In short
The episode recounts the Cambridge Five Soviet spy ring—Kim Philby, Donald McLean, John Cairncross, Guy Burgess, and Anthony Blunt—covering their recruitment at Cambridge, infiltration of MI6/MI5/Foreign Office and Bletchley Park, major espionage activities, and how they avoided prosecution for decades.
Guest
Shauna Morris, author of The Cambridge Spy Ring, The Treachery of the Five Who Got Away.
Guest backgrounds
Morris is the historian/book author interviewed; the episode also details each spy’s background. Philby: son of Arabist explorer St John Philby; recruited via Comintern/Arnold Deutsch. McLean: son of a religious, admired lawyer-politician; radicalized through Cambridge Socialist Society/CUSS. Burgess: flamboyant, openly homosexual, heavy drinker; recruited by Deutsch. Blunt: royal art administrator (surveyor of the king’s pictures); recruited by Burgess as a talent spotter. Cairncross: Scots, working-class roots; anti-fascist; worked at Bletchley Park.
Key claims/examples
Philby’s rise to head of Soviet counterintelligence (Section 9) and leaks; McLean’s near-total diplomatic document theft and “Homer” in the Venona decrypts; Burgess’s BBC/Foreign Office access and warning McLean; Blunt’s disclosure of Operation Double Cross; Cairncross’s Bletchley Park cable theft enabling Soviet readiness for the Battle of Kursk. Notable examples include Philby’s “third man” press conference, Flora Solomon’s affidavit, and later exposure after Blunt’s confession and Thatcher-era publicity.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIntroduction to the Cambridge Five
0:51 to 1:31
Overview of the Cambridge Five spies and their historical significance.
“I think the readers will be surprised how incredible it was that none were ever prosecuted.”
Background of Kim Philby
1:31 to 2:16
Discussion on Kim Philby's family background and early influences.
“all the while successfully eluding prosecution.”
Kim Philby's Path to Communism
2:16 to 3:47
Exploration of Kim Philby's gradual attraction to communism.
“He was the more famous Philby at one time.”
Philby's Life in Austria and Recruitment
3:47 to 8:06
Discussion of Philby's time in Austria and his recruitment into Soviet intelligence.
“And Great Britain experienced a similar stock market crash and a similar recession also impacted by the First World War.”
Recruitment of Other Spies
8:06 to 12:20
Examination of Kim Philby's recruitment efforts for other spies.
“And it's in London that he's recruited properly into Soviet intelligence.”
Philby’s Move to MI6
12:20 to 14:00
Overview of how Kim Philby was recruited into MI6.
“Now, I believe he's also asked by Deutsch to sort of come up with a list of possible other recruits that would be useful to infiltrate the upper echelons of the British establishment.”
Philby's Recruitment into MI6
14:00 to 15:44
Learn about Kim Philby's entry into MI6 and how his background influenced his spy career.
“and Philby thought since she was a little bit to the left and was doing a lot of helpful anti-fascist work that she might be interested.”
Philby's Rise to Power in MI6
15:44 to 18:50
Explore how Philby maneuvered within MI6, ultimately becoming head of Soviet counterintelligence.
“Yeah, I think in the UK, it's called the Older Boy Network.”
Donald McLean's Family Background
18:50 to 21:54
Understand Donald McLean's upbringing and the expectations placed upon him by his father.
“Could you just give a bit about his family background?”
McLean's Involvement in Espionage
22:03 to 28:00
Learn about McLean's path to communism and the secrets he passed to the Soviets.
“You know the best part about this spicy Italian sausage?”
Show all 22 chapters
The Venona Project and McLean's Involvement
28:00 to 31:00
Learn about the Venona project and the discovery of Donald McLean as a spy.
“where that behaviour would not necessarily have been seen as massively unusual.”
Guy Burgess: The Unlikely Spy
31:00 to 35:30
Explore the background and characteristics of Guy Burgess as a spy.
“That's a good point at which to get onto Guy Burgess and talk about him.”
Burgess's Defection with McLean
35:30 to 38:30
Understand the circumstances leading to Burgess's defection alongside McLean.
“But Burgess, he had people that he knew in France, in the government in France.”
Philby's Press Conference and Suspicion
38:30 to 42:00
Analyze Philby's press conference and the subsequent suspicion from intelligence.
“So if Donald McClain defected on his own, that would not have thrown any light on Kim Philby.”
Flora Solomon's Warning About Philby
42:00 to 44:37
Learn about Flora Solomon's experiences with Philby and her warning to British intelligence.
“And she didn't appreciate Philby's tone in these articles.”
Flora Solomon's Warning About Philby
44:41 to 45:10
Learn about Flora Solomon's experiences with Philby and her warning to British intelligence.
“Are you looking for a beach read this summer?”
The Background of Anthony Blunt
45:10 to 47:55
Explore Anthony Blunt's family background and connections, including his role in art history.
“Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy.”
Blunt's Role in the Cambridge Spy Ring
47:55 to 50:14
Discussion about Anthony Blunt's recruitment efforts and his position in the spy ring.
“And I believe the National Archive still are unable to release the files on that, which is a shame.”
Michael Straight's Recruitment and Impact
50:14 to 54:02
Learn about Michael Straight's recruitment by Blunt and his subsequent actions.
