(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.
Showing posts with label Cambridge 5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cambridge 5. Show all posts
Thursday, August 12, 2010
29. Defectors
(This entry is a summary of a talk given on July 11, 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.)
Defectors are individuals who physically switch sides in a conflict and change their allegiance to an adversary. [See West, Nigel (2002). Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. Lantham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, p. 81] Defectors are usually self-selected.
Firstly, defectors do not usually have the motivation claimed: the sudden declared interest in democratic values is suspect. Second, agencies to which a person defects typically do not believe the defector’s claims, regardless of the “forensic evidence” the agency may claim about the motivation. Third, really good agents recruit themselves. We will sometimes turn them away
Sometimes we are overwhelmed with defectors. They are the best sources of information, and the only really good Humint comes from defectors. Most realize that going back to Russia, or their home countries, would be a disaster. Still, they may have a hard time selling themselves in the West.
Agencies frequently give serious consideration to giving defectors back, as was the case for the first defector from the USSR in December, 1945 in Ottawa. Igor Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviets. He knew the Rezident, Pavlov and he had good knowledge of the GRU. He brought with him 109 documents including a diary, telegrams, and the names of 23 Soviet spies.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) recognized a gold mine, but didn’t know how to use it. One of the spies named by Gouzenko was set to go to London (code name ERIC). The Brits were interested but couldn’t move. Washington recognized ALECK was a hot case.
First, it appeared that ERIC was a nuclear physicist from Cambridge, and above suspicion. He had worked at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. It turned out it could only be Allan Nunn May. He was put under surveillance in London. An MI5 agent, Klop Ustinov (father of the actor Peter Ustinov) was used to meet May. May was tipped off and didn’t show. By February, however, all 23 spies in Canada were arrested. Most of the 23 were convicted, but all but 2 got got their convictions quashed.
Gouzenko alerted the West to huge Soviet espionage efforts. Up till then, nobody had a clue about what the USSR was doing covertly.
In September, 1945 Konstantin Volkov tried to defect in Istanbul. He revealed that Russia was reading the British signals to London. Even better, he offered what was a bombshell. He was a career NKVD officer and knew all NKVD in Turkey, and in virtually all the world. He said there were 9 Soviet spies in London, 3 in the Foreign Office. One, he said, was filling the role as head of the department of British counterintelligence. It was not clear whether he meant SIS or MI5. Volkov would be expensive to take care of but the information he offered was quite valuable.
The British called in Kim Philby to find who the mole could be. He determined to handle it himself. Bu the time Volkov was to meet Philby, there was no sign of Volkov. Apparently he was kidnapped and taken back to Russia. Philby blamed lax security on the British consulate in Istanbul. It is known that Volkov returned to the Soviet Consulate, from whence he quickly disappeared. The last seen of him was a heavily bandaged figure being hustled aboard a Soviet transport plane bound for Moscow.
Volkov’s revelation haunted MI5 and SIS for years. The hunt went on. In 1947 a GRU defector, and by 1954 the flood gates opened. This provided the information for the first time to really understand soviet Intelligence network. After Stalin died, Beria’s coup attempt failed. Those in NKVD who were close allies of Stalin became worried they would be purged and sought asylum.
Yuri Rastvorov defected to the British but opted to go the U.S. to the CIA. He had learned British intelligence had been penetrated. He provided a wealth of information. Then Nicolai Khokhlov, a hit man for the KGB, and a Ukranian who killed with an ingenious gas gun containing prussic acid defected. Prussic acid left no trace within 15 minutes. Khokhlov could identify people in SMERSH. He had a German girlfriend, very devout, who convinced him to quit.
Another defector, Peter S. Deriabin, described by the Central Intelligence Agency as the highest ranking Soviet intelligence officer to have defected to the West up until 1954, provided huge information. He had been a bodyguard for Stalin. He provided information on decision making in the Kremlin. He was the only defector to become a CIA officer. The so-called Penkovsky Papers were actually the material obtained from Deriabin.
There were two more crucially important defectors in Australia, this being the Petrov case. The Petrovs – Vladimir and Evodokia – came to Australia in February 1951 to work in the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. Vladimir was rezident and Evodokia was a cipher clerk. Vladimir wanted to defect and told everyone. He was concern he was about to be recalled. His dentist was glad to help him out since he was a full-time Australian agent. All Petrov really wanted, he said, was a chicken farm. Of course when he defected all hell broke loose. His wife was taken by Soviet thugs and frog-marched onto a plane bound for Moscow.
An Australian agent arranged for her to get a phone call a Darwin when the plane landed for refueling. She was separated from the thugs in the airport. She was able to talk to her husband. As a result she too defected.
The two of them supplied terrific information. Everyone concerned with the affair seems to have written a book. They were resettled on a chicken farm and never left Australia again.
MI5 interviewed them in Australia in 1954. There was concern about moles in SIS, and also the possibility of fabrication of agents to keep interest up. The Soviet defector in Canada, Igor Gouzenko, had said MI5 knew all the time about moles. MI5 had heard that there was a mole, ELLI, a leading Soviet spy that Sonia aka Ursula Hamburger, Beurton, and Ruth Kuczynski were running in Oxford until 1943. After the British defections it was clear there had been spy penetration. What would Petrov have to say? After the defections in 1951 no one knew where Burgess and Maclean were. Petrov said he knew they were in Moscow. He said they were recruited at university and that there were plenty others.
Suspicion to this point was only on Philby, Burgess, and Maclean, assuming it could never be at the top, only mid-level people of little interest. Now that it was apparent there was much more to be said was truly troubling.
