Cambridge Five: Difference between revisions

The Cambridge Five (sometimes known as the Cambridge Four) was a ring of traitors and spies in the UK who passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and into the early 1950s. It has been suggested they may also have passed Soviet disinformation to the Nazis. The ring included Kim Philby (cryptonym: Stanley), Donald Duart Maclean (cryptonym: Homer), Guy Burgess (cryptonym: Hicks), Anthony Blunt (cryptonym: Johnson), and John Cairncross (cryptonym: Liszt) - identified as the 'fifth man' in the Cambridge spy ring by Oleg Gordievsky. Several other persons have been accused of being members over the years.

Their name refers to the fact that all members became committed Communists while attending Cambridge University in the 1930s. There is some conjecture as to the precise dates they were recruited to Soviet intelligence; Anthony Blunt claimed that it did not happen until after they had graduated. Both Burgess and Blunt were Apostles - a secret, elite debating society based around Trinity and King's Colleges. It is not believed they were recruited by Blunt, though he was an active recruiter and Apostle as well as being Fellow at Trinity where the others were undergraduates. John Cairncross, another Apostle, suspected by many of being the so-called 'Fifth Man', was not formally identified as such until 1990. Other Apostles accused of spying for the Soviets included Michael Whitney Straight, Nathaniel Rothschild, research fellow Lewis Daly, and Guy Liddell.

All four were active during World War II, to various degrees of success. Philby, when he was posted in the British Embassy in Washington after the war, learned that the U.S. and the British were searching for a British Embassy mole who was passing information to the Soviet Union under to codename Homer. Philby learned that one of the suspects was Maclean. Realizing that he had to act fast, he ordered Burgess, who was in the embassy and staying with him, to warn Maclean in England. Burgess was recalled from the United States due to 'bad behaviour' and upon reaching London, warned Maclean. In 1951, Burgess and Maclean made international headlines by very publicly defecting to the Soviet Union. It was immediately apparent to investigators that they had been tipped off, and Philby quickly became a prime suspect due to his close relations with Burgess. Though Burgess was not supposed to defect at the same time as Maclean, he did for unknown reasons. This monumental mistake on Burgess' part damaged Philby's reputation, with many speculating that, had this not been the case, Philby could have climbed even higher in the SIS. Investigation of Philby found several suspicious matters but nothing for which he could be prosecuted, and he was forced to resign from SIS. He was named in the press as chief suspect for "the Third Man" in 1955, and called a press conference to deny the allegation. He left the secret service and began working as a journalist in the Middle East. In 1961, defector Anatoliy Golitsyn provided information which pointed to Philby. An MI5 agent and a personal friend of Philby from his MI6 days, Nicolas Elliott, was sent to interview him in Beirut, and reported that Philby knew he was coming (indicating the presence of yet another mole). Nevertheless, Philby freely confessed. Shortly afterward, apparently fearing he might be abducted in Lebanon, Philby defected to the Soviet Union.

By 1979 Blunt was publicly accused of being a Soviet agent by investigative journalist Andrew Boyle, in his book Climate of Treason. In November 1979, then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher admitted to the House of Commons that Blunt had confessed to being a Soviet spy fifteen years previously. As he was without access to classified information, he had secretly been granted formal immunity by the Attorney General in exchange for revealing everything he knew. He provided a considerable amount of information, and preventing the Soviets from discovering his confession would increased the value of its information.

The "Five" were so named in 1961 when KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn named Maclean and Burgess as part of a "Ring of Five", with Philby a 'probable' third alongside two other agents whom he did not know. Of all the information provided by Golitsyn, the only item that was ever independently confirmed was the exposure of John Vassall. Vassall was a relatively low ranking spy whom some researchers believe may have been sacrificed to protect a more senior one. At the time of Golitsyn's defection Philby had already been accused in the press and was living in a country with no extradition agreement with Britain. Select members of MI5 and MI6 already knew Philby to be a spy from VENONA decryptions. Golitsyn also provided other information that is widely regarded as highly improbable, such as the claim that Harold Wilson (then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) was a KGB agent. To this day Golitsyn's reliability remains a controversial subject, and as such there is little certainty of the actual number of agents he assigned to the Cambridge spy ring. To add to the confusion, when Blunt finally confessed, he nominated several other people as among those he had recruited.

Altogether, at least twelve persons have been seriously indicated as possible members of Golitsyn's "Ring of Five".

On the basis of the information provided by Golitsyn, speculation raged for many years as to the identity of "the Fifth Man". The journalistic popularity of this phrase owes something to the unrelated novels, The Third Man and The Tenth Man, by Graham Greene who, coincidentally, knew the Cambridge spies. It is now widely accepted that the spy ring probably had more than five members, possibly many more, since three other persons are known to have confessed, several more were nominated in a confession, and strong circumstantial cases have been made against others. The extent to which the following suspects can be regarded as members of "the Ring", or mereley a list of Soviet spies, depends on the degree to which they knew and cooperated with one another. The degree of this cooperation remains largely unknown; even Philby, Burgess, and Maclean operated largely on an individual basis.

