The Development of Soviet Espionage in the British Establishment
Contrary to popular belief, Soviet espionage in Great Britain began more than a decade before the official start of the Cold War. In fact, Soviet espionage networks began operating in Great Britain well before the start of WWII. The most infamous, and most damaging, of these Soviet spy networks, the Cambridge Five, began operating as early as 1933. The Cambridge Five: Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross were all targeted and recruited by Soviet intelligence out of Cambridge University in the early to late 1930s. The political and academic establishment of Great Britain during that time, witnessed an influx in liberalist, socialist, and communist ideologies seeping out of top universities. Students pursued liberal-minded philosophies, and the Soviet model of communism naturally (yet discreetly) fared well with many (Flaxman 2010). Despite the emergence and popularity of more liberalist ideologies, the ‘old boy’ establishment of the British elite remained intact. As history has shown, all of the Cambridge Five were radicalized by communist ideologies while at the university; yet all of them almost immediately transitioned to prominent positions among the British elite in places such as the Secret Intelligence Services, the Foreign Office, the BBC, and Bletchley Park [famous for decoding the German Enigma machine] (Thurlow 2004). As such, the Soviet NKVD, GRU, and later the KGB exploited these liberal-minded students, took advantage of their connections to the political establishment, and fostered their movements into positions that yielded the highest potential for political and military intelligence.
Growing popularity and membership in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) on campuses provided fertile ground for Soviet intelligence officers, who began talent-spotting bright, young university students with ties to the British political establishment (Madeira 2003). For example, Kim Philby’s father had served the King as a diplomatic official in Saudi Arabia; and it is through his father that Philby was able to secure a position as a journalist, reporting on both Franco and republican forces in the Spanish Civil War. Philby’s father also had connections in the Secret Intelligence Services, and later arranged interviews for his son, which landed him a position at MI6 [foreign intelligence] (Flaxman 2010). Guy Burgess’s father had served in the Royal Navy as an officer; and Donald Maclean’s father was a prominent politician. Burgess and Maclean both served in the Foreign Office, and later defected to the Soviet Union together after being tipped off by Philby in 1951 [Philby was then a liaison between the UK and US intelligence services, working on the VENONA project] (Kerr 2002). However, it was Kim Philby who had contacts within Soviet intelligence; and it was Philby that recruited Blunt, Burgess, Maclean, and Cairncross, who then fostered their relationships with their Soviet handlers (Kerr 2002). Nevertheless, it is probable that Philby (under the direction of his own Soviet handler) was talent-spotting, and recruiting students sympathetic to communism, with prominent backgrounds in the British establishment.
Kim Philby’s tenure as a journalist in the Spanish Civil War during the mid to late 1930s provided cover for him to meet with Soviet contacts in Europe. In 1933, in Vienna, he met his official handler, code named OTTO. OTTO’s real name was Arnold Deutsch, and he had been the one that instructed Philby to pursue a job in journalism. OTTO was impressed by Philby’s espionage activities in Spain, and then urged him to participate in anti-fascist groups, and later pursue a career in intelligence. In 1939, as Great Britain prepared for war with Germany, the Secret Intelligence Services expanded its numbers and operations. Philby, prompted by OTTO, used his father’s connections to secure a position. Philby was assigned to an MI6 department, Section V, that was responsible for coordinating operations with partisan resistance fighters in sabotage, espionage, and subversion (MacIntyre 2014). Despite the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact, Philby continued to supply his Soviet handlers with information about British, French, and German troop strengths, movements, and armaments (Philby despised Nazi fascism). But Philby was not the only Soviet spy to reach such a prominent position. By this time Burgess was already working at MI6 (he actually recommended Philby for the job), Blunt was at MI5, Maclean had made it into the Foreign Office, and Cairncross was stealing atomic and Enigma secrets at Bletchley Park (MacIntyre 2014).
