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Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the Cold War and was active from the 1930s until at least the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for spying. The number and membership of the ring emerged slowly, from the 1950s onwards.
The general public first became aware of the conspiracy in 1951 after the sudden flight of Donald Maclean (1913–1983, codename Homer) and Guy Burgess (1911–1963, codename Hicks) to the Soviet Union. Suspicion immediately fell on Kim Philby (1912–1988, codenames Sonny, Stanley), who eventually fled to the Soviet Union in 1963. Following Philby's flight, British intelligence obtained confessions from Anthony Blunt (1907–1983, codename Johnson) and then John Cairncross (1913–1995, codename Liszt), who have come to be seen as the last two of a group of five. Their involvement was kept secret for many years: until 1979 for Blunt, and 1990 for Cairncross. The moniker "Cambridge Four" evolved to become the Cambridge Five after Cairncross was added.
The group were recruited by the NKVD during their education at the University of Cambridge in the 1930s, but the exact timing is debated. Blunt claimed they were not recruited as agents until after they had graduated. A Fellow of Trinity College, Blunt was several years older than Burgess, Maclean and Philby; he acted as a talent-spotter and recruiter.
The five were convinced that the Marxism–Leninism of Soviet communism was the best available political system and the best defence against fascism. All pursued successful careers in branches of the British government. They passed large amounts of intelligence to the Soviets, so much so that the KGB became suspicious that at least some of it was false. Perhaps as important as the specific state secrets was the demoralising effect to the British establishment of their slow unmasking and the mistrust in British security this caused in the United States.
The five supplied intelligence to the Soviet Union under their NKVD controller, Yuri Modin, who later reported that Soviet intelligence mistrusted the Cambridge double agents during the Second World War and had difficulty believing that the men would have access to top secret documents; they were particularly suspicious of Harold "Kim" Philby, wondering how he could have become a British intelligence officer given his communist past. According to one later report, "About half the documents the British spies sent to Moscow were never even read" due to this distrust. Nonetheless, the Soviets received a great deal of secret information—1,771 documents from Blunt, 4,605 from Burgess, 4,593 from MacLean and 5,832 from Cairncross—from 1941 until 1945.
Donald Maclean met Guy Burgess as a student at the University of Cambridge in the early 1930s. Both of them being ideologically opposed to capitalism, they were recruited by Soviet intelligence operatives and became undercover agents. Maclean began delivering information to the Soviet operatives as a member of the Foreign Office in 1934. Burgess also began supplying information from various positions between 1936 and 1944, first as a BBC correspondent, then as an active member of British intelligence, and then finally as a member of the Foreign Office.
Maclean and Burgess were reportedly seen by their Soviet handlers as "hopeless drunks" as they had a hard time keeping their secret occupations to themselves. It is said that one time, while highly intoxicated, Burgess accidentally dropped one of the secret files he had taken from the Foreign Office while leaving a pub, jeopardizing his second identity. Maclean was also known to have leaked information about his secret activities to his brother and close friends. But although they struggled to keep secrets, that did not stop them from delivering information; Burgess reportedly handed over about 389 top secret documents to the Soviets within the early part of 1945, along with an additional 168 documents in December 1949.
Between 1934 and 1951, Maclean passed numerous secrets to Moscow. The lack of detection was due to the refusal of British intelligence to listen to warnings from the US, "even after the FBI had established that an agent code-named Homer had been operating inside the British embassy in Washington during the war", according to a review of MacLean's biography by Roland Philipps.
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Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the Cold War and was active from the 1930s until at least the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for spying. The number and membership of the ring emerged slowly, from the 1950s onwards.
The general public first became aware of the conspiracy in 1951 after the sudden flight of Donald Maclean (1913–1983, codename Homer) and Guy Burgess (1911–1963, codename Hicks) to the Soviet Union. Suspicion immediately fell on Kim Philby (1912–1988, codenames Sonny, Stanley), who eventually fled to the Soviet Union in 1963. Following Philby's flight, British intelligence obtained confessions from Anthony Blunt (1907–1983, codename Johnson) and then John Cairncross (1913–1995, codename Liszt), who have come to be seen as the last two of a group of five. Their involvement was kept secret for many years: until 1979 for Blunt, and 1990 for Cairncross. The moniker "Cambridge Four" evolved to become the Cambridge Five after Cairncross was added.
The group were recruited by the NKVD during their education at the University of Cambridge in the 1930s, but the exact timing is debated. Blunt claimed they were not recruited as agents until after they had graduated. A Fellow of Trinity College, Blunt was several years older than Burgess, Maclean and Philby; he acted as a talent-spotter and recruiter.
The five were convinced that the Marxism–Leninism of Soviet communism was the best available political system and the best defence against fascism. All pursued successful careers in branches of the British government. They passed large amounts of intelligence to the Soviets, so much so that the KGB became suspicious that at least some of it was false. Perhaps as important as the specific state secrets was the demoralising effect to the British establishment of their slow unmasking and the mistrust in British security this caused in the United States.
The five supplied intelligence to the Soviet Union under their NKVD controller, Yuri Modin, who later reported that Soviet intelligence mistrusted the Cambridge double agents during the Second World War and had difficulty believing that the men would have access to top secret documents; they were particularly suspicious of Harold "Kim" Philby, wondering how he could have become a British intelligence officer given his communist past. According to one later report, "About half the documents the British spies sent to Moscow were never even read" due to this distrust. Nonetheless, the Soviets received a great deal of secret information—1,771 documents from Blunt, 4,605 from Burgess, 4,593 from MacLean and 5,832 from Cairncross—from 1941 until 1945.
Donald Maclean met Guy Burgess as a student at the University of Cambridge in the early 1930s. Both of them being ideologically opposed to capitalism, they were recruited by Soviet intelligence operatives and became undercover agents. Maclean began delivering information to the Soviet operatives as a member of the Foreign Office in 1934. Burgess also began supplying information from various positions between 1936 and 1944, first as a BBC correspondent, then as an active member of British intelligence, and then finally as a member of the Foreign Office.
Maclean and Burgess were reportedly seen by their Soviet handlers as "hopeless drunks" as they had a hard time keeping their secret occupations to themselves. It is said that one time, while highly intoxicated, Burgess accidentally dropped one of the secret files he had taken from the Foreign Office while leaving a pub, jeopardizing his second identity. Maclean was also known to have leaked information about his secret activities to his brother and close friends. But although they struggled to keep secrets, that did not stop them from delivering information; Burgess reportedly handed over about 389 top secret documents to the Soviets within the early part of 1945, along with an additional 168 documents in December 1949.
Between 1934 and 1951, Maclean passed numerous secrets to Moscow. The lack of detection was due to the refusal of British intelligence to listen to warnings from the US, "even after the FBI had established that an agent code-named Homer had been operating inside the British embassy in Washington during the war", according to a review of MacLean's biography by Roland Philipps.