“And it was an incredible operation because the British found every single one of them and turned almost all of them.”
Anthony Blunt's Exposure and Confession
54:02 to 55:52
Investigate how Anthony Blunt was uncovered and the implications of his confession.
“And so he had to come forward to the FBI and say, look, I have this past just to be open about it so it wouldn't be uncovered and everyone be surprised.”
The Legacy of John Cairncross
56:00 to 59:02
Learn about John Cairncross, his background, motivations, and contributions as a spy.
“Now, Cairncross, I think, is the forgotten man in the Cambridge spy ring, and he comes from a completely different background to the rest of them.”
Cairncross's Capture and Confession
59:26 to 1:06:55
Explore the events leading to Cairncross's downfall and his eventual confession.
“And so he was bringing pretty much everything he could get his hands on.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Welcome to Cold War Conversations, the home of real stories of the Cold War. Right now, get up to 15 % off select storage solutions. Put heavy-duty HDX totes to good use, protecting what's important to you. The solid, impact-resistant design prevents cracking, and the clear base and sides make items easy to find even when the totes are stacked. Find select shelving and tote storage up to 15 % off at the Home Depot to organize every room in your home, from your garage to your attic. Visit HomeDevo.com. How doers get more done. Morning decisions. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink? Or sweet vanilla?
0:41Smooth caramel, maybe? Or white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. I think the readers will be surprised how incredible it was that none were ever prosecuted. They were the most damaging spies in British history and they really did get away with it. This is Cold War Conversations. If you're new here, you've come to the right place to listen to Cold War history. Please make sure you follow us in your podcast app so you don't miss future episodes. This is the incredible story of the five most damaging spies in British history, from their recruitment at Cambridge University to their infiltration of the highest levels of government and the security services, all the while successfully eluding prosecution.
1:34I speak with Shauna Morris, the author of a new book, The Cambridge Spy Ring, The Treachery of the Five Who Got Away. We explore their backgrounds, motivations and the intricate web of espionage that defined their lives. Their actions had far-reaching consequences not only for themselves but for the intelligence community and the political landscape of the time. I'm delighted to welcome Shauna Morris to our Cold War conversation.
2:01Shawnna Morris:So the five spies that we're talking about are Kim Philby, Donald McLean, John Cairncross, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. they were all graduates from cambridge university hence the name cambridge fight what i'd like to do is just go into the background of each of these because they've all got some really interesting background and detail and obviously the the most famous one is kim philby so let us start with kim can you just describe a little bit about kim's family background So, Kim's father was a very controversial and interesting man in his own right. He was the more famous Philby at one time.
2:53He was what's called an Arabist. He was an Arab scholar, Sinjin Philby. He wrote about 19 books about the Arab culture and about their people. He was an explorer. He's similar to, if you've seen, Lawrence of Arabia. Very similar. He was a contemporary of his. So Kim Philby grew up in a very big shadow of his father. And he was born in India, was raised largely by his grandmother while his father traveled to Saudi Arabia. to visit his very good friend, King Sod, and his mother would go chase him. Sinjin Filby had many girlfriends overseas, was a serial adulterer, which Kim Filby picked up later when he grew up.
3:46And you could say he had some daddy issues, very admired his father, resented him a little bit and definitely had some big shoes to fill he went to Westminster College like his dad and went to Cambridge like his dad so how is Kim attracted to communism how does he
4:12Shawnna Morris:go down this path so during the 1920s after the stock market crash in the United States There was a ripple effect worldwide because of the economy influenced by the United States and because a lot of the currencies were tied to the U.S. dollar. And Great Britain experienced a similar stock market crash and a similar recession also impacted by the First World War. So they had a lot going on there. There was a collapse of the labor government, which disillusioned a lot of young people. They were counting on the labor government to address a lot of these issues. Unfortunately, the government was in a great deal of debt at the time and was facing some austerity cuts and could not have a large expansion of their welfare program.
5:18and though he came from a family of some privilege, there's a little bit of guilt associated with that and he actually came to communism quite slowly. It wasn't really a youthful dalliance for Kim. He researched it. He traveled Europe.
5:36Shawnna Morris:He looked around as fascism was rising and he saw a lot of economic hardship coupled with a rising to power of fascist governments, he made a decision in his last year at Cambridge that he would become a communist. He actually tried to join the Communist Party. He went to his professor named Maurice Daub, who started the first communist cell at Cambridge. He He was really ahead of the curve on the communist wave. And Maurice, instead of referring him to the Communist Party of Great Britain, the official open party, he sends him to the underground party. And through a series of shadowy characters, he ends up traveling to Austria on the pretense that he's going to work on his German.
6:38He has told his father he's going to apply for the foreign office and he's going to work on his German. So he goes to Austria. He actually joins the underground communist party. So he's not a KGB agent at this time. He's working for the Comintern. Austria is at the brink of civil war when he arrives. He moves in with the Friedman family, falls in love immediately with their daughter Litzy, who is already a communist in good standing, is already running an illegal communist party. And he's doing some things to help out. He's helping refugees from Germany that are Jews, communists, escaping fascist Germany.
