A Cold War Spy Dossier Revealed – With Lessons for Today

By Calder Walton

Calder Walton is Director of Research, Intelligence Project, Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He is the author, most recently, of Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and WestHe was a principal researcher on MI5’s authorized history and is a trained barrister (attorney).

OPINION — Earlier this month, a tranche of British Security Service (MI5) records was declassified on the most notorious traitors in modern British history: the five “Cambridge spies.” The records, released to the National Archives in London, contain the first ever opened MI5 dossiers on three members of the Cambridge spy network: H.A.R. “Kim” Philby, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. The files lay bare how British intelligence failed to identify the ideologically motivated Soviet agents, but also how agonizingly close Britain’s services at times came to doing so.

The files, however, are not simply historic. They have continued relevance today, revealing the colossal difficulties of counter espionage for any intelligence service. They offer a warning about how legitimate fears within an intelligence service of agent penetration can metastasize to near-fatal proportions. Britain’s experience with the search for the five Cambridge spies is a sobering tale of a penetrated agency tearing itself apart looking for other spies in its ranks. 

In 1951, Anglo-American signals intelligence revealed that a high-ranking British diplomat in the Foreign Office, Donald Maclean, was a Soviet agent. MI5 placed Maclean under intensive surveillance in the hope of catching him in the act of espionage. In May of that year, Maclean and a fellow British diplomat, Guy Burgess, disappeared. It later transpired that they had defected to the Soviet Union, with the help of Soviet intelligence. They left a trail of suspicion and destruction in their wake. At the time of their defection, Kim Philby was MI6’s liaison officer in Washington DC, which placed him—and thus Soviet intelligence, for whom he was secretly working—at the apex of transatlantic relations as the Cold War set in. During World War II, Philby had even managed to become the head of MI6’s department dealing with Soviet espionage. In 1951, Philby knew that his known friendship with Burgess, since his time at Cambridge in the 1930s, would inevitably cause suspicion to fall on himself.

Much of the story of the five Cambridge spies is now well known, but the newly opened files lay bare in minute detail how British intelligence tried, and failed, to track them down. The newly opened records reveal that after Burgess and Maclean’s disappearance, Philby managed to deflect suspicion away from himself, falsely claiming to the British authorities that he did not know either of them. After Burgess and Maclean vanished, when their whereabouts were still unknown, Philby was recalled to London and interviewed by a senior MI5 counter espionage officer, Dick White, who would go on to become both MI5 Director General and Chief of MI6. The files offer, for the first time, a summary of White’s interrogation with Philby. 

White politely questioned Philby about whether somebody—implying Philby himself—could have tipped Burgess and Maclean off that the US and UK authorities were suspicious of them. Philby provided an evasive answer, suggesting that Burgess may have overheard something and therefore was able to concoct an escape with Maclean.

In reality, as Philby well knew, he had been the one who warned Burgess and Maclean that the British were closing in. Philby made Burgess, who was then living with Philby in Washington DC, promise that he would not escape with Maclean because Philby correctly surmised that their friendship would make him a suspect. Burgess, however, garrulous, gay, and frequently drunk, broke his promise and escaped to the Soviet Union with Maclean. Sure enough, Philby soon found himself in the hot seat. 

According to the Kremlin’s version of events, Philby stoically refused to admit anything in his interrogations with the British. In fact, we can now see that Philby betrayed his two fellow Soviet agents to MI5, offering British spy chiefs “helpful” information suggesting that the two missing British diplomats were in fact Soviet spies. This is a story that Putin’s Kremlin, which regards Philby as its master spy, does not want publicized. In reality, to save himself, Philby threw Maclean and Burgess under the bus. Philby almost certainly never told the KGB about his betrayal of Burgess and Maclean. 

Philby lied to everyone—to his MI6 colleagues, his fellow Soviet agents, and the KGB as well.

