The Story of Cambridge Spies

The successive scandals also did long-lived damage to Britain's standing as an international power and to the " fussy relationship" enjoyed by that nation and U.S. intelligence agency services. Despite entirely its effects, however, and the enormous amount of research and writing on the subject, the Cambridge Spies arrest some of their mystery. Their motivations have been accounted for in terms of their personalizedities, ideological commitments, and their attitudes toward their birth environments but the true reason that they chose this course of action ashes an enigma with, perhaps, as many answers as there atomic number 18 spies.

What is known about the activities of the spies comes from many sources -- from the self-reports of Philby's autobiography and Blunt's confession to the assessments of intelligence experts and historians to the archives of the KGB. But Philby's autobiography was fully in line with Soviet propaganda needs; a "skilful but doctored personal account" that "contributed to the perpetuation of his own legend" (Boyle 444). Philby conceived of himself as a spy on the grand scale and was prone to drop off even minor episodes in a very romanticized light. He recalled, for example, his eagerness for admission to the Communist Party

Because of an error made by a Soviet goose egg clerk American cryptographers managed to break the Russian code in 1950 and, since the Army had been intercepting Soviet intelligence transmissions for years but could do nothing with them. The breaking of the code revealed that a highly rigid mole had operated in the British Embassy in the mid mid-forties and various clues made it increasingly clear that Maclean had been the culprit. Philby deputed burgess to monish Maclean, then in England, that he was about to be arrested. Burgess arranged his own disgrace by getting one-third speeding tickets in a single day and kick to the Ambassador about the impounding of his car. He was duly displace home in disgrace where, contrary to Philby's instructions, he linked Maclean in fleeing to the U.S.S.R.

Both Burgess and Philby were convinced, however, that Maclean would fold under compress and it is possible that Burgess simply decided that the heavy-drinking Maclean should not be trusted by himself. Unfortunately the Russians handlers realistically decided that "the over-zealous bumbler had better accompany Donald Maclean all the way to Moscow in addition" (Boyle 377). Philby weathered the storm at first, and was even publicly exculpate of suspicion of involvement in warning Maclean. But in 1963, as investigators again closed in him, Philby too fly to Moscow.

But whatever the circumstances were surrounding Burgess' recruitment he charmed his way into the confidence of many important hatful and came to have considerable value to the spy ring. Burgess' time with MI6 was predictably short for even in the somewhat relaxed acceptance of stack based on their family connections and schooling Burgess was too fearsome to be effective. Yet, as Newton noted, the service was the site of "what was doubtlessly his greatest undercover coup" -- the fact that he managed to " invite out Philby in after him" (266). Burgess' primary work, however, was done in his attendant years at the Foreign Office
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