7:28and he has a passport, a British passport, and he can travel freely through Europe, as most Austrians can't do at this time. And they quickly seize on this opportunity to send mysterious packages, messages, to other countries in Eastern Europe. And Philby helps a lot in that area and gets a real taste for illicit communist behaviour. Indeed he does. Indeed he does. Yes. And things get quite hot for them in Vienna. And so he marries Litzy and they come back to London. And it's in London that he's recruited properly into Soviet intelligence. Could you tell me how that recruitment occurs? Yes, so Litsi was Jewish and a communist, and he did fear for her safety and was very much in love with her.
8:25So he did marry her and take her back to London with him. His parents were not excited about this marriage. But she has a friend named Edith Tudor Hart, another Jewish communist from Austria who married a British subject and is also in London.
8:47Shawnna Morris:And Edith and her husband are working for an illegal KGB agent named Arnold Deutsch. and Arnold Deutsch is connected with Kim Philby by Edith. She invites Philby to Regent's Park where he meets with Deutsch on a park bench and he is convinced, instead of joining the open party, to work in a clandestine manner. instead of handing out pamphlets and organizing protests.
9:31We have an interview with Charlotte Philby, the granddaughter of Kim Philby. She's written a book called Edith and Kim, which is a fictional account of Kim Philby's meeting with Edith Tudor Hart. It's episode 228. I'll leave a link in the episode information. This is somebody from a good family with an education that has a potential to influence things from the inside.
10:00Shawnna Morris:And Philby is enchanted with this idea, and he soon agrees to it. What instructions does Deutsch give him to sort of lose his communist past? Because it would have been reasonably public knowledge that he's come back with his communist wife from Vienna. So how does he obscure that? So he kind of cuts ties with everyone that is already a communist. And he's not loud about it. He just kind of lets these friendships wither. Just kind of ghosts him, as people would say now. And it just begins to look like he's grown out of it. Like a lot of people get a little bit radical when they go to college. Now he's an adult.
10:52He's going to get a job and move on with his life. He gets a job as a journalist. He joins not exactly a fascist organization, but it's a pro-German organization. They're interested in a friendship with Germany to head off another world war. They encourage open dialogue with Germany. Now, later, Churchill, I think, called them the Heil Hitler Brigade But that was not their open cause They were allegedly trying to promote peace with Germany So, Philby joins this organization And he starts writing a publication for them He travels to Berlin And meets some people starts writing articles from a pro-German perspective.
11:49He eventually goes to Spain,
11:52Shawnna Morris:which is in the throes of a terrible, violent civil war. And he's writing things from the, I wouldn't say fascist, but more of a right-wing perspective, possibly a pro-Franco perspective. And he starts sending these articles unsolicited to different publications, and he's eventually picked up. By the Times, no less. The Times of London. Now, I believe he's also asked by Deutsch to sort of come up with a list of possible other recruits that would be useful to infiltrate the upper echelons of the British establishment. Yes. So Philby, and he's already graduated, he's been away from school for a while, but he's kept a few friends.
12:52One of his closest friends is Guy Burgess and Donald McClain. Donald McClain's at the top of his list. He's a real type A personality, a very overachiever.
13:08Shawnna Morris:And Donald McClain, he's been radicalized as well. And so he was really the main one on the list. Burgess was at the bottom of his list. Very smart. very committed but very wild unpredictable yeah indeed one of the people he tries to recruit is a friend of his called Flora Solomon who introduces Filby to his second wife but Flora turns down his approach and that refusal or the information about Him attempting that recruitment comes back to bite him later. Yes. So Flora Solomon was a philanthropist and she would help refugee children from Germany and did a lot of great things. and Philby thought since she was a little bit to the left and was doing a lot of helpful anti-fascist work that she might be interested.
14:23And of course she was not as we know now and he would later regret planting that seed. How is he recruited into MI6? How does he end up in there? It takes him a while. So MI6 at the time did not exist on paper. It was a secret intelligence organization. And you had to be invited. You cannot show up at the HR desk and apply with your resume. And he had to be found. And Arnold Deutsch recommended his career in journalism because journalists have the same skill set that spies do. They're trying to make contacts. They're making friends in key places. They travel quite a bit. And they have to listen well and blend in places.
15:22So it might not be immediately obvious, but journalists were often sought out by the SIS. And that was where it started for him.
15:33Shawnna Morris:He eventually was helped by his father in a lot of his career jumps, which further complicated their relationship. Yeah, I think in the UK, it's called the Older Boy Network. Yes. Like, oh, you've been to that school. Oh, yes. Well, your father was something. Well, his father was involved in some intelligence work himself, I think, Sinjin. In the Middle East, a little bit. Yes. Especially during the First World War. So Kim Philby is now in MI6 and he manages to facilitate a promotion, which is really the perfect job for somebody who is spying for the KGB. Yes, so even before his promotion, when he gets into MI6, he's actually selected because of his communist past.
16:38Shawnna Morris:They're hoping he can be a liaison to the Soviet embassy. And so he's selected to secretly go and visit the embassy and see what they have to share with the British during the Second World War. So that's something perfect for him because he can just go down to the Soviet embassy and talk with his buddies about what they're doing at SIS. So that's the first job that's perfect for a spy, unwittingly. Then later, he manages to engineer his promotion to head of Section 9, which is Soviet counterintelligence. And this is toward the end of the war for the purpose of after the war. This friendship of convenience that the West has had with the Soviet Union is beginning to fall apart.
