Ever since the 1950s, when the world got wind of the three letters that stood for the Soviet Union's intelligence agency, KGB spies -- with their (real or imagined) bug-planting lifestyles and sexy accomplices -- have provided endless material for thrilling novels, movies, and comic books. The fascination continues even now: In 2011, the U.S. television network FX announced the pilot of a new series about KGB spies living in Washington, D.C., in the 1980s.
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In the latest issue of Foreign Policy, retired CIA officer Milton Bearden remembers his Soviet counterpart Leonid Shebarshin, who died in an apparent suicide in March 2012. The former head of the KGB's foreign intelligence division, who served as KGB chairman for all of one day after his boss attempted a coup in 1991, remained loyal to the agency his entire life and spent his post-KGB days in Moscow.
That can't be said for all KGB spies, however. Over the years, the lives of several Soviet spooks have come to light as they defected from the agency and turned up in Britain or the United States, in some cases with armloads of notes to share.
Here's a look at some of the KGB's best-known former spies and what life was like for them during and after their stints in one of the world's most formidable intelligence services.
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