Philby was interviewed in London by an MI5 officer, Helenus “Buster” Milmo, a barrister and later High Court judge, who got his nickname by “busting” confessions from defendants (not literally). It has been known for a long time that Milmo interrogated Philby; we have not, however, until now been able to see a transcript of that interview. Philby used his longstanding speech stutter to disarm Milmo’s rapid-fire line of questioning. Philby also knew that, without a confession, MI5 would not have sufficient evidence to prosecute him.

Milmo failed to “bust” a confession from Philby. Philby’s refusal to confess led to a schism between MI5, the FBI, and the CIA, all of which were convinced of his guilt, and Philby’s colleagues at MI6, who refused to believe his treachery. After all, Philby came from the “right” background, had a “proper” education, and was an affable member of London’s clubland. It was unthinkable that someone from the Upper Class would betray his country. 


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The inadequacy of rudimentary background checks

Philby and the other members of the Cambridge network were able to slip through the net, and enter Britain’s secret state during World War II, because of rudimentary background checks — and skilled Soviet tradecraft. The context was the war: Britain needed all the brain power it could get, even if people had left-wing credentials in their past. At the time, entry into sensitive positions in the British government relied on something called “negative vetting.” It was negative in the sense that it did not involve proactive investigations. Instead, it relied on looking up candidates in MI5’s records (a process known as an “LU” lookup) to see if there were any adverse traces. If there were no traces (“NT”), MI5 would advise it had no information to preclude that candidate’s employment on sensitive work. If there was a trace, some further investigations, such as an interview of the candidate, could be made, with an employment recommendation ultimately provided by MI5.

The system was inadequate. Most obviously, if someone kept away from organizations like the Communist Party, which MI5 was monitoring, then there would be no adverse traces within MI5 records. This is exactly what the Soviet recruiter of the Cambridge spies banked on and pulled off. With few if any incriminating traces in MI5’s records, each of the five Cambridge agents was able to slip through British vetting and inflict catastrophic damage on British national security. It was only after the exposure of the Cambridge spies that the British government introduced “positive vetting,” in which active investigations were carried out into a candidate’s backgrounds. 

Philby, the third man

Philby, dapper and deceitful, was officially retired from MI6, and started working as a journalist. The case against him, however, rumbled on. For over a decade, there was little progress. The breakthrough came in the early 1960s, when a former acquaintance of Philby’s, Flora Solomon, came forward with information that he had previously tried to recruit her as a Soviet agent. Solomon’s motivation for doing so was her disgust, as an ardent Zionist, with a series of anti-Israeli articles published by Philby. Armed with this information, in January 1963 an MI6 officer, Nicholas Elliott, Philby’s best friend in MI6, travelled to meet Kim in Beirut. Elliott interviewed Philby in his apartment and secretly tape-recorded their conversation. The newly opened files contain, for the first time publicly, a partial transcript of the recordings, some of which was garbled because of noise from an opened window and a busy Beirut Road below. Elliott and Philby’s conversation was friendly but poignant. Elliott offered him immunity from prosecution if Philby would confess his guilt. And here in the 21 new files on Philby, we now have it for the first ever time in public: Philby’s six-page typed confession.

Philby’s confession to MI6 was a tissue of lies. In it, he claimed to have worked for Soviet intelligence during World War II, when the Soviet Union was an ally of the Western powers, but in 1946, Philby stated, he had stopped spying for the Kremlin. This was yet another lie. In reality, he had spied for the Soviets all the way through 1951, when he was dismissed from MI6, and continued to do so until the point of his 1963 confession. Philby lied to Elliott’s face about something else: he assured Elliott that MI6 didn’t need to worry about him defecting (“doing a Burgess”). In fact, right after the interview, Philby disappeared and did indeed defect to the Soviet Union. The grim reality of life in Moscow was never what he or the KGB pretended that it was. He effectively drank himself to death, passing away on the eve of the Soviet Union’s collapse.