17:39and the Cold War is beginning to settle in this new bipolar world order. And so Kim becomes the head of Soviet counterintelligence by kind of shoving out Felix Kowgil, his own boss, who's in line for that job. He starts a little bit of a whisper campaign. Kowgil's kind of hard to get along with already. and Philby exploits that part of his personality. And Philby's, of course, very charming, very well-liked by everybody. And so counterintelligence was a great place for him when he does get this promotion because he's able to tell the Soviets about all these covert operations
18:34Shawnna Morris:that are being planned by the British. and then later by the Americans, he's able to leak these things to the Soviets so they can be sabotaged. Now, we mentioned Donald McLean a moment ago, so let's just move on to Donald McLean. Could you just give a bit about his family background? Yes. So Donald McLean's father was another towering figure. Unlike St. John Philby, he was very much admired. He wasn't a controversial man. He was a very great man. He was very religious, very educated. He came up from a working class background and accomplished quite a bit. started his own law firm and was elected to parliament.
19:32He was a lay minister occasionally, did a lot of philanthropy work, and he was greatly admired by a lot of people. Donald McLean was the third child, was named after his father, and so there was a great deal of expectations laid upon him. He was not religious. He was skeptical from a fairly young age. And he learned early on to keep a part of himself separate.
20:10Shawnna Morris:His dad, though very kind, could also be very stubborn and saw things one way. And Donald McClain did not always tack to his father's way of thinking. And instead of getting into great debates with him or arguing or rebelling, he just kind of kept part of himself secret that way. Starting or growing your own business can be intimidating and lonely at times. Your to-do list may feel endless with new tasks, and lists can easily begin to overrun your life. So finding the right tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything as a built-in business partner can be a game changer. For millions of businesses, that tool is Shopify.
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22:41One thing that was kind of telling, his older brothers took jobs during the general strike, and Donald McClain did not. He quietly supported the striking workers. And he got involved in the Cambridge Socialist Society, the CUSS, and slowly over a period of a couple of years started moving farther from socialism to communism. and just saw that as a solution. It really came from a compassion for the less fortunate. And he's recruited by Arnold Deutsch as well. And he ends up in the Foreign Office and later in Washington. And what sort of secrets is he handing over? What are the sort of key documents that he's handing over to the Soviets?
23:45In short, almost everything. Anything he can get his hands on. So he was very excited to be a part of something important.
23:55Shawnna Morris:And at first, when he got into the foreign office, there wasn't a great deal of security. So he could just simply fill up his briefcase, bring it home. meet with Deutsch hand over some things Deutsch would have the documents photographed give them back he'd bring them back the next morning and in fact Deutsch eventually asked him to slow it down his photographer could not keep up he said he'd bring home more on Friday and less on Monday so the photographer has some time to work on them he handed over generally anything related to so pre-war is generally anything related to negotiations with the French the Germans the Soviets anything leading up to that during the war he served in Paris and the Paris embassy was handing over anything if anything you can think of diplomatically for a nation at war.
25:01He had access to it. He would hand it over. Any diplomatic cables coming in, anything. And then when he got to the United States, when he served in D.C., it got very dangerous because he had access to not necessarily the construction of the atomic bomb, the science behind that, But a lot of information related to the American stockpile or the Atomic Energy Commission's work on what kind of treaties we were all going to participate in. So things a little more dangerous immediately by the time he got to the States. And at this point, he's sort of struggling to manage the stress of his espionage.
25:56So he's getting a bit out of control, I guess. Or he's losing control.
26:06Shawnna Morris:Yes. So keeping a secret is very stressful over the course of a lifetime. And in addition to that, he just had a tremendous workload. You could call him a workaholic. At the foreign office, he put in a lot of hours, was working very hard, and then he had this second career, buying for the Soviets. And he really worked hard at that. And he didn't drink as a young man, because his parents believed in temperance. But when he got to college, he started drinking. and really took to it and developed a problem pretty early on. And that became his way of dealing with all of his secrets, all of his stress.
27:01He would just keep drinking. And he treated alcohol the way a lot of people do, where he could be more himself when he drank. And he got violent when he drank. He was not a happy drunk. He could be very destructive, very unkind. It's amazing he did not let a lot of secrets slip for some reason. But he would talk a little bit more about his own opinions. He could shock people. But his reputation, his family, his work ethic was so solid. even when he let something slip people would blow it off oh he's been drinking oh he's a little out of control don't worry about it so his reputation carried him for a very long time during his drunken bouts it's a generalization but there was very much a drinking culture during this period where that behaviour would not necessarily have been seen as massively unusual.
28:10I was a little surprised to learn that. There were a lot of people drinking quite a bit in those days, yes. In the meantime, the US has a project called the Venona Project where they are trying to decrypt the cables that are coming into the Soviet embassy in the US. and they discover there is a spy mentioned in these cables called Homer, which starts to point towards McLean.