• John Cairncross (1913–1995), confessed in 1951; this was publicly revealed in 1990. He was also accused by Anthony Blunt during his confession in 1964.
• Sir Roger Hollis (1905-1973), (at the time Director of MI5) accused by Arthur S. Martin (head of MI5's Soviet counter-intelligence section at the time), Peter Wright (MI5 officer assigned to investigate Hollis) and Chapman Pincher (investigative journalist who produced several exposés of failures in British counter-intelligence).
• Guy Liddell (1892–1958), a close friend of Burgess and Rees, was accused of being a spy by an anonymous informer in 1949. This was eventually written off as Soviet disinformation, but it permanently harmed his career. He was accused specifically of being a member of the Cambridge Spy Ring in the death-bed confession of Goronwy Rees in 1979.
• Goronwy Rees (1909–1979), a close friend of Burgess and Liddell, admitted under interrogation in 1951 that he had known Burgess was a spy; then made a death-bed confession of being one himself in 1979, also accusing Guy Liddell of having been a member of the Ring.
• Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild (1910–1990) accused by Roland Perry in his book, The Fifth Man (London: Pan Books, 1994). Rothschild was a member, along with Blunt and Burgess, of the Cambridge Apostles.
• Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), In Kimberley Cornish's controversial book The Jew of Linz, the author argues that as a Trinity College don, Wittgenstein recruited the Trinity College spies Burgess, Philby and Blunt (and Maclean, from nearby Trinity Hall) for the Soviet Union.
• Peter Ashby, accused by Anthony Blunt during his confession in 1964.
• Leo Long (later an intelligence officer), accused by Anthony Blunt during his confession in 1964.
• Lewis Daly, a research fellow of Anthropology at Wolfson College, accused by Anthony Blunt during his confession in 1964.
• Brian Symon, accused by Anthony Blunt during his confession in 1964.

• A Question of Attribution (dramatization of Blunt's term as Keeper of the Queen's Pictures), An Englishman Abroad (dramatization of Burgess in Russia), and The Old Country (about a fictional Philby-esque spy in exile), all by Alan Bennett.
• Another Country (loosely based on Guy Burgess' life) by Julian Mitchell.
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John le Carré, is loosely based on the Cambridge Five events.
• A Perfect Spy, by John Le Carré (New York 1986). Events in the life of the character Magnus Pym are partly based upon the life and career of Kim Philby.
• Dennis Potter's 1971 television play Traitor features a central character called Adrian Harris (John Le Mesurier) being interviewed in his Moscow flat by western newspaper reporters, eager to get the story on his defection. Harris appears to be a composite of Philby, Burgess and Maclean. Potter later returned to similar territory with Blade on the Feather (1980), inspired by the unmasking of Anthony Blunt, although in this drama the protagonist Jason Cavendish (Donald Pleasance) is clearly modeled after Philby. Philby is later name-checked as the sports reporter on The Daily Telegraph in Potter's Lipstick on Your Collar (1993), and appears to be giving inside tips on horse-races to officials at the War Office.
• The Untouchable (novel) by John Banville. The character Victor Maskell seems to be a combination of Anthony Blunt and poet Louis MacNeice.
• Cambridge Spies (BBC Drama) with Toby Stephens as Kim Philby, Tom Hollander as Guy Burgess, Rupert Penry-Jones as Donald Maclean, and Samuel West as Anthony Blunt.
• Philby, Burgess and Maclean (TV show), 1977 Granada Television drama-documentary, recently re-broadcast on BBC Four, with Derek Jacobi as Burgess.
• Escape (TV show), drama-documentary on Philby's defection, recently re-broadcast on BBC Four.
• Blunt: the Fourth Man, television drama, with Anthony Hopkins as Guy Burgess and Ian Richardson as Anthony Blunt.
• High Season (1987 movie) includes a character named "Sharp", fleeing England before being unmasked as a spy.
• In Alan Moore's graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, there appears a Cambridge Five analogue consisting of the Famous Five from Greyfriars School, including Harry Wharton who would become Big Brother, Bob Kim Cherry (named after Kim Philby) who would be also known as Harry Lime and subsequently M or Mother, Francis Alexander Waverly (possibly formerly known as Frank Nugent) and Sir John Night (possibly formerly known as John Bull).
• The Fourth Protocol, a novel by Frederick Forsyth uses a fictionalised Kim Philby as a central character, who conspires to smuggle a portable nuclear weapon into Britain.
• Burgess, Maclean and Philby appear in the Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventure novel Endgame dealing with their defection to Russia.
• The Channel 4 education show KNTV features a character called 'Burgess MacPhilbin', who provides information for teenagers in the form of a spy dossier.

• Portland Spy Ring
• Jim Skardon
• Yuri Modin

• The Cambridge Five at the Crime Library
• An award-winning essay on the Cambridge Spy Ring at the Education Forum