The fourth man

The newly opened files also contain 22 volumes on the fourth member of the Cambridge spy network, Anthony Blunt. He was a towering member of the British Establishment, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, famed art historian, knighted, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, and in charge of the King’s – and later the Queen’s –  art collection. During World War II, Blunt had managed to worm his way into MI5. When Burgess and Maclean defected in 1951, Blunt’s association with the two missing diplomats soon made him a suspect as well. Although MI5 was suspicious that the willowy academic had not been entirely frank with them about his connection to Burgess in particular, MI5 had no positive proof against Blunt. In 1956, MI5 interviewed Blunt, but having been a wartime MI5 officer himself, he knew all of the service’s interrogation tricks. Blunt’s interrogation was cordial but got nowhere.

The story of Sir Anthony Blunt’s treachery, and how he was caught, has been known for years. Blunt is indeed the subject of an excellent, but dated, biography. But the newly opened MI5 files reveal for the first time in granular detail exactly how he met his fate with the British authorities. The breakthrough in the case against Blunt came in 1963, when the American publisher and philanthropist, Michael Straight, provided information that Blunt had attempted to recruit him while a student at Trinity College, Cambridge. In February 1964, an MI5 officer, Arthur Martin, interviewed Blunt in his apartment above the Courtauld Institute. Martin offered Blunt a similar promise of immunity from prosecution to that given to Philby the year before. The transcript of the interview, now made available for the first time, notes that after looking out the window onto Portman Square for a long time, Blunt asked to leave the room to consider his options; he came back after a few minutes, and with his cheek twitching, confessed his guilt.

It is commonly asserted that thereafter, the British government covered up Blunt’s espionage to avoid a political scandal. This is incorrect. Blunt confessed based on immunity from prosecution, and because he had not been cautioned by the police, as a matter of legal evidence, his confession would not have been admissible in court anyway. In 1973, nearly a decade after his confession, the Queen’s personal secretary informed her that Blunt had been a Soviet spy. (Readers may remember this scene featured in an episode of “The Crown.”) The newly opened files note that the Queen “took it all very calmly and without surprise,” but the Queen also remembered that Blunt had been under suspicion in the early 1950s in the aftermath of Burgess and Maclean’s defection. The source of that information to the Queen is not revealed, but it may have been the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who is known to have taken a keen interest in British intelligence throughout his royal career. 

After he was publicly revealed as a Soviet spy in 1979, Blunt was disgraced, stripped of his Fellowship at Trinity and his Knighthood. In his posthumously released memoir, Blunt stated that spying for the Soviets was the greatest regret of his life.


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The missing fifth man

The newly unveiled records also include 22 files on the missing “fifth man” in the Cambridge network, John Cairncross. Unlike other members of the Cambridge spy ring, Cairncross hailed from humble beginnings, the son of a Scottish iron monger. He got to Cambridge on a scholarship and his academic brilliance thereafter propelled him into the upper echelons of the British Civil Service. During World War II, he worked variously in the Treasury, and even at Britain’s wartime eavesdropping service, Bletchley Park, from where Cairncross secretly betrayed to the Kremlin the secrets of British codebreakers. Incriminating evidence against Cairncross emerged again after the 1951 disappearance of Burgess and Maclean. An examination of Maclean’s office calendar showed Cairncross’ name in the month before their disappearance, in April 1951. MI5 was soon chasing down the leads on Cairncross’ background and political views. MI5 reached out to his former employers, at the Treasury Office, whose assessment we can now see was that Cairncross was a “very nice man,” “always very friendly and kind to newcomers,” and, in the Treasury’s view, could be relied on and regarded as a “very good public servant.” How wrong they were.

Three months after Burgess and Maclean’s defection, in August 1951, MI5 interviewed Cairncross. Like Philby and Blunt, Cairncross provided evasive answers and refused to admit his guilt. When he was asked what his political views were, he said “they approximated to those of The Economist.” When questioned whether he had ever been a communist, he said “emphatically that he had not although he agreed while at the University his views might have been slightly more to the left then they were now.” MI5 was not satisfied with the interview, but without a confession, could not prosecute him. In February 1964, the month after Philby’s partial confession and disappearance, Cairncross was again interviewed, this time in the United States where he was working. In this interview, again on the promise of immunity from prosecution, Cairncross finally admitted to spying for the Soviets, from 1936 to 1951. 

