15 Biggest Traitors in History

6a

10 – Brutus,

10b

  • Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger was part of one of history’s blackest betrayals.
  • He was the nephew of the dictator Julius Caesar, but despised tyrannies. Julius Caesar showed Brutus kindness and mercy, despite his ill-advised alliance with the Optimates during the Great Roman Civil War.
  • There is speculation that Brutus was actually Caesar’s son. Whether or not this is true, the two definitely had a close relationship.
  • After the war, Brutus is persuaded by Cassius to join in one of the most famous assassinations in all of history. Brutus joined with the Roman senators, who savagely killed Caesar during the height of the revolution.
  • According to Plutarch, Caesar covered his head with his toga when he saw Brutus among the assassins, resigning himself to his fate. Shakespeare evokes this scene with the line ‘Et tu, Brutus?’, meaning ‘Even you, Brutus?’ Supposedly these were Caesar’s last words.

9 – Jane Fonda,

9b

  • American celebrity Jane Fonda – best known for her successful workout tapes and as the daughter of legendary Hollywood personality, Henry Fonda – played a controversial role as an activist and self-appointed peace ambassador during the Vietnam War.
  • Fonda was apolitical until meeting Army private Richard Perrin in 1968, when she became swept up in the ‘Resistance Inside the Army’ movement, an underground organisation of active-duty soldiers who opposed the Vietnam War. Fonda became convinced the Vietnam War was immoral and that it was inflicting unnecessary trauma on American troops.
  • Fonda was invited to North Vietnam, where she met some American POWs. These prisoners passed Fonda messages to relay to their families; they wanted them to know they were still alive. Fonda, however, relinquished the messages to the North Vietnamese, which resulted in harsher treatment and even death for some of the POWs responsible.
  • There is an infamous picture from this period of Fonda at the controls of an anti-aircraft gun. She is despised for undermining American military efforts with propaganda-laden radio broadcasts. Fonda claimed the American POWs who endured systematic torture and inhumane conditions were ‘hypocrites’, ‘liars’ and that they were ‘trying to make themselves look self-righteous’.
  • Allegedly, one of the post-Vietnam traditions of the United States Naval Academy is that if one sailor shouts ‘Good night, Jane Fonda!’ his or her entire training company must respond ‘Good night, bitch!’

8 – Benedict Arnold,

8b

  • At the dawn of the American Revolutionary War, Benedict Arnold was a successful American commander: he helped capture Fort Ticonderoga and was instrument in winning the Battle of Saratoga, which was the turning point of the war.
  • Unfortunately, Arnold was not given credit for either success. His short temper and bureaucratic naivete earned him powerful enemies within the Continental Army and, instead of becoming an American hero, he was brought down and disgraced by his adversaries.
  • Feeling scorned by his own country, Arnold offered to sell the coveted West Point to the British. The plot was exposed when a British spy, Major John Andre, was captured. Arnold fled and joined the British army, where he led raids against the Americans.
  • According to myth, Arnold regretted his treason on his London deathbed: ‘Let me die in this old uniform in which I fought my battles. May God forgive me for ever having put on another.’
  • However, to this day, Arnold’s name remains synonymous with ‘traitor’.

7 – Wang Jingwei,

7a

  • Wang Jingwei began as a left-wing member of the anti-communist Chinese Nationalist Party in the days of the Republic.
  • After the death of his close associate, Wang struggled with Chiang Kai-shek for control of the party. Chiang ultimately proved successful. Wang remained a member of the party despite becoming rightist and opposing many of the party’s ideologies.
  • When the Japanese invaded in 1937, Wang accepted the invading armies’ invitation to set up a puppet government in Nanjing. This became known as the Reorganised National Government.
  • Wang died in 1944, and his collaborationist regime fell after Japan’s surrender. Today, he is seen as a classic example of a hanjian, or a traitor to the Han Chinese.

6 – John A. Walker,

6a

  • John A. Walker, a United States Navy Chief Warrant Officer and communications specialist, famously pulled off the biggest betrayal in naval history for twenty long years before he was finally arrested by the FBI in 1985.
  • Walker began spying for the Soviets in 1968. Distraught over financial problems, he walked into the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C., sold a top secret document for several thousand dollars, and negotiated an ongoing salary of $1,000 a week.
  • During his time as a Soviet spy, Walker helped the Soviets decipher more than one million encrypted naval messages. He organised a spy operation that The New York Times called ‘the most damaging Soviet spy ring in history’. His espionage gravely damaged the US Navy and enabled the Soviet Union to gain significant access to naval warfare, sensor data and tactical information.
  • He was arrested thanks to a tip-off from his jilted ex-wife after he refused to pay her spousal support.

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