The rate and quality of the intelligence gathered by the Cambridge Five was nothing short of impressive, yet the Soviets suspected deception. The Soviets could not grasp the concept that MI5 and MI6 truly believed that Soviet espionage in Great Britain was nonexistent (Thurlow 2004). Subsequently, numerous Soviet contacts and agents in Great Britain and Europe were being recalled to Moscow to be arrested, or executed. OTTO was likely one of them. As Ben MacIntyre explains in A Spy Among Friends,
“the Cambridge spies — Guy Burgess in MI6, Donald Maclean in the Foreign Office, Anthony Blunt in MI5, John Cairncross in Bletchley Park, and Kim Philby in Section V — were producing top-level intelligence. But their very productivity posed a conundrum. In the insanely distrustful world of Soviet espionage, the quality, quantity, and consistency of this information rendered it suspect” (MacIntyre 2014).
He goes on about OTTO,
“the fate of Arnold Deutsch has never been fully explained. Philby would later claim he had died when a ship taking him to America, the Donbass, was torpedoed by a U-boat, thus making him a victim of Hitler’s aggression rather than Stalin’s… it seems just as probable that bright-eyed OTTO, founder-recruiter of the Cambridge spy ring, shared Maly’s [former Soviet handler recalled and executed] fate” (MacIntyre 2014).
But the Soviets did particularly value one of the Cambridge spy’s information, and it arguably resulted in a Soviet military victory in WWII.
John Cairncross, at Bletchley Park, was deciphering and passing on to the Soviets, information about the war on the Eastern front. The Soviet Union highly regarded the intelligence coming in from Cairncross. He was providing the Soviets with decrypted diplomatic and military cables that specifically detailed the plans and positions of German air forces around Kursk. The battle of Kursk is historically recognized as a major turning point in the war. Cairncross’s own wife states about John that he believed he was doing his duty to help the Soviets defeat the Germans on the Eastern front, which led him, “in 1943, while at Bletchley Park, to pass to the Russians crucial information derived from Enigma decrypts about the strength and location of the Luftwaffe. These enabled the Red Army to win the battle of Kursk” (Cairncross-Gow 2003). Cairncross also appealed to the Soviets due to his work at Bletchley Park, and his close associations with the development of atomic weapons research. He was suspected of passing atomic secrets to the Soviets, a claim that he had denied his entire life. He also claimed that he had only reluctantly spied for the Soviet Union because he felt that the Soviets were indispensable to the war effort, and Great Britain’s security from Hitler depended on their strength (Cairncross-Gow 2003). However, Cairncross and Blunt roomed one floor apart at Cambridge, he sat across from Maclean during his brief tenure at the Foreign Office, and he became close friends with Burgess. Anthony Blunt would later inform on Cairncross to interrogators at MI5 (Cairncross-Gow 2003).
After the war’s end, Maclean and Burgess secured diplomatic assignments to the United States, and Philby gained a position as a counterintelligence liaison between MI6 and the CIA. Burgess lived with Philby in Washington, which would later put him in the spotlight after Burgess and Maclean defected to the Soviet Union. Maclean had trouble keeping up with his double life, and his behavior became erratic. However, there is no doubt that Maclean purposely joined the Foreign Office to spy for the Soviet Union. Sheila Kerr states in her article in Intelligence and National Security,
“Maclean’s family, friends and former colleagues unanimously testified he was the perfect candidate for the Foreign Office. Yet in the mid-1950s the press alleged that Maclean had been eased into the Foreign Office by family connections. Lady Violet Bonham Carter, a family friend, was accused of having ignored Maclean’s communism because he was ‘one of us’. The establishment was accused of corruption for accepting Maclean and complacency for shielding him when his behavior at work merited investigation” (Kerr 2002).
