Guy Burgess and the Cambridge Spy Ring (148)

Guy Burgess was the most important, complex, and fascinating of The Cambridge Spies, brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed to his Russian handlers.

In his book “Stalin’s Englishman” , Andrew Lownie tells us how even Burgess's chaotic personal life of drunken philandering did nothing to stop his penetration and betrayal of the British Intelligence Service. Even when he was under suspicion, the fabled charm which had enabled many close personal relationships with influential Establishment figures (including Winston Churchill) prevented his exposure as a spy for many years.


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I am delighted to welcome Andrew Lownie to our Cold War conversation…


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[globalspiritualrevolutionmedia]

The British Actor Samuel West who played Sir. Anthony Blunt on the Crown was absolutely powerful!
Samuel West is a Great Actor - Very Distinguished.

[brettshea]

Excellent work...shall start supporting...

[pepechen]

I have a suggestion, one corner of Cold War history that is rarely mentioned and you could invite the absolute expert in the matter, author of 'Mao's Third Front: The Militarization of Cold War China', Covell F. Meyskens.

[markthemovieman]

Your hard work is very much appreciated. Excellent stuff, thank you.

[lesilluminations]

Reading the Lownie book now. Richly detailed and fascinating.

[marypartridge]

Thanking you. This fascinates as my own father was an intellectual, socialist and worked as a diplomat. Like my father I think they had emotional problems. Probably lacked father input and they were overattached to their mothers. I always wondered why my father worked as a diplomat but was also a rebel and a socialist. I definitely feel these men had problems with asserting masculinity so they did this through spying. So these men are of interest to me in an attemp to understand my own father. And my conclusion is they all had inferiority complexes even though they were intelligent.

[James-nlfu]

The KGB deserves 👏 a round of applause for totally penetrating the British Secret Intelligence Services.Incidently making it the greatest comedy act of all time.👏 ❤️

[jackharrison]

Very interesting, and thanks. One point I noticed, was the comment about someone working for MI5 AND MI6. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I thought there was an odd relationship between the two services; which might have prevented working for both; at the same time. This was illustrated in the mini series- Codename Kyril. Edward Woodward looks down on an MI5 Officer, as though inferior.

[jennifertate]

This piece is awesome, and I'm going to watch more! I did want to hear a bit more about the Cambridge Fives' involvement in passing on atomic secrets and how Burgess (they) reacted, if you've found more information on that.

[brettshea]

Could you do an episode on the missing spy pilots and other Mia's from the cold war, Korea and Vietnam that were taken to USSR? I'd be willing to look at funding that ep myself...

[sidneyvicous]

it was fashionable to be marxist in the cambridge of the 30s

[josepereirapereira]

Fascinanting story The Cambridge Five

[jcollins]

From the looks of the uk today, it would appear that the British are much further along to a Soviet style system of government than the soviets could have ever dreamed of!

[benthejrporter]

Burgess might have been ideological, but if he hadn't he'd be easy to blackmail considering his lifestyle.

[thevalkyrie]

Why do you not mention Victor Rothschild as the fifth member

[michaelmazowiecki]

Russian penetration of British society is even deeper even more so in the past 30 years due to the UKlaundromat environment.

[DrVictorVasconcelos]

To me, the govt's secrecy is a structural problem. It's a monarchy problem. It's a matter of: Do you have a republic? Is it a res publica, i.e., the state goods are the people's goods? If you didn't fight for that, the govt will feel entitled to pull this bs. And the fight is continuous and multifaceted, frankly.

[angloaust]

Traitors in our midst
Ww2 was partly to blame
Having a russian alliance!

[kyleolsen]

It was big problem then not so much now the Russians had a lot of people in Britain

[RalphBrooker-gniv]

Did Burgess have a 1st-Class degree? First part of tripos, yes. But then underperformed. Very misleading to claim that he had a 1st Class degree. I read Lownie’s book and was generally disappointed. Compare Milne’s (senior ex-SIS officer, published posthumously) far superior exercise in informative discretion about Philby which refers to Burgess a lot, painting a different picture, especially about Burgess’ credentials as academic or intellectual.