John Cairncross (25 July 1913 – 8 October 1995) was a British civil servant who became an
intelligence officer
An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a rank, used in the same way ...
and
spy during the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
. As a Soviet
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 organ ...
, he passed to 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 nationa ...
the raw
Tunny decryptions that influenced the
Battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history ...
. He was alleged to be the fifth member of the
Cambridge Five. He was also notable as a translator, literary scholar and writer of non-fiction.
The most significant aspect of his work was helping the Soviets defeat the Germans in major World War II battles; he may also have told Moscow that the US was developing a nuclear bomb. Cairncross confessed in secret to MI5's
Arthur S. Martin in 1964 and gave a limited confession to two journalists from ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' in December 1979.
He was given immunity from prosecution.
According to ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...
'', the suggestion that John Cairncross was the "fifth man" of the Cambridge ring was not confirmed until 1990, by Soviet double-agent
Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG (; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelli ...
. This was re-confirmed by former KGB agent
Yuri Modin's book published in 1994: ''My Five Cambridge Friends Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt, and Cairncross by Their KGB Controller''.
Childhood and education
Cairncross was born at Pine Cottage,
Lesmahagow
Lesmahagow ( ; sco, Lismahagie or ''Lesmahagae'', gd, Lios MoChuda) is a small town in the historic county of Lanarkshire on the edge of moorland, near Lanark in the central belt of Scotland. Lesmahagow was also a civil parish. It lies west ...
, in
Lanarkshire
Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland.
Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scotl ...
, the youngest of four girls and four boys, of Elizabeth Andrew Wishart (1875–1958), a primary schoolteacher, and Alexander Kirkland Cairncross (1865–1947), an ironmongery manager. His three brothers became professors; one of whom was the economist
Sir Alexander Kirkland Cairncross (a.k.a. Alec Cairncross). The journalist
Frances Cairncross is his niece. Cairncross grew up in
Lesmahagow
Lesmahagow ( ; sco, Lismahagie or ''Lesmahagae'', gd, Lios MoChuda) is a small town in the historic county of Lanarkshire on the edge of moorland, near Lanark in the central belt of Scotland. Lesmahagow was also a civil parish. It lies west ...
, a small town on the edge of moorland, near
Lanark
Lanark (; gd, Lannraig ; sco, Lanrik) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, located 20 kilometres to the south-east of Hamilton. The town lies on the River Clyde, at its confluence with Mouse Water. In 2016, the town had a population of 9 ...
in the
Central Belt
The Central Belt of Scotland is the area of highest population density within Scotland. Depending on the definition used, it has a population of between 2.4 and 4.2 million (the country's total was around 5.4 million in 2019), including Gre ...
of
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to ...
, and was educated at
Lesmahagow Higher Grade School (where his name appears as the 1928 winner of the Dux prize);
Hamilton Academy; the
University of Glasgow
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
;
the Sorbonne
Sorbonne may refer to:
* Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities.
*the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970)
*one of its components or linked institution, ...
; and
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...
, where he studied French and German.
The Independent – obituary, John Cairncross 10 October 1995. Retrieved 7 September 2011
Early professional work
After graduating, Cairncross took the British Civil Service exam and won first place. An article in the ''Glasgow Herald'' on 29 September 1936 noted that Cairncross had scored an "outstanding double success of being placed 1st in the Home List and 1st in the competition for the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service," and that he had been placed fifth in the (University of Glasgow) bursary competition of 1930, and was also a Scholar and Bell Exhibitioner at Trinity College, Cambridge.
Cairncross worked initially in the
British Foreign Office, Foreign Office before transferring to the Treasury and then the Cabinet Office, where he worked as a private secretary to
Lord Hankey, the
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. The position is the second highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the Prime Minister, and senior to the Minist ...
. It has been suggested that in 1936 whilst at Cambridge, Cairncross joined the
Communist Party of Great Britain
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 ...
, but he was not noted whilst at university for any political activity by his brother Alec, who was also at Cambridge until 1935. Sir Alec also recalled that John "was a prickly young man, who was difficult to argue with and resented things rather easily".