28:46Shawnna Morris:Yes, he doesn't realize it right away. So this is a top secret project and even the president, even President Truman doesn't know about it. So the Army Signal Corps decrypted Soviet cables during the war, and they started breaking some codes late in the war. And the name Homer kept coming up, and they at first saw the name Gomer. The letter H does not exist in Russian. So it was called Gomer. They referred to an agent called G, the letter G. and also materialgy at first the people at Venona thought they were dealing with three different agents but they were all Donald McClain and it became clear eventually and McClain himself did not know that he was the subject of this inquiry until it was revealed to him by Guy Burgess much later Philby learned of it first because he was working in D.C.
30:04at the time as a liaison between the SIS and the CIA. And he was meeting with James Angleton once a week at Harvey's Seafood Restaurant for lunch.
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30:18Shawnna Morris:And they were talking about a lot of things that were very confidential. And they discussed the Venona project And in fact, Philby was briefed on it Before he came to D.C. He was briefed on it by his people in London But as they started making breaks in the decrypts He was informed And he told Guy Burgess about it And Guy Burgess was sent to tell Donald McLean that he was on the radar. That's a good point at which to get onto Guy Burgess and talk about him. So a little bit about his background. So Guy Burgess was the most unlikely of spies. He was very outwardly homosexual. He was not closeted at all.
31:24He was a very flamboyant character, very chatty. He also had a drinking problem from a fairly young age. His drinking was becoming problematic by the time he went to university. he gossiped a lot he knew a lot of people you would have thought he could not keep a secret he was kind of disheveled all the time he ate garlic just straight garlic smelled bad he always had stains on his shirt
31:57Shawnna Morris:was kind of a disaster he found out about Philby and Donald McClain's spying just on his own, just by listening and watching. When they both dropped out of communist circles, he suspected they were up to something. And he went after them both and badgered them and demanded to be included. He really wanted to be the center of attention, really wanted to know everything that was going on. and Arnold Deutsch he thought about it a long time he wasn't sure if he wanted Guy Burgess in there but then he realized wow he knows a lot of people he's connected to a lot of different circles and he's very intelligent and he has a potential to go far in his career as well as the others and seeing that he'd already kind of guessed what was going on Dosh said, all right, let's have him.
33:04Shawnna Morris:And so he asked Guy Burgess to make a list of everybody he knew and came up with a list of 200 names and really blew everyone away. Ultimately, he had probably the best cover because he was so disheveled and appeared disorganized. It was sort of like, well, he can't possibly be a spy. and being gay and during this period was illegal and he knew loads of people through that network could potentially influence them or betray their their secrets for further blackmail by the KGB that's right and as you know gay people are present in every walk of life and they did have kind of a secret little society in those days and so he did have friends both in the in the theater in the culture communities he knew prostitutes but then he also knew people at high levels of government and yeah it was very easy for him to just to know people to begin with to befriend them to have affairs with them or like you said they were open to blackmail for sure follows sort of like a similar route to Philby as far as getting into MI6 he's a journalist and he ends up in MI6 well what sort of secrets is he contributing to the ring well at first as you know he worked for the bbc as a producer which helped him meet a lot of people there he was actually the first one recruited into mi6 just as a casual or a contractor not really an employee, but he was approached to spy on people at the BBC.
35:09So the Secret Service was concerned that there might be communists maybe influencing the programming in order to influence the public. And they said, well, Guy, why don't you look out for these people? And Guy Burgess said, Certainly, I will. So that's an interesting thing, because we usually think of Philby in connection with MI6. But Burgess, he had people that he knew in France, in the government in France. And he would go on these fact-finding missions to Paris and to Berlin. There were some pretty wild stories. I don't know if all of them were true. I tried to keep the book fairly family-friendly, so they're not in there.
35:54But he would travel in these circles, and he had access to a lot of diplomatic information during negotiations leading up to the Second World War. That's where he started. He eventually went to the foreign office, worked in the press office in the foreign office. So he saw a lot of the cables coming in at that time. And he worked as, during the war, he worked as an agent for, again, a contract agent for MI5, the domestic security service. So he was kind of everywhere. He had his fingers in everything almost. now as we've said earlier he warns Donald McClain that he's under suspicion Donald McClain decides he needs to try and get himself out the country and get to Moscow and surprisingly Guy Burgess decides to go with him because Burgess isn't really under any suspicion at this point.
37:01Shawnna Morris:This is true. So while he was working for the foreign office, he'd gotten into a few scrapes. He'd wrecked a car. He had embarrassing people. He'd exposed a couple of their agents. He was sent to the United States in an ill-advised strategy to work for the foreign office in DC. I think they were just trying to get him far away from London. He stayed with Kim Philby, which is a huge breach of KGB protocol. They should not have been living together, being friends, none of that. But he did live with Kim Philby and his wife, Aileen. And he was ejected from the foreign office and from the country after a bout of reckless driving, where he incurred three speeding tickets in one day.
37:57Shawnna Morris:So he was either trying to get himself back to London, that may have been deliberate, we don't really know, or it may have just been just bad behavior in a downward spiral of his resulting from his drinking problem. But he was sent back to the United States. Kim Philby asked him specifically, do not go with Donald McClain to Russia. Do not defect to Russia with him. Because Kim Philby didn't have necessarily a relationship with Donald McClain at this time. He didn't really have any links. So if Donald McClain defected on his own, that would not have thrown any light on Kim Philby. But Guy Burgess was living with him.
38:42They were very good friends. So for Burgess to defect really shined a hot spotlight on Kim. So he said, please do not go. Burgess went against his wishes. Some have theorized that he didn't want to go back to Moscow, but was somehow tricked into going. I don't agree with that interpretation. In the days leading up to the defection of Burgess and McLean, Guy Burgess was doing a farewell tour. He was visiting his family, visiting all his friends. He was drinking and dialing his old boyfriends. He knew he was going. And so when the two of them left, it
39:33Shawnna Morris:caused a tremendous splash in the government, in the media, everything. And Philby was in some hot water at that time. He was indeed. And Philby conducts this incredible press conference in his mother's flat where he is directly questioned by the world's press, asking him, are you the third man? Are you a communist? Have you ever known a communist? And he lies incredibly there. And from what I understand is that MI6 and possibly MI5, I think, actually use some of this footage as a training film, just to show how somebody can potentially mislead you. It's an incredible piece of footage. I will But there is still suspicion in the intelligence services around Philby, and things start to come out like Flora Solomon resurfaces and gives a crucial piece of information to the intelligence services.
40:55Shawnna Morris:Yes So Flora Solomon Is in Israel And she runs into Victor Rothschild Who was Not A member of the spy ring Never a spy But he was an associate Of all five of them Circles were very tight In that community It's kind of like Hollywood or DC as everybody seemed to know everyone else. So Victor Rothschild of the Rothschild dynasty was also in Israel at the time for a special conference, and he ran into Flora Solomon. And she was irritated with Kim Philby at the time because he was living in Beirut and had written some articles that were very pro-Arab and very anti-Zionist. And Flora Solomon was a fierce Zionist, was very much back to the state of Israel.
42:03And she didn't appreciate Philby's tone in these articles. And so she was already a little mad about him and decided to unload a little bit on Victor Rothschild. And she said, hey, that Philby, you can't trust him.
42:23Shawnna Morris:You know what he did back in the 30s? He tried to recruit me as a Soviet spy. And I told him no, but he did that. And that was terrible. And so Victor Rothschild, who had worked during the war for MI5, He brought this information to British intelligence and under great duress, Flora Solomon did eventually agree to sign an affidavit to the effect of what she had told Rothschild. Victor Rothschild is an interesting character and probably we haven't got long enough in the scope of this podcast to delve into him. so ultimately Philby realizes the game is up when a close friend of his Nicholas Elliott comes to Beirut to interview him and question him directly and he manages to get on a ship from Beirut and escape to Moscow so there's now the three of them Philby Burgess and McLean are now in Moscow, but there's still two of the Cambridge spy ring still in place, which brings us to Anthony Blunt.
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45:12See terms. Now, Anthony Blunt's background and family connections are particularly interesting, aren't they? Yes, Anthony Blunt had some connections to the royal family on his mother's side.
45:28Shawnna Morris:His father was a minister and did some really great work during the First World War. Was the pastor to the British mission in Paris and did some wonderful work for the soldiers there. So in the city of Paris, he and his brothers, as part of their parents' philanthropic work, used to give tours of the city. And he went to the Louvre, of course, and was exposed to some incredible artwork and really developed a love for it. And that became his career later. When he went to Cambridge, art history wasn't really a major, but he did major in French history, which dovetailed nicely with his passion for art.
46:28Shawnna Morris:So Anthony Blunt eventually, after the war, became the surveyor of the king's pictures, which means he was in charge of keeping everything that belonged to the royal family, not just the art, but much of the jewelry. he in fact went on a fact-finding mission to Germany which wasn't really a fact-finding mission he was trying to recover some of the treasures from the royal family to hold for safekeeping until things settled down yeah there's a bit more to that story though isn't there I mean there's a number of documents that he's trying to get back that may be embarrassing to the royal family as far as links to the Nazi regime, I believe.
47:23And there goes my knighthood.
47:27Shawnna Morris:Yes. Edward VIII, who abdicated so he could marry Wallace Simpson, he actually was hoping at one point to come back into power. And there is some evidence that he spoke with the Germans about possibly having some kind of alliance if they would help him. And I believe the National Archive still are unable to release the files on that, which is a shame. name so blunt is recruited by guy burgess and blunt's role is more as a talent spotter for the cambridge spy ring he's on the lookout for for likely um recruits but i guess i mean how does blunt become a communist or or is he a communist i mean what what what are his what is his reasoning for going down this path?
48:39Shawnna Morris:Anthony Blunt was interesting because he was not really an ideologue. He hadn't joined the Communist Party. He wasn't very political growing up. He was just very good friends with Guy Burgess. They were very tight for the rest of their lives. And Burgess had a lot of influence on him. Anthony Blunt was kind of a follower, I would say, not a very strong character. And he didn't have the stomach at first for espionage, for rooting around, for secrets. But he knew a lot of people also. He was a don at Cambridge University as a professor and had a lot of admiring students. so he was actually in a good place to kind of spot true believers and to spot high flyers people with a lot of potential who might be interested so that was his role at first was just like you said a talent spotter just on the lookout and then he would refer them to Burgess or to Deutsch or any of the other spy handlers that came later he's also carrying out work for mi5 as as we sort of explained with that um business trip to germany and what sort of uh intelligence is he handing over to the soviets what what is there that's really of interest to them so he joined mi5 during the war so when the second world war broke out none of the spies wanted to die on the front lines for a country they were not real loyal to so they all signed up for work that they could do at home and he signed up to help out MI5 and he was eventually brought on and a lot of what he did there was the biggest thing he gave the Soviets was a project called Operation Double Cross so the Germans sent in spies to Britain and they weren't very good spies they weren't even Germans they were all Eastern European, didn't speak the language well, were somewhat obvious, weren't very loyal to Germany because they were not German.
51:17And it was an incredible operation because the British found every single one of them and turned almost all of them. There was one suicide, I think, a couple of arrests, but most of them were turned to give disinformation back to the Germans. It was a fantastic operation. Anthony Blunt told the Soviets all about it, which backfired later because it made them somewhat suspicious of their British spies. Yeah, including the Cambridge Five. Especially the Cambridge Five. So as far as his recruitment efforts, he recruits Michael Strait and John Cancross. Let's just start off with Michael Strait. What was he?
52:09Michael Strait was American. He was an interesting character. He was recruited by Anthony Blunt at a low point in his life.
52:20Shawnna Morris:So he just lost some of his dearest friends who had gone to fight in the Spanish Civil War.
52:30Shawnna Morris:And especially John Cornford, he was closest with him. He was a communist who died in the Spanish Civil War. And he was breaking up with his girlfriend, who's carrying on an affair with another girl. He was at a very low point in his life. And Anthony Blunt convinced him that he could help the cause, though he'd not been brave enough to go fight in the Spanish Civil War, he could still help by spying for the Soviets in the United States. And straight agreed to it. And so after graduation, he went back to the United States. United States wasn't involved in a lot of foreign adventurism at that time.
53:15They're still in their isolationist period. And so he was in Roosevelt's bureaucracies, a lot of the economics, trade policies, things like that. Not what we would consider terribly important now. So, what he handed over was not super classified information. It was more important to the Soviets to have people in the government. Raulder was one of his contemporaries at the time. And after the war, Michael Strait kind of fell off and did other things with his life. He became an author. His earlier spying came to surface later when he was tapped to maybe head the National Endowment of the Arts. And so he had to come forward to the FBI and say, look, I have this past just to be open about it so it wouldn't be uncovered and everyone be surprised.
54:24Let's talk about Anthony Blunt's uncovering. how do they get on the the track of blunt and um when is he uncovered because he's he's uncovered but then not officially so it's not public knowledge initially they suspected him for a long time um because he was so close with guy burgess they also were roommates a few times over the years. And Anthony Blunt, while working for MI5, he was so close with Guy Little that that acted as that friendship acted as a cover for his closeness with Guy Burgess. So MI5 gets on the case of Anthony Blunt. And finally, Anthony Blunt in the 60s just says, after he is offered immunity, he says, all right, I did it.
55:26He confesses, but it's not splashed on the front page of any of the papers. It's really kept a secret. He ended up just confessing and he kept his position. but when he was exposed later by Margaret Thatcher publicly then he was finally stripped of his knighthood. I remember that story coming out that was big big news the fact that somebody who directly worked with the royal family had been a long-term Soviet spy so that brings us to John Cairncross. Now, Cairncross, I think, is the forgotten man in the Cambridge spy ring, and he comes from a completely different background to the rest of them.
56:17Yes. So John Cairncross, first of all, he's not English. He's a Scotsman. He came from a working class town. It was a coal mining town, although he didn't want to be called working class, lower middle class. His father was a shopkeeper. And he wasn't really seduced by a lot of the promises of communism, mainly because he didn't romanticize the working class. They were just his neighbors and friends. So he was very well educated by the time he got to Cambridge already. He had been to the Sorbonne. He was kind of different from everyone else
57:03Shawnna Morris:in other ways. He had put forth the assertion that he was not one of the Cambridge Five, and a very robust debate still remains. I assert he was the fifth man, but he always said he wasn't. He always said he was not a communist. He was an anti-fascist. That remains to be seen. But in his memoir, he said that he had begun spying because he was very motivated to stop fascism. And the Soviets, during the 1930s, were the main force against fascism. He was highly motivated by that. And yeah, he didn't quite fit in with the other guys. He didn't have the old boys network that everyone else had. He had some disadvantages that way, but had just a tremendous intellect, was very smart.
58:11just by the force of his hard work and his intelligence was able to break into this circle that everyone else was already born into and he ends up working at bletchley park which is where the decoding of the german communications during world war ii is taking place through the ultra program it's almost the well not quite the equivalent of venona for uh the u.s but it's a it's a major contribution to allied victory because effectively we're reading the enemy's communications there so what what is he providing to the soviets when he's there choice hotels get you more of what you value here's a little tune to help you remember same drive different day Don't you wish you were getting away?
59:06Pack your bags and come on through Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there too Comfort Inn It's calling your name Save on the stay Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim Well, I hope you like my little song Book direct at storiesvilletales.com He actually provided something of great value to the Soviets so John Cairncross was very good with languages and that's how he got to Bletchley Park as a translator
59:40Shawnna Morris:and he didn't always know exactly what he was looking at he would simply pick up the cables off the floor after they'd been translated, him and his co-workers he'd pick up the papers off the floor as if he was going to take them to the incinerator and he'd just stuff him in his trousers and take him home. And so he was bringing pretty much everything he could get his hands on. And he did not realize it at the time. But what he gave them was very important information on the German air power that was set for the Battle of Kursk. and the Soviets were able to be ready at one of many things that they were able to be ready to guard against and they won the Battle of Kursk and it was a decisive battle, one of the decisive battles in the Second World War and John Cairncross actually won the Order of the Red Banner for this particular bit of intelligence.
1:00:49he makes a brief appearance as a character in that terrible film with benedict cumberbatch that is a travesty of um the story of the ultra secret um but uh less said about that and he did not he did not ever actually know alan turing they were they were broken up into very small cells at Bletchley Park they never met. Now he's quite unlucky because his name comes up whilst MI5 are searching Guy Burgess's flat after his defection and again he's also interrogated. How does that interrogation go? So he's discovered by an old letter that he wrote to Guy Burgess. It was found in the full guitar case, full of documents.
1:01:47So in the wake of the
1:01:49Shawnna Morris:defection of Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt had keys to Guy's apartment. And he said, well, police force, I will let you into Guy's apartment to search it. But just ahead of that, he went and tidied up and tried to get rid of anything incriminating. Well, he missed this guitar case. and this letter from John Cairncross was found in there from years earlier when he was first recruited so Burgess had said hey John you used to work at the foreign office I know you don't work there anymore but can you maybe have lunch with some of your old colleagues there's some things I need to know. And so John did this and wrote down notes from his meeting and in his own handwriting, gave him to Guy Burgess.
1:02:44Burgess kept it for reasons we will not understand. So this was happened upon and he was questioned about it at first.
1:02:56Shawnna Morris:And he had said, oh, you know, I always took notes during meetings. I don't know why Burgess had it. But he was able to push away the police at the moment. The detective for MI5 later followed up years later after the confession from Anthony Blunt. So John Cairncross had stopped spying, really, for many years. He had an academic career. He was writing books. He was in the United States in Ohio at a university. and had just got his dream job teaching students. So Skarden was in the States to interview Michael Strait. And while he was there, he came to see John Cairn Cross and again offered full immunity.
1:03:53And so he did eventually give a full confession. and he was of course deported or politely asked to leave the united states after that and uh that's that's how he was eventually exposed and and he was exposed later by journalists in the wake of anthony blunt's exposure i guess it's also the embarrassment of the intelligence services to reveal these guys have been active for so long i think there's a there's a number of reasons for trying to cover it up and not making a big song and dance. Yes. MI6 was more concerned about their appearance than MI5 the way that I understand it, which is interesting to me because the more you cover these things up, the worse it looks for you when it eventually comes out.
1:04:53Yeah, I think that there was a lot of looking the other way, even while the spying was going on. Hindsight being 2020, there were many red flags visible to almost everybody that was close to them.
1:05:12Shawnna Morris:I think the readers will be surprised how incredible it was that none were ever prosecuted. They were the most damaging spies in British history. and they really did get away with it. There is loads more within the book. That is a real whistle-stop tour of the Cambridge Five that you've just been listening to. There'll be links in the episode information showing you where you can buy the book. The book is called The Cambridge Spy Ring, The Treachery of the Five Who Got Away. You've been listening to Shauna Morris, the author of that book, and there'll also be a link through to her excellent Cold War blog in the episode notes as well.
1:05:57The episode extras such as videos, photos and other content are available via a link in the episode information. The podcast wouldn't exist without the generous efforts of our financial supporters and I'd like to thank one and all of them for keeping the podcast on the road. The Cold War conversation continues in our Facebook discussion group. just search for Cold War Conversations in Facebook. Thanks very much for listening and look forward to seeing you next week.
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From the publisher
The incredible story of the five most damaging spies in
British history, from their recruitment at Cambridge University to their
infiltration of the government and the security services, all while
successfully eluding prosecution.
I speak with Shawnna Morris the author of a new book The
Cambridge Spy Ring: The Treachery of the Five Who Got Away.
We explore the backgrounds, motivations, and the intricate web of espionage that defined the lives of Kim Philby, Donald McLean, John Cairncross, Guy Burgess, and Anthony Blunt.
The Cambridge Five's legacy is one of betrayal, loyalty, and
moral ambiguity. Their actions had far-reaching consequences, not only for themselves but for the intelligence community and the political landscape of the time.
Episode extra including video interviews of the Cambridge Five here https://coldwarconversations.com/episode423/
Book Giveaway entry (until 4th Oct 2025) https://coldwarconversations.com/giveaway1/
Related episodes
Guy Burgess and the Cambridge Spy Ring https://pod.fo/e/a5e38
Charlotte Philby talks about her grandfather Soviet spy Kim Philby & her book “Edith & Kim” https://pod.fo/e/115bd7
An evening with Kim Philby https://pod.fo/e/d8080
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