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Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British
diplomat
A diplomat (from grc, δίπλωμα; romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state or an intergovernmental institution such as the United Nations or the European Union to conduct diplomacy with one or more other states or internati ...
and
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
double agent
In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organi ...
, and a member of the
Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for ...
spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
era. His
defection
In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...
in 1951 to the Soviet Union, with his fellow spy
Donald Maclean, led to a serious breach in
Anglo-United States intelligence co-operation, and caused long-lasting disruption and demoralisation in Britain's foreign and diplomatic services.
Born into an
upper middle class
In sociology, the upper middle class is the social group constituted by higher status members of the middle class. This is in contrast to the term ''lower middle class'', which is used for the group at the opposite end of the middle-class strat ...
English family, Burgess was educated at
Eton College
Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...
, the
Royal Naval College, Dartmouth
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal, Iowa, a cit ...
, and
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
. An assiduous networker, he embraced
left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
politics at Cambridge and joined the
British Communist Party
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...
. Burgess was recruited by
Soviet intelligence
This is a list of historical secret police organizations. In most cases they are no longer current because the regime that ran them was overthrown or changed, or they changed their names. Few still exist under the same name as legitimate police fo ...
in 1935, on the recommendation of the future double agent
Harold "Kim" Philby. After leaving Cambridge, Burgess worked for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
as a producer, briefly interrupted by a short period as a full-time
MI6
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
intelligence officer, before joining the
Foreign Office
Foreign may refer to:
Government
* Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries
* Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries
** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government
** Foreign office and foreign minister
* Unit ...
in 1944.
At the Foreign Office, Burgess acted as a confidential secretary to
Hector McNeil
Hector McNeil (10 March 1907 – 11 October 1955) was a Scottish Labour politician.
McNeil was educated at Woodside School and the University of Glasgow, trained as an engineer and worked as a journalist on a Scottish national newspaper. He w ...
, deputy to
Foreign Secretary
The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...
Ernest Bevin
Ernest Bevin (9 March 1881 – 14 April 1951) was a British statesman, trade union leader, and Labour Party politician. He co-founded and served as General Secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union in the years 1922–19 ...
. This post gave Burgess access to secret information on all aspects of Britain's foreign policy during the critical post-1945 period, and it is estimated that he passed thousands of documents to his Soviet controllers. In 1950 he was appointed second secretary to the
British Embassy in Washington
The British Embassy, Washington D.C. (alternatively in the US, Embassy of the United Kingdom, Washington, D.C.) is the British sovereign's diplomatic mission to the United States of America, representing the interests of the United Kingdom and ...
, a post from which he was sent home after repeated misbehaviour. Although not at this stage under suspicion, Burgess nevertheless accompanied fellow spy
Donald Maclean when the latter, on the point of being unmasked, fled to
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
in May 1951.
Burgess's whereabouts were unknown in the West until 1956, when he appeared with Maclean at a brief press conference in Moscow, claiming that his motive had been to improve Soviet-West relations. He never left the Soviet Union; he was often visited by friends and journalists from Britain, most of whom reported on a lonely and empty existence. He remained unrepentant to the end of his life, rejecting the notion that his earlier activities represented
treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
. He was well provided for materially, but as a result of his lifestyle his health deteriorated, and he died in 1963. Experts have found it difficult to assess the extent of damage caused by Burgess's espionage activities but consider that the disruption in
Anglo-American relations
Anglo-Americans are people who are English-speaking inhabitants of Anglo-America. It typically refers to the nations and ethnic groups in the Americas that speak English as a native language, making up the majority of people in the world who spe ...
caused by his defection was perhaps of greater value to the Soviets than any intelligence information he provided. Burgess's life has frequently been fictionalised, and dramatised in productions for screen and stage, notably in the 1981
Julian Mitchell
Charles Julian Humphrey Mitchell, FRSL (born 1 May 1935) is an English playwright, screenwriter and occasional novelist. He is best known as the writer of the play and film '' Another Country'', and as a screenwriter for TV, producing many orig ...
play
''Another Country'' and its 1984
film adaptation
A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dial ...
.
Burgess was also responsible for revealing to the Soviets the existence of the
Information Research Department
The Information Research Department (IRD) was a secret Cold War propaganda department of the British Foreign Office, created to publish anti-communist propaganda, including black propaganda, provide support and information to anti-communist pol ...
(IRD), a secret wing of the Foreign Office which dealt with Cold War and pro-colonial
propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
, though Burgess was quickly fired from the IRD after being accused of coming into work drunk.