Even worse for Maclean, VENONA had shed light on information that pointed to his betrayal. Philby had picked up the VENONA decrypts during his ‘counterintelligence’ work, and close association with James Jesus Angleton [chief of CIA counterintelligence] (Kerr 2002). Philby and his Soviet handlers instructed Burgess to assist Maclean in his defection to the Soviet Union. Unpredictably, and unfortunately for Philby, Burgess defected with Maclean in 1951.
The combined defections of Maclean and Burgess prompted a frenzy in the British and US intelligence communities. MI5 began scrutinizing the defectors’ close friends and associates. Philby was almost immediately placed under suspicion, and surveillance, due to the fact that he and Burgess had lived together and were close friends. Anthony Blunt was placed under surveillance, and was later brought in for interrogation. There, he presumably informed on Cairncross. Philby’s treachery could not be proven, and he was later exonerated. Philby went on to spy for the Soviets in Beirut, until he eventually defected to the Soviet Union in 1963. Maclean, Burgess, and Philby were all welcomed into the Soviet Union; but they never particularly received the hero’s welcome that they had anticipated. The NKVD and KGB had remained distrustful of foreign spies throughout WWII and the Cold War, and the Cambridge Five could never really convince [nor did they realize that they had to convince] the Soviets that their information harbored no deception whatsoever (MacIntyre 2014).
As can be determined from the examples above, the Soviet Union was able to penetrate the highest levels of British political and intelligence circles. Although each member of the Cambridge Five willingly spied for the Soviet Union, out of their own idealistic sympathies to the communist cause, the Soviets successfully targeted and recruited members of the British establishment to spy on their own. By exploiting liberal-minded and leftist university students, Soviet intelligence handlers pinpointed ‘promising’ candidates that were destined for profitable positions among the British elite (profitable in terms of intelligence collection). The Soviets developed those well-educated men to provide wartime intelligence, and later atomic and political secrets from the West. While the personal histories of Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Blunt, and Cairncross are well documented, little attention has been given to the nature in which the Soviet Union exploited and developed these young men. That fact remains: these men were career spies. They spied for the Soviet Union from the early 1930s to the 1950s and 1960s; yet these five remain the most famous. But therein lies a burdening question, were there others? If so, how many? Ultimately, the Cambridge Five spy ring was eventually rolled up; but the true extent of the damage has yet to be declassified. However, without a doubt, the Cambridge Five were some of history’s most successful and controversial spies; yet the spy ring contains some valuable lessons. Even though these men came from rich and prominent backgrounds, they remained unwaveringly devoted to their ideological causes. As such, social background and family history do not necessarily define an individual’s political allegiance, or even an individual’s character. The traits of deception and betrayal can be developed by anyone.
References:
Cairncross-Gow, Gayle. “Secrets and Spies,” The Guardian (2003). Web. Accessed 03 July 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2003/may/15/features11.g2.
Flaxman, Erwin. “The Cambridge Spies: Treason and Transformed Ego Ideals,” Psychoanalytic Review97, no. 4 (2010): 607–631. Accessed 03 July 2017. http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy1.apus.edu/docview/848860977?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=8289.
Kerr, Sheila. “Investigating Soviet Espionage and Subversion: The Case of Donald Maclean,” Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 1 (2002): 101–116. Accessed 03 July 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02684520412331306430.
Lownie, Andrew. Stalin’s Englishman. (2015). Hodder and Stoughton Educational. London.
MacIntyre, Ben. A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. (2014). Bloomsbury Publishing. London.
Madeira, Victor. “Moscow’s Interwar Infiltration of British Intelligence, 1919–1929,” The Historical Journal 46, no. 4 (2003): 915–933. Accessed 03 July 2017.http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy2.apus.edu/stable/4091601?pq-origsite=summon&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents.
Thurlow, Richard. “Soviet Spies and British Counterintelligence in the 1930s: Espionage in the Woolwich Arsenal and the Foreign Office Communications Department,” Intelligence and National Security 19, no. 4 (2004): 610–631. Accessed 03 July 2017. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0268452042000327519.