking FBI
special agent to have committed espionage. Hanssen pled guilty on 6
July 6 2001 to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy charges and was
sentenced to life in prison without parole on 10 May 2002.HARRIMAN, WILLIAM AVERELL (1891–1986).A presidential
advisor from Franklin D. Rooseveltto Ronald Reagan, AverellHARRIMAN, WILLIAM AVERELL•8505-398 (2) Dictionary.qxd 10/20/05 6:27 AM Page 85