Life
Family background
The Burgess family's English roots can be traced to the arrival in Britain in 1592 of Abraham de Bourgeous de Chantilly, a refugee from the
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
religious persecutions in France. The family settled in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
and became prosperous, mainly as bankers. Later generations created a military tradition; Burgess' grandfather, Henry Miles Burgess, was an officer in the
Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...
whose main service was in the Middle East. His youngest son, Malcolm Kingsford de Moncy Burgess, was born in
Aden
Aden ( ar, عدن ' Yemeni: ) is a city, and since 2015, the temporary capital of Yemen, near the eastern approach to the Red Sea (the Gulf of Aden), some east of the strait Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000 people. ...
in 1881, the third forename being a nod to his Huguenot ancestry. Malcolm had a generally unremarkable career in the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
, eventually reaching the rank of
commander
Commander (commonly abbreviated as Cmdr.) is a common naval officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organizations, including several police forces. In several countries this naval rank is termed frigate captain.
...
. In 1907 he married Evelyn Gillman, the daughter of a wealthy
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
banker. The couple settled in the naval town of
Devonport where, on 16 April 1911, their elder son was born, christened Guy Francis de Moncy. A second son, Nigel, was born two years later.
Childhood and schooling
The Gillman wealth ensured a comfortable home for the young family. Guy's earliest schooling was probably with a
governess
A governess is a largely obsolete term for a woman employed as a private tutor, who teaches and trains a child or children in their home. A governess often lives in the same residence as the children she is teaching. In contrast to a nanny, th ...
until, aged 9, he began as a
boarder A boarder may be a person who:
*snowboards
*skateboards
*bodyboards
* surfs
*stays at a boarding house
*attends a boarding school
*takes part in a boarding attack
The Boarder may also refer to:
* ''The Boarder'' (1953 film), a 1953 Soviet drama ...
at
Lockers Park, an exclusive
preparatory school near
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead () is a town in the Dacorum district in Hertfordshire, England, northwest of London, which is part of the Greater London Urban Area. The population at the 2011 census was 97,500.
Developed after the Second World War as a ne ...
,
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
. He did well there; his grades were consistently good and he played for the school's
association football
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
team. Having completed the Lockers curriculum a year early, he was too young to proceed immediately, as intended, to the
Royal Naval College at
Dartmouth. Instead, from January 1924 he spent a year at
Eton College
Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, C ...
, a boys'
public school
Public school may refer to:
* State school (known as a public school in many countries), a no-fee school, publicly funded and operated by the government
* Public school (United Kingdom), certain elite fee-charging independent schools in England an ...
in
Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England.
Eton may also refer to:
Places
*Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England
* Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States
* Éton, a commune in the Meuse dep ...
,
Berkshire
Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...
.
Following Malcolm's retirement from the navy, the family moved to
West Meon
West Meon is a village and civil parish in Hampshire, England, with a population of 749 people at the 2011 census.
Geography
It is north-west of East Meon, on the headwaters of the River Meon. Its closest town is Petersfield which is to the e ...
in
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
. Here, on 15 September 1924, Malcolm died suddenly of a
heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
. Despite this traumatic event, Guy's education proceeded as planned, and in January 1925 he began at Dartmouth. Here he encountered strict discipline and insistence on order and conformity, enforced by frequent use of
corporal punishment even for minor infringements. In this environment, Guy thrived both academically and at sports. He was marked by the college authorities as "excellent officer material", but an eye test in 1927 exposed a deficiency that precluded a career in the navy's executive branch. Burgess had no interest in the available alternatives – the engineering or
paymaster
A paymaster is someone appointed by a group of buyers, sellers, investors or lenders to receive, hold, and dispense funds, commissions, fees, salaries (remuneration) or other trade, loan, or sales proceeds within the private sector or public secto ...
branches – and in July 1927 he left Dartmouth and returned to Eton.
Burgess' second period at Eton, between 1927 and 1930, was largely rewarding and successful, both academically and socially. Although he failed to be elected to the elite society known as
"Pop", he began to develop a network of contacts that would prove useful in later life. At Eton, sexual relationships between boys were common, and although Burgess would claim that his
homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to peop ...
began at Eton, his contemporaries could recall little evidence of this. Generally, Burgess was remembered as amusingly flamboyant, and something of an oddity with his professed
left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
social and political opinions. In January 1930 he sat for and won a history scholarship to
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
, concluding his school career with further prizes in history and drawing. Throughout his life he retained fond memories of Eton; according to his biographers Stewart Purvis and Jeff Hulbert, he "never showed any embarrassment that he had been educated in a citadel of educational privilege".