Defectors are individuals who physically switch sides in a conflict and change their allegiance to an adversary. [See West, Nigel (2002). Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence. Lantham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, p. 81] Defectors are usually self-selected.
Firstly, defectors do not usually have the motivation claimed: the sudden declared interest in democratic values is suspect. Second, agencies to which a person defects typically do not believe the defector’s claims, regardless of the “forensic evidence” the agency may claim about the motivation. Third, really good agents recruit themselves. We will sometimes turn them away
Sometimes we are overwhelmed with defectors. They are the best sources of information, and the only really good Humint comes from defectors. Most realize that going back to Russia, or their home countries, would be a disaster. Still, they may have a hard time selling themselves in the West.
Agencies frequently give serious consideration to giving defectors back, as was the case for the first defector from the USSR in December, 1945 in Ottawa. Igor Gouzenko was a cipher clerk for the Soviets. He knew the Rezident, Pavlov and he had good knowledge of the GRU. He brought with him 109 documents including a diary, telegrams, and the names of 23 Soviet spies.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) recognized a gold mine, but didn’t know how to use it. One of the spies named by Gouzenko was set to go to London (code name ERIC). The Brits were interested but couldn’t move. Washington recognized ALECK was a hot case.
First, it appeared that ERIC was a nuclear physicist from Cambridge, and above suspicion. He had worked at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. It turned out it could only be Allan Nunn May. He was put under surveillance in London. An MI5 agent, Klop Ustinov (father of the actor Peter Ustinov) was used to meet May. May was tipped off and didn’t show. By February, however, all 23 spies in Canada were arrested. Most of the 23 were convicted, but all but 2 got got their convictions quashed.
Gouzenko alerted the West to huge Soviet espionage efforts. Up till then, nobody had a clue about what the USSR was doing covertly.
In September, 1945 Konstantin Volkov tried to defect in Istanbul. He revealed that Russia was reading the British signals to London. Even better, he offered what was a bombshell. He was a career NKVD officer and knew all NKVD in Turkey, and in virtually all the world. He said there were 9 Soviet spies in London, 3 in the Foreign Office. One, he said, was filling the role as head of the department of British counterintelligence. It was not clear whether he meant SIS or MI5. Volkov would be expensive to take care of but the information he offered was quite valuable.
The British called in Kim Philby to find who the mole could be. He determined to handle it himself. Bu the time Volkov was to meet Philby, there was no sign of Volkov. Apparently he was kidnapped and taken back to Russia. Philby blamed lax security on the British consulate in Istanbul. It is known that Volkov returned to the Soviet Consulate, from whence he quickly disappeared. The last seen of him was a heavily bandaged figure being hustled aboard a Soviet transport plane bound for Moscow.
Volkov’s revelation haunted MI5 and SIS for years. The hunt went on. In 1947 a GRU defector, and by 1954 the flood gates opened. This provided the information for the first time to really understand soviet Intelligence network. After Stalin died, Beria’s coup attempt failed. Those in NKVD who were close allies of Stalin became worried they would be purged and sought asylum.
Yuri Rastvorov defected to the British but opted to go the U.S. to the CIA. He had learned British intelligence had been penetrated. He provided a wealth of information. Then Nicolai Khokhlov, a hit man for the KGB, and a Ukranian who killed with an ingenious gas gun containing prussic acid defected. Prussic acid left no trace within 15 minutes. Khokhlov could identify people in SMERSH. He had a German girlfriend, very devout, who convinced him to quit.
Another defector, Peter S. Deriabin, described by the Central Intelligence Agency as the highest ranking Soviet intelligence officer to have defected to the West up until 1954, provided huge information. He had been a bodyguard for Stalin. He provided information on decision making in the Kremlin. He was the only defector to become a CIA officer. The so-called Penkovsky Papers were actually the material obtained from Deriabin.
There were two more crucially important defectors in Australia, this being the Petrov case. The Petrovs – Vladimir and Evodokia – came to Australia in February 1951 to work in the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. Vladimir was rezident and Evodokia was a cipher clerk. Vladimir wanted to defect and told everyone. He was concern he was about to be recalled. His dentist was glad to help him out since he was a full-time Australian agent. All Petrov really wanted, he said, was a chicken farm. Of course when he defected all hell broke loose. His wife was taken by Soviet thugs and frog-marched onto a plane bound for Moscow.
An Australian agent arranged for her to get a phone call a Darwin when the plane landed for refueling. She was separated from the thugs in the airport. She was able to talk to her husband. As a result she too defected.
The two of them supplied terrific information. Everyone concerned with the affair seems to have written a book. They were resettled on a chicken farm and never left Australia again.
MI5 interviewed them in Australia in 1954. There was concern about moles in SIS, and also the possibility of fabrication of agents to keep interest up. The Soviet defector in Canada, Igor Gouzenko, had said MI5 knew all the time about moles. MI5 had heard that there was a mole, ELLI, a leading Soviet spy that Sonia aka Ursula Hamburger, Beurton, and Ruth Kuczynski were running in Oxford until 1943. After the British defections it was clear there had been spy penetration. What would Petrov have to say? After the defections in 1951 no one knew where Burgess and Maclean were. Petrov said he knew they were in Moscow. He said they were recruited at university and that there were plenty others.
Suspicion to this point was only on Philby, Burgess, and Maclean, assuming it could never be at the top, only mid-level people of little interest. Now that it was apparent there was much more to be said was truly troubling.
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