Consequences of the United States executing a spy after the Cold War

The recents events around Jonathan Pollard inspirated me about this thread.

The most likely candidate for receiving the federal death penalty for espionnage would be Robert Hanssen (several C.I.A. operatives in the soviet Union ended up executed because of him), if he had been arrested some months later, meaning he wouldn't plead until after 9/11, when the government would want to appear tough on threats against the state.

So, what would be the effects, whether internal and abroad, of a first capital sentence for espionnage since the Rosenbergs on 1954?
 
I don't think there would be any.

The Russians weren't shy about executing any of their nationals working for CIA, MI6, MOSSAD etc.

Sometimes there would be an exchange though usually if they were intelligence officers working as "illegals" or relatively low level agents.
 
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