Cambridge
Undergraduate
Burgess arrived in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
in October 1930, and quickly involved himself in many aspects of student life. He was not universally liked; one contemporary described him as "a conceited unreliable shit", although others found him amusing and good company. After a term, he was elected to the Trinity Historical Society, whose membership was formed from the brightest of Trinity College undergraduates and postgraduates. Here he encountered
Harold "Kim" Philby and Jim Lees, the latter a former miner studying under a
trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
scholarship, whose working-class perspective Burgess found stimulating. In June 1931 Burgess designed the
stage sets for a student production of
Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from ...
's play ''
Captain Brassbound's Conversion
''Captain Brassbound's Conversion'' (1900) is a play by G. Bernard Shaw. It was published in Shaw's 1901 collection '' Three Plays for Puritans'' (together with '' Caesar and Cleopatra'' and '' The Devil's Disciple''). The first American product ...
'', with
Michael Redgrave
Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave CBE (20 March 1908 – 21 March 1985) was an English stage and film actor, director, manager and author. He received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''Mourning Becomes Elect ...
in the leading role. Redgrave considered Burgess "one of the bright stars of the university scene, with a reputation for being able to turn to anything".
Burgess by this time made no attempt to conceal his homosexuality. In 1931 he met
Anthony Blunt
Anthony Frederick Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983), styled Sir Anthony Blunt KCVO from 1956 to November 1979, was a leading British art historian and Soviet spy.
Blunt was professor of art history at the University of London, dire ...
, four years his senior and a Trinity postgraduate. The two shared artistic interests and became friends, possibly lovers. Blunt was a member of the intellectual society known as the
"Apostles", to which in 1932 he secured Burgess' election. This gave Burgess a greatly extended range of networking opportunities; membership of the Apostles was lifelong, so at the regular meetings he met many of the leading intellectuals of the day, such as
G. M. Trevelyan
George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was a British historian and academic. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1898 to 1903. He then spent more than twenty years as a full-time author. He returned to the ...
, the university's
Regius Professor of History; the writer
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly ''A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910), and ''A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous short stori ...
; and the economist
John Maynard Keynes
John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originally trained in ...
.
In the early 1930s the general political climate was volatile and threatening. In Britain, the
financial crisis of 1931 pointed to the failure of
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
, while in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
the rise of
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
was a source of increasing disquiet. Such events radicalised opinion in Cambridge and elsewhere; according to Burgess' fellow Trinity student
James Klugmann
Norman John Klugmann (27 February 1912 – 14 September 1977), generally known as James Klugmann, was a leading British Communist writer and WW2 Soviet Spy, who became the official historian of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Backgroun ...
, "Life seemed to demonstrate the total bankruptcy of the capitalist system and shouted aloud for some sort of quick, rational, simple alternative". Burgess' interest in
Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
, initiated by friends such as Lees, deepened after he heard the historian
Maurice Dobb
Maurice Herbert Dobb (24 July 1900 – 17 August 1976) was an English economist at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. He is remembered as one of the pre-eminent Marxist economists of the 20th century.
Dobb was bo ...
, a fellow of
Pembroke College, address the Trinity Historical Society on the issue of "Communism: a Political and Historical Theory". Another influence was a fellow student,
David Guest, a leading light in the Cambridge University Socialist Society (CUSS), within which he formed the university's first active
communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
cell. Under Guest's influence, Burgess began studying the works of
Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 p ...
and
Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...
.
Amid these political distractions, in 1932 Burgess obtained
first-class honours
The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...
in Part I of the history
Tripos
At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mathe ...
and was expected to graduate with similar honours in Part II the following year. But although he worked hard, political activity distracted him and by the time of his final examinations in 1933 he was unprepared. During his examinations he fell ill and was unable to complete his papers; this may have been the consequence of belated cramming, or of taking
amphetamines
Substituted amphetamines are a class of compounds based upon the amphetamine structure; it includes all derivative compounds which are formed by replacing, or substituting, one or more hydrogen atoms in the amphetamine core structure with sub ...
. The examiners awarded him an
''aegrotat'', an unclassified degree awarded to students considered worthy of honours but prevented through illness from completing their examinations.