It was while he was working with the Foreign Service (circa 1936) that he was recruited as a spy for the Soviets by
James Klugmann of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
Second World War
In 1942 and 1943 Cairncross worked in
GC&CS
Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Unit ...
,
Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
, on
ULTRA
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley P ...
cipher
In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode ...
s. He had access to communications of the German military and intelligence services.
In June 1943, he left Bletchley Park for a job in
MI6.
Government Code and Cypher School, Bletchley Park
Cairncross passed decrypted documents through secret channels to 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 nationa ...
.
Codenamed ''Liszt'' by the Russians because of his love of music, Cairncross had been instructed to get into Bletchley Park, known to the
KGB as ''Kurort''.
[Smith, Michael ''Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park'' (1998, Channel 4 Books, London) pp 155–156 ]
From 1942 onwards, the
German High Command communicated with
Army group
An army group is a military organization consisting of several field armies, which is self-sufficient for indefinite periods. It is usually responsible for a particular geographic area. An army group is the largest field organization handled ...
commanders in the field using a machine that the British codenamed
Tunny.
Cairncross smuggled ''Tunny'' decrypts due to be destroyed out of Hut 3 in his trousers, transferring them to his bag at the railway station before going to meet his
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
contact in London.
The Soviets were particularly interested in traffic between Berlin-Pskov, Berlin-Helsinki, Berlin-Lisbon, Trebizond-Istanbul, Berlin-Bucharest, and Kirkenes-Oslo. They were also interested in British efforts to decipher Soviet ciphers and in the joint effort by German and Japanese cipher experts to decipher Soviet signals including military ones, which the combined German-Japanese effort failed to achieve with the Soviet diplomatic ciphers.
The raw transcripts decrypted by Colossus were passed to intelligence officers at Bletchley Park, who created reports based on this material by disguising its origin as signals traffic. By providing verbatim transcripts, Cairncross showed the Soviets that the British were breaking German ciphers.
It was at that time considered to be in the British interest for the Soviet Union to be made aware of German military plans, but not of how they were obtained. Only information based on these reports was passed to the Russians through official channels.
However,
Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
distrusted unsourced intelligence presented to him by Britain and the United States.
Operation Citadel
Operation Citadel was the codename given by
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 ...
to their offensive which led to the
Battle of Kursk
The Battle of Kursk was a major World War II Eastern Front engagement between the forces of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union near Kursk in the southwestern USSR during late summer 1943; it ultimately became the largest tank battle in history ...
. After being defeated at Kursk, the
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
retreated steadily until
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
was taken.
Tunny decrypts (transcripts) gave the British advance intelligence about Operation Citadel whilst it was being planned. Almost all raw transcripts were destroyed at the end of the war but a surviving transcript dated 25 April 1943 from
German Army Group South
Army Group South (german: Heeresgruppe Süd) was the name of three German Army Groups during World War II.
It was first used in the 1939 September Campaign, along with Army Group North to invade Poland. In the invasion of Poland Army Group So ...
signed by
Maximilian von Weichs
Maximilian Maria Joseph Karl Gabriel Lamoral Reichsfreiherr von und zu Weichs an der Glon (12 November 1881 – 27 September 1954) was a field marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II.
Born into an aristocratic family, Weichs ...
shows the high level of detail available to British intelligence officers. Analysts deduced the northern and southern attack routes, and a report based on this transcript was passed through official channels to Stalin.
During this period, Cairncross provided a second clandestine channel, supplying raw Tunny transcripts directly.
Tito and the Yugoslav partisans
Axis occupation forces in
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label= Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavij ...
used radio communication extensively. In addition to German
Abwehr
The ''Abwehr'' ( German for ''resistance'' or ''defence'', but the word usually means ''counterintelligence'' in a military context; ) was the German military-intelligence service for the ''Reichswehr'' and the '' Wehrmacht'' from 1920 to 1944. ...
,
SD,
Luftwaffe
The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German '' Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the '' Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabt ...
, naval, railway,
Army group
An army group is a military organization consisting of several field armies, which is self-sufficient for indefinite periods. It is usually responsible for a particular geographic area. An army group is the largest field organization handled ...
and
High Command messages, GC&CS intercepted and decrypted
Yugoslav partisan communications with
Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
and with 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 nationa ...
