The Cambridge Comintern

Abstract

MY purpose in this chapter is to examine a particular group of spies, whose activities interlocked during the Second World War and the early phase of the Cold War: Blunt, Burgess, Maclean and Philby. It is not my contention, and without access to Soviet archives it could not be proved, that this group did more damage to the national interests of Britain and her principal ally, the USA, than any other contemporary group. It might be argued, for example, that the damage done by the nuclear scientists, such as Nunn May and Klaus Fuchs, was more serious. There are, however, solid reasons for giving this particular group of Cambridge men special and collective treatment, quite apart from the secondary factor that the present writer knew all of them personally and professionally. The obvious link between these four men is that they were together at the same university and became communists at roughly the same period under the influence of similar arguments and emotions, generated by national and international developments of the day. In addition, all shared a common social and educational background, as well as talents that would have enabled them to excel (and Blunt did indeed excel) in a more honourable way of life than that of espionage.

FIRST JOURNALIST: ‘What do you make of him?’

SECOND JOURNALIST: ‘Secret Service, maybe.’

FJ: ‘With that tie? Not on your life!’

SJ: ‘There’s something phoney about him, anyhow. … There’ll be a story in it, you bet.’

The Dog Beneath the Skin, Act I, Scene 2,

W. H. Auden and C. Isherwood (Faber, 1935)