Postgraduate
Despite his disappointing degree result, Burgess returned to Cambridge in October 1933 as a postgraduate student and teaching assistant. His chosen research area was "Bourgeois Revolution in Seventeenth-Century England", but much of his time was devoted to political activism. That winter he formally joined the
British Communist Party
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...
and became a member of its cell within CUSS. On 11 November 1933 he joined a mass demonstration against the perceived militarism of the city's
Armistice Day
Armistice Day, later known as Remembrance Day in the Commonwealth and Veterans Day in the United States, is commemorated every year on 11 November to mark Armistice of 11 November 1918, the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I a ...
celebrations. The protestors' objective, laying a wreath bearing a
pacifist
Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
message at the
Cambridge War Memorial
Cambridge War Memorial is a war memorial on Hills Road, Cambridge, outside Cambridge University Botanic Garden. It comprises a bronze statue of a marching soldier by Canadian sculptor Robert Tait McKenzie, known as "The Homecoming" or someti ...
, was achieved, despite attacks and counter-demonstrations which included what the historian Martin Garrett describes as "a hail of pro-war eggs and tomatoes". Alongside Burgess was
Donald Maclean, a languages student from Trinity Hall and an active CUSS member. In February 1934 Burgess, Maclean and fellow members of CUSS welcomed the
Tyneside
Tyneside is a built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne in northern England. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. The whole area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt.
The population of Tyneside as published i ...
and
Tees-side
Teesside () is a built-up area around the River Tees in the north of England, split between County Durham and North Yorkshire. The name was initially used as a county borough in the North Riding of Yorkshire.
Historically a hub for heavy manu ...
contingents of that month's
National Hunger March
National may refer to:
Common uses
* Nation or country
** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen
Places in the United States
* National, Maryland, ce ...
, as they passed through Cambridge on their way to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
When not occupied in Cambridge, Burgess made frequent visits to
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
to confer with kindred spirits there; according to an Oxford student's later reminiscences, at that time "it was impossible to be in the intellectual swim ... without coming across Guy Burgess". Among those he befriended was
Goronwy Rees
Goronwy Rees (29 November 1909 – 12 December 1979) was a Welsh journalist, academic and writer.
Background
Rees was born in Aberystwyth, where his father was minister of the Tabernacle Calvinistic Methodist Church. The family later moved t ...
, a young Fellow of
All Souls College
All Souls College (official name: College of the Souls of All the Faithful Departed) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Unique to All Souls, all of its members automatically become fellows (i.e., full members of t ...
. Rees had planned to visit the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
with a fellow
don
Don, don or DON and variants may refer to:
Places
*County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON
*Don (river), a river in European Russia
*Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name
*Don, Benin, a town in Benin
*Don, Dang, a vill ...
in the 1934 summer vacation, but was unable to go; Burgess took his place. During the carefully escorted trip, in June–July 1934, Burgess met some notable figures, including possibly
Nikolai Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory. ...
, editor of ''
Izvestia
''Izvestia'' ( rus, Известия, p=ɪzˈvʲesʲtʲɪjə, "The News") is a daily broadsheet newspaper in Russia. Founded in 1917, it was a newspaper of record in the Soviet Union until the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, and describes ...
'' and former secretary of the
Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...
. On his return, Burgess had little to report, beyond commenting on the "appalling" housing conditions while praising the country's lack of unemployment.
Recruitment as Soviet agent
When Burgess returned to Cambridge in October 1934, his prospects of a college fellowship and an academic career were fast receding. He had abandoned his research after discovering that the same ground was covered in a new book by
Basil Willey. He began an alternative study of the
Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...
, but his time was largely preoccupied with politics.
Early in 1934
Arnold Deutsch
Arnold Deutsch (1903–1942?), variously described as Austrian, Czech or Hungarian, was an academic who worked in London as a Soviet spy, best known for having recruited Kim Philby. Much of his life remains unknown or disputed.
Early life
He ...
, a longstanding Soviet agent, arrived in London under the cover of a research appointment at
University College, London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
. Known as "Otto", his brief was to recruit the brightest students from Britain's top universities, who might in future occupy leading positions in British institutions. In June 1934 he recruited Philby, who had come to the Soviets' notice earlier that year in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
where he had been involved in demonstrations against the
Austrofascist regime of
Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuß (alternatively: ''Dolfuss'', ; 4 October 1892 – 25 July 1934) was an Austrian clerical fascist politician who served as Chancellor of Austria between 1932 and 1934. Having served as Minister for Forests and Agriculture, he a ...