. Cairncross first in
Hut 3
Hut 3 was a section of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park during World War II. It retained the name for its functions when it moved into Block D. It produced military intelligence codenamed ULTRA from the decrypts ...
, then later at
MI6 HQ, had access to raw decrypts. Communications from Comintern to
Tito
Tito may refer to:
People Mononyms
*Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), commonly known mononymously as Tito, Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman
*Roberto Arias (1918–1989), aka Tito, Panamanian international lawyer, diplomat, and journal ...
supplying some of this intelligence, strongly suggest that he passed decrypts concerning Yugoslavia to the
KGB.
[
(Updated and extended version of ''Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer'' Bantam Press 2001)]
As a spy
Between 1941 and 1945, Cairncross supplied the Soviets with 5,832 documents, according to Russian archives. In 1944, Cairncross joined MI6, the foreign intelligence service. In Section V, the
counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ot ...
section, Cairncross produced under the direction of
Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British s ...
an
order of battle
In modern use, the order of battle of an armed force participating in a military operation or campaign shows the hierarchical organization, command structure, strength, disposition of personnel, and equipment of units and formations of the armed ...
of the SS. Cairncross later suggested that he was unaware of Philby's connections with the Russians. In October 1944, he wrote to his Soviet leaders in foreign intelligence that "I am delighted that our friends found my help worthy of attention, and I am proud that I contributed something to the victory, which led to the almost complete cleansing of the Soviet land from the invaders".
[ In March 1945, he was awarded a £1,000 per year pension but he refused to accept it.]
Yuri Modin, the Russian MGB (later KGB) Controller in London, claims that Cairncross gave him details of nuclear arms to be stationed with NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...
in West Germany. He gives no date for this message. But Cairncross was at the Ministry of Supply
The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. A separate ministry, however, was responsible for airc ...
in 1951 and NATO was established in April 1949. However, there was no such plan at this time and it was only much later that NATO obtained tactical nuclear weapons under US control in Germany. This appears to have been a disinformation
Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate.
The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the ...
exercise.[S.J.Hamrick (W.T.Tyler) ''Deceiving the Deceivers)'' ; Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2004.]
In September 1951, he was questioned by British counterintelligence about his relationship with Maclean and the Communist Party.[ Cairncross had been trained by the Soviets on how to behave during a counterintelligence interrogation.][ On 23 October 1951, Cairncross informed his Soviet controller that he had merely explained to the interrogator that he did not hide his membership with the party and that he would merely greet Maclean when he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but did not maintain any contact with Maclean after graduation.][ For security, the residence temporarily stopped contact with him, allowed him to continue to report monthly his situation with appropriate signals, and planned a follow up meeting on 23 January 1952.][ The Soviets developed an exfiltration plan for Cairncross including funds, documents, and communication methods while living in other countries.][ However, Cairncross did not signal his controller until an early March 1952 meeting during which Cairncross stated that he had been interrogated again.][ The residency did not have any more contact with Cairncross and instructed ]Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British s ...
to determine Cairncross's whereabouts.[ Philby could not determine the whereabouts of Cairncross.][
Cairncross admitted to some impropriety in 1951 after ]MI5
The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), G ...
found papers in Guy Burgess
Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess (16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963) was a British diplomat and Soviet agent, and a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring that operated from the mid-1930s to the early years of the Cold War era. His defection in 1951 ...
's flat with a handwritten note from him, after Burgess's flight to Moscow. This included a 15-page report about international affairs and policy obtained from nine officials. Cairncross claimed that this was the only document that he had ever provided to Burgess. No evidence of his spying for the Soviets during WWII was produced at that time. The official report concluded that the interrogations in 1951 and 1952 had "failed to produce evidence on which a charge of espionage could be based". Philby had also informed the residency of this.[
Evidence from the Soviet archives strongly indicate that Cairncross supplied to his Soviet handlers early information about British intentions to develop an ]atomic weapons
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
programme. In September 1940 Cairncross was assigned to the office of Maurice Hankey
Maurice Pascal Alers Hankey, 1st Baron Hankey, (1 April 1877 – 26 January 1963) was a British civil servant who gained prominence as the first Cabinet Secretary and later made the rare transition from the civil service to ministerial office. ...
