At the University of Cambridge in the 1930s, Guy Burgess (1911-63) was in a group of upper middle-class students who believed that capitalism could never be democratic and that Germany, USA and UK were rapidly moving to the right.
His friends, all examples of class privilege, were Donald Maclean (1913–1983), Kim Philby (1912–1988) & Anthony Blunt (1907–1983). The 4 men were recruited by Soviet intelligence operatives to become secret agents; Burgess began supplying information from his posts as a BBC correspondent 1936-8, member of the MI6 intelligence agency from 1938-41, and a member of the British Foreign Office from 1944. But it was the older Blunt who became the recruiter.
In 1951 Burgess was recalled from his post as 2nd secretary of Washington DC’s British embassy, due to his drunkedness. Back in Southampton he learned that a counterintelligence investigation by British and US agencies was closing in on his Cambridge mate Maclean. He immediately told Blunt!
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The five Cambridge Spies
Philby was forced to leave MI6, but even then his charm fooled those at the top. He was strongly defended by Sir Stewart Menzies, wartime head of MI6, who believed Philby was a patriotic officer and victim of an MI5 witch hunt.
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Andrew Lownie's book, 2020
Lownie said Burgess was very open about his communism and homosexuality but people didn’t necessarily believe most things Guy said. He was a very amusing talker and a natural liar… a natural cover for a spy. He seemed to charm anyone he sought, had a close personal relationship with Churchill and attracted an array of contacts as he flitted between MI5, MI6, BBC and the Foreign Office. His open defiance of security procedures was indulged because the Foreign Office trusted their family.
Given the sheer quantity of information the Cambridge spy ring members passed on to their Russian handlers, it was not surprising that paranoid Stalin suspected them of being agents provocateurs planted by British intelligence. Basing his claims on a wide range of sources, Lownie believed Burgess revealed to Moscow important secrets:
1.prewar arguments over appeasement,
2.details of the planned Sicily landings (1943)
3.decision to postpone an invasion of France (1944),
4.British and American position on Berlin’s postwar status,
5.early negotiations re setting up Nato, and
6.advance notice of US military plans in the Korean war.
In 1963 the British ex-pats were joined in Russia by their old colleague Philby. Alas Burgess died of a heart attack that year! Blunt and Cairncross were offered immunity from prosecution before being outed many years later.
From the day he emigrated, Burgess attracted biographers. But Lownie wrote the first biography that captured the decadent, drunkard sex bandit, and was the first book to reveal the full extent of Burgess's treason. Even so, Lownie showed that the story of the Cambridge spy ring continues to shock. A million Foreign Office files are still being kept secret, and many more books are yet to be written.
His friends, all examples of class privilege, were Donald Maclean (1913–1983), Kim Philby (1912–1988) & Anthony Blunt (1907–1983). The 4 men were recruited by Soviet intelligence operatives to become secret agents; Burgess began supplying information from his posts as a BBC correspondent 1936-8, member of the MI6 intelligence agency from 1938-41, and a member of the British Foreign Office from 1944. But it was the older Blunt who became the recruiter.
In 1951 Burgess was recalled from his post as 2nd secretary of Washington DC’s British embassy, due to his drunkedness. Back in Southampton he learned that a counterintelligence investigation by British and US agencies was closing in on his Cambridge mate Maclean. He immediately told Blunt!
To avoid prosecution, Burgess and Maclean left the UK and fled to France. Their location remained unknown until 1956, when they announced they were living in Moscow. A shaky Whitehall establishment mounted a desperate damage limitation exercise, downplaying the significance of the Cambridge spies.
Was there a sixth?
photo: Irish Examiner
Philby was forced to leave MI6, but even then his charm fooled those at the top. He was strongly defended by Sir Stewart Menzies, wartime head of MI6, who believed Philby was a patriotic officer and victim of an MI5 witch hunt.
It was disclosed in 1979 that the Fourth Man in this spy ring was former Cambridge colleague Anthony Blunt, a respected art historian and member of the queen’s household, and that he had contacted Soviet agents to arrange for Burgess and Maclean’s flight.
But John Cairncross (1913–1995), British literary scholar and civil servant, was not identified until the 1990s as the Fifth Man in the Cambridge Spy Ring. He worked initially in the Foreign Office, then Treasury and then Cabinet Office. In 1942-33 he worked in Bletchley Park and joined MI6 in 1944. When he was at Bletchley Park, Cairncross passed secret documents to the Soviet Union. In Sept 1951, he was questioned about his connexion with Maclean. Cairncross did not admit to spying until MI5 found papers in Burgess' flat with a note from him, after Burgess escaped to Moscow.
Is there anything significant left to say about the Cambridge spy ring, Moscow Centre’s Magnificent Five? Yes! People assumed that Guy Burgess did little harm. But in Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess(2020), Andrew Lownie discussed the culture of a British elite in the 1930s, during the war and after. Lownie’s latest revelations argued that, far from being a minor, alcoholic irritant, Burgess for years passed on thousands of classified documents to Moscow. Many of the documents contained very useful information, including the west’s position on key issues when the cold war started. Burgess helped to get Philby a post in MI6, and persuaded the Russians to recruit Blunt and Cairncross. Burgess held the group together.