. Philby recommended several of his Cambridge associates to Deutsch, including Maclean, by this time working in the Foreign Office. He also recommended Burgess, although with some reservations on account of the latter's erratic personality. Deutsch considered Burgess worth the risk, "an extremely well-educated fellow, with valuable social connections, and the inclinations of an adventurer". Burgess was given the German codename "Mädchen", meaning "Girl", later changed to "Hicks". He then persuaded Blunt that he could best fight
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy an ...
by working for the Soviets. A few years later another Apostle,
John Cairncross
John Cairncross (25 July 1913 – 8 October 1995) was a British civil servant who became an intelligence officer and spy during the Second World War. As a Soviet double agent, he passed to the Soviet Union the raw Tunny decryptions that influ ...
, was recruited by Burgess and Blunt, to complete the spy ring often characterised as the "
Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Spy Ring was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and was active from the 1930s until at least into the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for ...
".
Finally recognising that he had no future career at Cambridge, Burgess left in April 1935. The long-term aim
of the
Soviet intelligence services was for Burgess to penetrate
British intelligence
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and do ...
, and with this in mind he needed to publicly distance himself from his communist past. Thus he resigned his Communist Party membership and publicly renounced communism, with a gusto that shocked and dismayed his former comrades. He then looked for suitable work, applying without success for positions with the
Conservative Research Department
The Conservative Research Department (CRD) is part of the central organisation of the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. It operates alongside other departments of Conservative Campaign Headquarters in Westminster.
The CRD has been descr ...
and
Conservative Central Office
The Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ), formerly known as Conservative Central Office (CCO), is the headquarters of the British Conservative Party, housing its central staff and committee members, including campaign coordinators and manag ...
. He also sought a teaching job at Eton, but was rejected when a request for information from his former Cambridge tutor received the reply: "I would very much prefer not to answer your letter".
Late in 1935, Burgess accepted a temporary post as personal assistant to
John Macnamara
Colonel John Robert Jermain Macnamara (11 October 1905 – 22 December 1944) was a British Conservative Party politician and officer of the British Army who was killed while fighting in Italy during the Second World War. He was the last sittin ...
, the recently-elected
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP) for
Chelmsford
Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of London a ...
. Macnamara was on the right of his party; he and Burgess joined the
Anglo-German Fellowship
The Anglo-German Fellowship was a membership organisation that existed from 1935 to 1939, and aimed to build up friendship between the United Kingdom and Germany. It was widely perceived as being allied to Nazism. Previous groups in Britain wit ...
, which promoted friendship with
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. This enabled Burgess to disguise his political past very effectively, while gathering important information about Germany's foreign policy intentions. Within the Fellowship, Burgess would proclaim fascism as "the wave of the future", although in other forums such as the Apostles he was more circumspect. The association with Macnamara involved several trips to Germany; some, by Burgess' own later version of events, of a decidedly dissolute natureboth men were gay and sexually active. These stories, according to the historian Michael Holzman, may have been invented or exaggerated to draw attention away from Burgess' true motives.
In the autumn of 1936, Burgess met the nineteen-year-old Jack Hewit in The Bunch of Grapes, a well-known
gay bar
A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) clientele; the term ''gay'' is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT communities.
Gay bars once served as ...
in
The Strand. Hewit, a would-be dancer seeking work in London's musical theatres, would be Burgess's friend, manservant and intermittent lover for the next fourteen years, generally sharing Burgess' various London homes:
Chester Square
Chester Square is an elongated residential garden square in London's Belgravia district. It was developed by the Grosvenor family, as were the nearby Belgrave and Eaton Square. The square is named after the city of Chester, the city nearest t ...
from 1936 to 1941,
Bentinck Street from 1941 to 1947 and
New Bond Street
Bond Street in the West End of London links Piccadilly in the south to Oxford Street in the north. Since the 18th century the street has housed many prestigious and upmarket fashion retailers. The southern section is Old Bond Street and the l ...
from 1947 until 1951.
BBC and MI6
BBC: first stint
In July 1936, having twice previously applied unsuccessfully for posts at the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, Burgess was appointed as an assistant producer in the corporation's Talks Department. Responsible for selecting and interviewing potential speakers for current affairs and cultural programmes, he drew on his extensive range of personal contacts and rarely met refusal. His relationships at the BBC were volatile; he quarrelled with management about his pay, while colleagues were irritated by his opportunism, his capacity for intrigue, and his slovenliness. One colleague,