, a Minister without Portfolio who sat on numerous scientific committees including the MAUD Committee
The MAUD Committee was a British scientific working group formed during the Second World War. It was established to perform the research required to determine if an atomic bomb was feasible. The name MAUD came from a strange line in a telegram fro ...
and later the Tube Alloys
Tube Alloys was the research and development programme authorised by the United Kingdom, with participation from Canada, to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. Starting before the Manhattan Project in the United States, the ...
Consultative Committee.[Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, ''The ]Mitrokhin Archive
The "Mitrokhin Archive" is a collection of handwritten notes which were secretly made by the KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin during the thirty years in which he served as a KGB archivist in the foreign intelligence service and the First Chief Dir ...
: The KGB in Europe and the West'', London, Penguin Books, 2000. note 13, p. 150 While this did not include technical data, it provided the Soviet Union evidence that the British were considering the production of atomic weapons. He was never prosecuted, which later led to charges that the government engaged in a conspiracy to cover up
A cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to :wikt:conceal, conceal evidence of wrongdoing, error, incompetence, or other embarrassment, embarrassing information. Research has distinguished personal cover-ups (covering up one's own ...
his role.
The identity of the infamous 'fifth man' in the Cambridge Five remained a mystery outside intelligence circles until 1990, when KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG (; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelli ...
confirmed Cairncross publicly. Cairncross worked independently of the other four and did not share their upper-middle-class backgrounds or tastes. Although he knew Anthony Blunt at Cambridge, Guy Burgess socially (and had a dislike of both of them), Donald Maclean from the Foreign Office and Kim Philby from MI6, he claimed not to have been aware that they were also passing secrets to the Russians.
Cairncross had resigned from the civil service in late 1952 and forfeited his pension. In 1964, he admitted to interrogator Arthur Martin that he had spied for the Soviets.
In December 1979, Cairncross was approached by journalist Barrie Penrose
Barrie Penrose (26 January 1942 – 5 July 2020) was a British investigative journalist, interviewer and trainer.
Life and career
Born in Croydon, Penrose was educated at John Ruskin Grammar School and later at the London School of Economics.
...
and confessed to him. The news was widely publicized leading many to surmise that he was in fact the "fifth man", a designation which would be confirmed in 1989 by KGB agent Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG (; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelli ...
who had defected to Britain.
While Cairncross is now widely considered to be the "fifth man", a few sources previously believed that the designation should go to Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild
Nathaniel Mayer Victor Rothschild, 3rd Baron Rothschild (31 October 1910 – 20 March 1990) was a British banker, scientist, intelligence officer during World War II, and later a senior executive with Royal Dutch Shell and N M Rothschild & Son ...
. In his 1994 book ''The Fifth Man'', Roland Perry asserted this claim. After the book was published, former KGB controller Yuri Modin denied ever having named Rothschild as "any kind of Soviet agent". Modin's own book's title clarifies the name of the fifth man: ''My Five Cambridge Friends: Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt, and Cairncross''.
Cairncross did not view himself as one of the Cambridge Five, insisting that the information he sent to Moscow was not harmful to Britain and that he had remained loyal to his homeland. He believed that he had been doing a favour to an ally who was being refused information by a "right wing clique", according to one news item. In fact, his designation to the Cambridge ring is tenuous, since his truly valuable spy work had concluded by the end of WWII. A review of the 2019 book by Chris Smith, ''The Last Cambridge Spy: John Cairncross, Bletchley Park Codebreaker and Soviet Double Agent'', proposes this view. The review adds that unlike the other four, described as "privileged" and as "haute bourgeoisie" by another book (''A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean''), he was "lower middle class" with a heavy Scottish accent. "It was mere happenstance that he was at Cambridge with the others".
Later life
At the end of the war Cairncross joined the Treasury
A treasury is either
*A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry.
*A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or i ...
; he claimed that he ceased working for the MGB (later to become the KGB), at this time. KGB reports, published subsequently, contradict this.[
After his first confession (1952), Cairncross lost his civil-service job and was penniless and unemployed. With some financial assistance from his previous handler, Modin, he moved to the US, where he taught at universities in ]Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
and as a lecturer in Romance Languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland Ohio. Cairncross was an expert on French authors and translated the works of many 17th century French poets and dramatists such as Jean Racine
Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditio ...
, Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine (, , ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Euro ...
and Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille (; 6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine.
As a young man, he earned the valuable patronag ...
, as well as writing three of his own books: ''Molière bourgeois et libertin''; ''New Light on Molière''; and ''After Polygamy was Made a Sin''.
This career was ended following further investigation into Cairncross by MI5 investigative officer Arthur S. Martin. After Philby 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 1963, Martin reopened the files to hunt for the fourth and fifth men in 1964.[ To Martin's surprise, Cairncross made a full confession. Martin also received a denunciation which led to Blunt's confession. Despite his confession to Martin, Cairncross was never prosecuted for his espionage activities. The confession, conducted in ]Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
, was not made within British jurisdiction or under caution and would therefore have been inadmissible in court.
In 1967,[ Cairncross moved to ]Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, where he worked for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...
as a translator, also taking on work for the Research Office of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro
Banca Nazionale del Lavoro S.p.A. (BNL) is an Italian bank headquartered in Rome. It is Italy's sixth largest bank and has been a subsidiary of BNP Paribas since 2006.
History
Founded in 1913 as Istituto Nazionale di Credito per la Cooperazione ...
(BNL), Banca d'Italia and IMI. In 1970, he moved to France and lived in Provence.[ In the BNL, a young economist engaged with international scenarios analysis (the ]Iran–Iraq War
The Iran–Iraq War was an armed conflict between Iran and Iraq that lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It began with the Iraqi invasion of Iran and lasted for almost eight years, until the acceptance of United Nations Security Council ...
of 1980–1988, petroleum's strategic routes in the Middle East and Far East) reported a strong and unusual interest by Cairncross about the bank's role in that area. During his time in Rome, his secret finally reached the public. In December 1979, in the wake of the Blunt scandal, the former civil servant Jock Colville
Sir John Rupert Colville, CB, CVO (28 January 1915 – 19 November 1987) was a British civil servant. He is best known for his diaries, which provide an intimate view of number 10 Downing Street during the wartime Premiership of Winston Churchi ...
alluded to the Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
's journalist, Barrie Penrose
Barrie Penrose (26 January 1942 – 5 July 2020) was a British investigative journalist, interviewer and trainer.
Life and career
Born in Croydon, Penrose was educated at John Ruskin Grammar School and later at the London School of Economics.
...
, that there had been another spy in 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 ...
at the same time as Donald Maclean. After searching the Foreign Office lists, Penrose concluded that Cairncross was that spy and confronted him. Cairncross's third confession became front-page news. In 1981, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. S ...
informed parliament that Cairncross was a Soviet agent and was living with his wife in the west of England while he wrote his memoirs.[ His status as the "fifth man" was established in 1990 by ]Oleg Gordievsky
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG (; born 10 October 1938) is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (''rezident'') and bureau chief in London, and was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelli ...
, the KGB defector. Cairncross retired to the south of France until 1995 when he returned to Britain and married American opera singer Gayle Brinkerhoff, daughter of John Brinkerhoff. This was one month after his first wife who he married in 1951, Gabriella Oppenheim, died. Later that year he died after suffering a stroke, at the age of 82.
Unlike many other spies, Cairncross was never charged criminally for passing information to Moscow. His only imprisonment was in Rome, after being convicted of charges involving currency.
Cairncross's autobiography, ''The Enigma Spy'', was published in 1997. In 2001, writer Rupert Allason
Rupert William Simon Allason (born 8 November 1951) is a British former Conservative Party politician and professional author. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Torbay in Devon, from 1987 to 1997. He writes books and articles on the sub ...
lost a court case in which he claimed to have ghostwritten
''Ghostwritten'' is the first novel published by English author David Mitchell. Published in 1999, it won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was widely acclaimed. The story takes place mainly around East Asia, but also moves through Russia, B ...
''The Enigma Spy'' in return for copyright and 50% of the book proceeds. According to the BBC, "John Cairncross denied both that he was the supposed 'fifth man' and that such a person had ever existed. Critics at the time viewed this book as a last attempt to clear his name, though few appear to have been convinced".