So close, yet so far

The tragedy of the case against Cairncross was how close British intelligence had previously come to catching him. MI5 suspected he was a Soviet agent as early as 1951. In fact, in the early 1950s, MI5 had identified all five members of the Cambridge network and would thereafter obtain partial or full confessions from each of them, as noted above. Unfortunately, however, British counterespionage officers did not know at that point that they had effectively closed the case of the Cambridge spies. Information from a subsequent Soviet defector made it appear that the missing fifth man was not Cairncross. In the following years, British intelligence, particularly MI5, was chasing phantoms, searching for the missing fifth man, who they had in fact already identified. It was not until the early 1980s that an MI6 agent in the KGB, Oleg Gordievsky, finally disclosed that Cairncross was indeed the fifth man. At that point, in the early 1980s, it became clear that British intelligence had discovered all five members of the network thirty years before. 

Soviet records reveal that members of the Cambridge spy network hemorrhaged voluminous top secret British and US records to the Kremlin during and after World War II. This intelligence helped the grizzled Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, to calibrate his moves against the Western powers as the Cold War set in. But apart from the damage of betrayed secrets themselves, the violence to the British intelligence community lay with its destructive search for other missing members of the Cambridge network. The newly opened files reveal that an MI5 officer, Peter Wright, was integrally involved in the tail end investigations into Cairncross and Blunt. Wright was convinced that other Soviet spies were lurking within MI5’s ranks. Wright would later publish a bestselling account of his time in MI5, Spycatcher, in which he asserted inaccurately that an MI5 Director General, Sir Roger Hollis, was himself a Soviet spy. Peter Wright and a small group of others in MI5 convinced themselves of a vast Soviet conspiracy and tore MI5 apart trying to find evidence to support their theory. The search for the missing fifth man ended the careers of innocent British intelligence officers and other civil servants, and, in at least one instance, led to a suspect committing suicide. 

A warning from the past

As is so often the case, old papers tell new stories. The issues raised in these newly unsealed British records are timeless. The same predicament that British intelligence faced seven decades ago remains today: without a confession, it is difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute a foreign agent in court. Any decent defense lawyer is able to attack evidence presented through technical intelligence, such as signals intelligence, as inherently unreliable. 

Philby’s treachery also destabilized the CIA’s own counterintelligence efforts. In the 1960s, the CIA’s head of counterintelligence, James Angleton, was so afflicted by the betrayal of his old drinking friend, Philby, that he effectively descended into a wilderness of mirrors, from where Angleton never really returned. He was convinced of a Soviet monster plot against the United States, and turned away genuine Soviet defectors, while giving credence to unreliable defectors. Thanks to Angleton’s paranoia, the CIA’s counterintelligence staff effectively ground to a halt in the 1960s.

The US intelligence community would later experience tragedies that mirrored the British experience –with Robert Hanssen in the FBI and Aldrich Ames within the CIA betraying US secrets to the Kremlin. Red flags about their backgrounds were ignored and colleagues within the FBI and CIA at times wished away the possibility that they had a traitor in their midst. Like the five Cambridge spies, the search for Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen was destructive, undermining careers and leading to false accusations. An entirely innocent CIA officer, Brian Kelley, was falsely accused of being a Russian agent, when the true culprit was Ames. 

Today, western intelligence services must be alert to a latter day Russian or Chinese Philby operating in their ranks. If or when such an agent is exposed, history suggests the search for other missing agents can be as destructive, if not more, than the original penetration. A hostile foreign intelligence service will look on with glee as a penetrated western agency undermines itself. That is the true violence that foreign agent penetration can inflict on an intelligence community. British intelligence learned this the hard way.

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