(This entry is a summary of a talk given on July 12, 2010 by Nigel West on board Queen Mary 2, headed from New York to Southhampton, UK. Disclaimer: Any errors or omissions in the following are totally my own and should not be attributed to Nigel West.)
What is the real story of the Maclean and Burgess escape?
On May 25, 1951, Maclean and Burgess defected, leaving the U.K.
Maclean’s phones were bugged, and his telephone made permanently live so anything said in the house would be heard. MI5 felt he was bottle up. On his 44th birthday he received a surprise call. An old friend happened by for dinner. Twice during dinner both men went outside to get cool. At the end of the dinner Maclean said that he and “Roger Stiles” were going out. They went to a ferry, departed at midnight, and were last seen in Cherbourg. Immigration spotted Maclean and alerted MI5.
There was panic in MI5 since he was supposed to be picked up on Monday (they left on Sunday). The agent who was to follow Maclean had an expired passport and could not get out of France (Dick White). Maclean’s wife didn’t know they were fleeing and MI5 pretended they knew nothing.
Why did Burgess pretend he was Stiles? Linda was also a Soviet spy. It was not known until Petrov that all of these were spies.
[According to other sources, Linda, Maclean’s wife, decided to be a full-time wife to Maclean. Although never a spy herself, she did not reveal what she did know about her husband’s activities.]
This had an enormous impact on British intelligence. To this day we do not know how they got from Cherbourg to Moscow. Nobody had suspected Burgess, although he was a “bad boy” and was about to be sacked for his antics. It was unthinkable that significant people in the Secret Service could be traitors. Traitors were supposed to be foreigners.
Obviously the Cambridge spies were not quite what they seemed to be. Their careers had been positive in the service. Burgess got promotions in spite of his bouts of drunkenness and his flamboyant life style. Maclean had access to materials that he passed on. Burgess’ brother was an MI5 officer, thus from position and relations Burgess had access to many politicians (also because of his on-and-off again stints at BBC.) He was “plugged ion.” He was even used to operate a secret radio station to broadcast anti-Nazi propaganda. He also worked for MI5. He was not just a middle-level officer.
Anthony Blunt was a friend of Burgess. He was a talent spotter. He studied languages at Cambridge and was fluent in French. He joined MI5 in June 1940. He was very bright, and attracted the attention of the B division of MI5. He was asked to examine the efficiency of the Watcher Service. Blunt reassured the Soviets that the British had no permanent surveillance of the Soviet Embassy in London. Among the things he passed to the Soviets was the closely held operation XXX (“Triplex” This operation is detailed in the book by Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev, Triplex). Blunt was the MI5 officer tasked with retrieving documents from neutral diplomatic pouches.
When it was known that Burgess had disappeared it was Blunt who gave access to Burgess’ flat, and he helped with the search. The search turned up a letter from Philby that nobody had seen. It was under Burgess’ bed in a suitcase full of documents. It was clear some of the material had come from the Foreign Office as early as 1939. A woman in MI5 recognized the handwriting of John Cairncross, who now also became contaminated by Burgess.
Cairncross was cool, denying passing knowingly anything. While at Bletchley Park, however, he stole literally thousands of Enigma transcripts. He actually helped the Soviets to win the Battle of Kursk. Cairncross also was sent to SIS to work for Philby. At that time, Cairncross did not know Philby was a spy, or any other spies as such.
After the war Cairncross worked for the Ministry of Supply to the branch planning Britain’s nuclear power stations. This was highly important to the Soviets. In May, 1951, when the defections occurred he resigned from the Civil Service. He went to the U.S. to teach at Northwestern University. Later he was expelled from the U.S.
The book, Spycatcher (Wright, Peter. Spycatcher: The Candid Autobiography of a Senior Intelligence Officer. New York: Viking, 1987) is an accurate book. It is notorious in British circles, since it was a direct challenge to Britain’s Official Secrets Act. The government tried its best to suppress printing of the book.
Mrs. Thatcher, as Prime Minister, was horrified at the lurid details. She stripped Blunt of his honors (knighthood) and his position in 1979.
MI5 tried to find who tipped off Burgess and Maclean. Philby was brought back and questioned. He was sacked in 1951. Blunt was interviewed 13 times. MI5 could not break these people. Blunt lost his KGB protection. He finally admitted passing classified material. He was a long-term spy recruited in Cambridge.
The FBI thought it could help MI5, because they had a source in Washington who said Blunt was recrui8ted at Cambridge. This was Michael Whitney Straight. Straight was a contemporary of Blunt Cambridge and admitted that he had joined the Communist Party while there. He was also a lover of Blunt.
Straight’s background was not fully known by the FBI. He volunteered to the U.S. State Department. He was nominated by President Kennedy to be head of the National Endowment for the Arts. Fearing he would face a security test after the defections in 1951 he went to the FBI, confessed, and fingered Blunt.
In Britain, agent Arthur Martin convinced Blunt to confess. He gave immunity to Blunt to get information on recruitment at Cambridge. He let Blunt know that if he cooperated he would not be prosecuted. Blunt gave a tailored confession in April, 1964.
Philby died in 1988 in Moscow. Burgess died in 1963. He lived a miserable life after going to Moscow where he was badly treated. Soon after arrival he was beaten up by a group of thugs who knocked out half his teeth. He always wore his Eton tie and longed for England. Maclean became part of an East-West think tank and was highly regarded by the Soviets. He was given full military honors after his death in 1983. Blunt also died in 1983.
In 1990 the Soviet defector Oleg Gordievsky claimed that Cairncross was the “Fifth Man.” Cairncross was never charged with any offence. Cairncross worked as a translator for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. When he retired he went to live in South France. He died in 1995.
In interviews on BBC not long before he died, he claimed it was youthful indiscretion and that he was never a traitor to his country.MI5 wrote a set of total lies about Burgess and Maclean for public consumption.
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