Cultural representations
Cairncross is depicted in part three of the 2003 BBC TV series ''Cambridge Spies
''Cambridge Spies'' is a four-part British drama miniseries written by Peter Moffat and directed by Tim Fywell, that was first broadcast on BBC Two in May 2003 and is based on the true story of four brilliant young men at the University of C ...
'', where he appears reluctant to continue passing Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...
data to the Russians for fear that the Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...
was heavily penetrated by German intelligence and by Eastern Front military intelligence under General Gehlen. Anthony Blunt is depicted in the drama as pressuring him with threats.
Cairncross appears as a character in the Franco-Belgian comic ''India Dreams'' by Maryse and Jean-François Charles. He is depicted as the fifth of the Cambridge Five in Frederick Forsyth
Frederick McCarthy Forsyth (born 25 August 1938) is an English novelist and journalist. He is best known for thrillers such as ''The Day of the Jackal'', ''The Odessa File'', '' The Fourth Protocol'', '' The Dogs of War'', ''The Devil's Alter ...
's '' The Deceiver''.
Cairncross appears as a cryptographer
Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adver ...
at Bletchley Park in the 2014 film ''The Imitation Game
''The Imitation Game'' is a 2014 American historical drama film directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Graham Moore, based on the 1983 biography '' Alan Turing: The Enigma'' by Andrew Hodges. The film's title quotes the name of the game c ...
,'' played by Allen Leech
Allen Leech (born 18 May 1981) is an Irish actor best known for his role as Tom Branson on the historical drama series ''Downton Abbey'' and as Paul Prenter in the 2018 biopic ''Bohemian Rhapsody''. He made his professional acting debut with a ...
. He is portrayed as an unwitting double agent being used as a back-channel by MI6 to pass information to the Soviets that Churchill is too cautious to provide; no historical basis for this is provided. Historians, and the spy's own autobiography, have confirmed that Cairncross was spying for the Soviets because of his own views, and that this was not discovered by MI6 until long after the end of WWII.
Awards
* Order of the Red Banner
The Order of the Red Banner (russian: Орден Красного Знамени, Orden Krasnogo Znameni) was the first Soviet military decoration. The Order was established on 16 September 1918, during the Russian Civil War by decree of t ...
for his successfully obtaining information about German plans and operations on the Soviet-German front during World War II.
Bibliography
Written
*''New Light on Molière: Tartuffe, Elomire Hypocondre'' (Librairie Droz, 1956)
*''Molière bourgeois et libertin'' (Nizet, 1963)
*''After Polygamy Was Made a Sin: The Social History of Christian Polygamy'' (Routledge, 1974)
*''Things to come: the world food crisis, the way out'' (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 1974).
*''An Approach to Food and Population Planning'' (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 1978)
*''Population and Agriculture in the Developing Countries'' (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, 1980).
*''La Fontaine Fables, And Other Poems'' (Colin Smythe, 1982)
*''L'Humanité de Molière'' (Nizet, 1988)
*''The Enigma Spy: An Autobiography'' (Century, 1997)
Translated
*''Iphigenia; Phaedra; Athaliah'' (Racine, Penguin Classics, 1963)
*''Andromache; Britannicus; Berenice'' (Racine, Penguin Classics, 1967)
*''The Cid, Cinna, The Theatrical Illusion'' (Corneille, Penguin Classics, 1975)
*''Polyeuctus, The Liar, The Nicomedes'' (Corneille, Penguin Classics, 1980)
*''La Fontaine Fables and Other Poems'' (La Fontaine, Colin Smythe, 1982)
References
External links
*
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Caincross, John
1913 births
1995 deaths
British communists
Scottish communists
Secret Intelligence Service personnel
Soviet spies
Bletchley Park people
People educated at Hamilton Academy
Alumni of the University of Glasgow
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Double agents
British spies for the Soviet Union
People of the KGB
People from Lesmahagow
20th-century British writers
Scottish non-fiction writers
Scottish translators
Scottish literary critics
Northwestern University faculty
Case Western Reserve University faculty
20th-century British translators
Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner