World News – USA – The spies who betrayed Britain – the Cambridge Ring

The extent of the damage moles cause in such high-ranking social classes may never be fully known.

George Blake – perhaps the most notorious double agent – has died, but his betrayal wasn’t the only scandal that hit British intelligence in the 20th century. Century.

Blake’s double cross is often mentioned alongside the infamous Cambridge spy ring – another group of well-established Britons who have revealed myriad secrets to the Soviets.

It consisted of men who studied at the city’s famous university in the 1930s: Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross, and Harold « Kim » Philby.

They took their communist beliefs with them to jobs in government and in the secret services; Philby worked as a journalist and then MI6, Blunt worked for MI5 and Maclean and Burgess became diplomats.

But for years, from before the outbreak of World War II to the early days of the Cold War, they relayed information to the Communist Soviet Union.

They all had dealers in London and are said to have been called « great five » by Soviet intelligence.

Burgess alone handed over 389 secret files to the KGB in the first half of 1945, according to the documents published in 2014 by the KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin.

However, it is Philby who is believed to have caused the most damage when he revealed information from his senior position at MI6.

At the end of the war, he was appointed head of the anti-Soviet section, which, ironically, meant that the man charged with fighting the Soviet threat was actually working for the enemy.

He later became head of British intelligence in the United States and worked for the Washington embassy.

When Philby learned that there was a suspicion that a mole was disclosing secrets to the Soviets and that Maclean was a suspect, he asked Burgess to tip Maclean in London.

The couple made headlines when they fled the UK for France in 1951, but it wasn’t until 1956 that it was confirmed that they had moved to the Soviet Union.

Files of defector Vasili Mitrokhin indicated that the two men were indeed viewed by the Soviets as some kind of liability.

One document describes Burgess as « constantly under the influence of alcohol » and in danger of revealing his double agent status. Maclean is also described as drunk and « not very good at keeping secrets ». .

Philby resigned from MI6 when he himself was suspected of being a « third man » – despite insufficient evidence to prosecute him – and became a journalist in the Middle East.

During his time in Lebanon, the net began to tighten and he disappeared in January 1963 while fleeing to the Soviet Union, where he was granted asylum.

He continued to work with the KGB, training spies for missions in the West, and receiving a funeral with full state honors when he died in 1988.

In 1990 it appeared on a Soviet postage stamp as it was viewed.

But the fact that one of the top MI6 officers and other figures in the elite establishment were Russian spies was a great embarrassment and damaged US confidence in British intelligence for years.

While in exile in Russia, his double agent George Blake later remembered meeting Maclean and Philby – and years later he remembered drinking martinis with the latter.

Maclean died in Russia in the 1980s, Burgess in 1963 and Blunt in London in 1983.

© 2020 Sky UK

Cambridge Five, Great Britain, George Blake