Burgess not only spied for Moscow, but on behalf of competing factions within the British government. He spied on Neville Chamberlain for MI6 and the Foreign Office. At one stage, he found himself in MI5 as one of its agents! MI6 suggested he should penetrate the Russians by arranging to get a Communist party post in Moscow, so he was simultaneously running agents for both British and Soviet intelligence. Moscow Centre thought MI6’s suggestion was too risky for the animated Burgess and a distraction from the main goal of penetrating British intelligence.
Lownie discovered a memoir in Oxford’s Bodleian library by Sir Patrick Reilly, in which the ex-chairman of Whitehall’s Joint Intelligence Committee described Wilfrid Mann, an atomic scientist who worked for MI6 in Washington, as a Soviet spy. Lownie claimed Mann confessed and in return agreed to spy for the CIA.
Burgess was indiscreet, gay when it was illegal, promiscuous, drunk and a man who drove badly, so he survived brilliantly in the bohemian circles of the British establishment (eg Harold Nicolson, Victor Rothschild). But how did he thrive among senior MI5 and MI6 officers and diplomats at the centre of Whitehall, with its powerful decision-making.
But John Cairncross (1913–1995), British literary scholar and civil servant, was not identified until the 1990s as the Fifth Man in the Cambridge Spy Ring. He worked initially in the Foreign Office, then Treasury and then Cabinet Office. In 1942-33 he worked in Bletchley Park and joined MI6 in 1944. When he was at Bletchley Park, Cairncross passed secret documents to the Soviet Union. In Sept 1951, he was questioned about his connexion with Maclean. Cairncross did not admit to spying until MI5 found papers in Burgess' flat with a note from him, after Burgess escaped to Moscow.
Is there anything significant left to say about the Cambridge spy ring, Moscow Centre’s Magnificent Five? Yes! People assumed that Guy Burgess did little harm. But in Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess(2020), Andrew Lownie discussed the culture of a British elite in the 1930s, during the war and after. Lownie’s latest revelations argued that, far from being a minor, alcoholic irritant, Burgess for years passed on thousands of classified documents to Moscow. Many of the documents contained very useful information, including the west’s position on key issues when the cold war started. Burgess helped to get Philby a post in MI6, and persuaded the Russians to recruit Blunt and Cairncross. Burgess held the group together.
Burgess not only spied for Moscow, but on behalf of competing factions within the British government. He spied on Neville Chamberlain for MI6 and the Foreign Office. At one stage, he found himself in MI5 as one of its agents! MI6 suggested he should penetrate the Russians by arranging to get a Communist party post in Moscow, so he was simultaneously running agents for both British and Soviet intelligence. Moscow Centre thought MI6’s suggestion was too risky for the animated Burgess and a distraction from the main goal of penetrating British intelligence.
Lownie discovered a memoir in Oxford’s Bodleian library by Sir Patrick Reilly, in which the ex-chairman of Whitehall’s Joint Intelligence Committee described Wilfrid Mann, an atomic scientist who worked for MI6 in Washington, as a Soviet spy. Lownie claimed Mann confessed and in return agreed to spy for the CIA.
Burgess was indiscreet, gay when it was illegal, promiscuous, drunk and a man who drove badly, so he survived brilliantly in the bohemian circles of the British establishment (eg Harold Nicolson, Victor Rothschild). But how did he thrive among senior MI5 and MI6 officers and diplomats at the centre of Whitehall, with its powerful decision-making.
Lownie said Burgess was very open about his communism and homosexuality but people didn’t necessarily believe most things Guy said. He was a very amusing talker and a natural liar… a natural cover for a spy. He seemed to charm anyone he sought, had a close personal relationship with Churchill and attracted an array of contacts as he flitted between MI5, MI6, BBC and the Foreign Office. His open defiance of security procedures was indulged because the Foreign Office trusted their family.
Given the sheer quantity of information the Cambridge spy ring members passed on to their Russian handlers, it was not surprising that paranoid Stalin suspected them of being agents provocateurs planted by British intelligence. Basing his claims on a wide range of sources, Lownie believed Burgess revealed to Moscow important secrets:
1.prewar arguments over appeasement,
2.details of the planned Sicily landings (1943)
3.decision to postpone an invasion of France (1944),
4.British and American position on Berlin’s postwar status,
5.early negotiations re setting up Nato, and
6.advance notice of US military plans in the Korean war.
In 1963 the British ex-pats were joined in Russia by their old colleague Philby. Alas Burgess died of a heart attack that year! Blunt and Cairncross were offered immunity from prosecution before being outed many years later.
From the day he emigrated, Burgess attracted biographers. But Lownie wrote the first biography that captured the decadent, drunkard sex bandit, and was the first book to reveal the full extent of Burgess's treason. Even so, Lownie showed that the story of the Cambridge spy ring continues to shock. A million Foreign Office files are still being kept secret, and many more books are yet to be written.