◆ SpookStack

Declassified Document Archive & Reader
Log In Register
Reader Ad Slot
Reader Ad Slot placeholder
If you would like to support SpookStack without paying out of pocket, please consider allowing advertising cookies. It helps cover hosting costs and keeps the archive free to browse. You can change this choice at any time.

Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 24

60 pages · May 09, 2026 · Broad topic: Intelligence Operations · Topic: Cambridge Five Spy Ring · 60 pages OCR'd
← Back to feed
et ae et SOE gE EEA i Seat aa, ee ft owpamyreeset es necut, At that time Gu , Otll mpwprouel how these ax vpry good friend, was ‘imerica, working at our Wash- , 4 gion Embassy. aclean had recently become read of the American Depart- nent 0 @ Fora] London gn Office in had only met him a couple of times. though Guy had spoken to me about him and told me about thetr association. te Indeed, T had not seen Mac- “an for Years until th October night, * I was with my wife and two friends at the Gargoyle Club in ‘he West End. Maclean was there--very drunk, TAUNTS T would not even have recog- nired him if I had not been 'ald who he was. But, to my astonishment, he tottered over 'o our table and addressed me seme. en in an extreniely menac- ing and belligerent voice he Oe soe Know all about you. 4 ‘oO be one vou ratted.” of us, put I thought he was going t assault me, But at the critical moment his legs crumpled up under ‘him and he was brought to his knees. There he stayed, his hand om the edge of the table, hi i’tge white head on a eve ith my chest. And fro is absurd position he pr eded to direct a stream of abuse at me. He was a tempting target. and ‘J pleaded with my friends to Tet me hit him. They restrained Jie. And, after a few more out- bursts of invective, he rose un-+ steadily to his feet and stumbled away, As I left with my party, I puzzled over his drunken taunts. The only meaning 1 could attach to them was that Maclean believed f had “ratted ’ from the espionage organisation to which Guy Lurgess had belonged. For before the war Guy once claimed to me that he was a Communist agent. Later, I gathered from him that he had dropped out. He had never mentioned Maé- jean in this connection, But now it seemed that Maclean, t¥o, had been a Russian agent. - And Burgess must have told him that I was a fellow spy who “Tatted.” - . ¥eg it Et was. ludicrous. _in Washington, had sent him them to be—still clung closely together. I was given one more proof of the closeness of this bond when Guy returned from Washington six months later. He came to see me at my country house near London. Sir Oliver Franks, our Ambassador back to Gritain, Guy was in disgrace because of his wild be- haviour in America. ’ “Tam golng to be suspended or dismissed from the Forelgn Office," he told me. But he did not seem to mind. A friend from his Eton days had fixed him up with a newspaper job. But before he left the diplo matic service he was deler- mined to make one last gesture. He drew from his briefcase a sheaf of papers. They contained memorandum that Guy had men up on American foreign icy. It was a brilliantly written, ough completely unbalanced, attack on the American Govern- ment and its “warmongering ” Jeaders. THE FLIGHT When he left for London he ! said he would show his despatch to Mr. Kenneth Younger, then second-in-command at the Foreign Office as Minister of Btate. . I wag never to see Guy again. For within three weeks he had fled to Moscow. But a few days alter this last meeting I spoke to him on the phone. He told me he had not yet managed to see Younger. THE ONLY PERSON TO WHOM HE HAD SHOWN HIS DESPATCH WAS DONALD MACLEAN, It was then, I am now certain, that Donald Maclean informed his confederate that they were under suspicion as spies, And it was then that they arranged their flight across the Iron Curtain. For on the day before thelr Owain many people. But I am I am right.” in tern agents — as I belleve My wife did not understand: this mysterious statement, She, I had Gnished, were When ““yae a slight pause. The gave me rather s curious Then he said, in a mat - thought he was drunk. fact voice: “Of course - He rambled on, saying *now that Guy dids't time after time that I, at any —- @/one? ; For a moment I was dumb rate, would understand what he was golng to do, The following morning, Batur- ‘day, May 26, 1951, my wife received another phone call from London, this time from Jackie Hewit, who shared a fat with Guy. ‘PHONE CALLS He was in a state of great agitation. Guy had not returned to the flat the previous even- ing. Hewit was alarmed by his absence. Did my wife know where he could have gone? But « of course she knew nothing. Late on Sunday evening I returned home and heard about the two mysterious phone calls. In a flash of intuitlon—and to my wife's utter bewlider- ment—I said: "He has gone to Moscow.” : Next morning I rang up riend, who was also a frien of Guy's and had close contac with M15, the War Off counter-espionage organisatio: I told him that Guy had vanished. “IT think M.LS should be in- formed,” I said. “I think Guy may have gone over to the Russians.” My friend at once made the | necessary approach to M.L4. But I was not asked to teli my story until nine days later. When I was at last invited to go along to M.1L5 I was taken inte the presence of an officer whom I had known during the ; war—and who had also known Burgess well. - By now I was not so sure that . my intuition about Guy was right. It seemed incredible, on reflection, that a man who had so many friendly contacts in our Security services could - self be a spy. So I was taken aback by the disappearance, when I was away nerfhse seriousness with whi in Oxford. my wife had strange phone call from Burgess. e said: “I am about to do . my story was received. — something that will surprise founded. Then I asked who else had gone. “Donald Maclean,” sald the | from men like these. : officer. “ They went together.” Alter I left M.L5 I learned ao good deal more about the man- ner of Guy's fight. He had evidently gone in a frantic hurry. He had taken no luggage and had left a- -large sum In banknotes in his flat. But he did find time to to Gieve's, In Bond Street, y four Old Etonian ties! | | I found out, too, that jou ast hysterical phone call] to y wife was made from he Reform Club. ‘Typically, be did not pay for the 20-minute trunk call. Soon after, the world heard the story of the missing diplo- mats. It was not the whole story, The Foreign Office con- . cealed. as much as it could. And I have only revealed it now because I believe that the public must be Warned about the dangers still to be faced For it is certain that Maclean and Burgess were not the only Britons in positions of trust wha were recruited into the Soviet apy ring. ; ‘I believe that Burgess and Maclean staged their recent public reappearance in Mos- cow as a warning to those remaining traitors—a wWwarn- ing that they can be exposed “if they do not continue in the service cf Russia. These traitors must be rooted out before this long-range black- mail begins to work. MY VERDICT Only then will Britain be saved from another Burgess and Maclean scandal Since their flight I have had two messages from Burgess. The first, at Christmas, 1953, was to the effect that he was well and sent his love. In the second, which I re ceived after his reappearance, he asked me to write to him at ‘Poste Restante, Central Tel raph Office, Moscow, U.5.5. i do not know what kind eply he expected. This sto nd my verdict on Guy Bur will serve for an answer. _ 3S 6
OCR quality for this page
Community corrections
First editor: none yet Last editor: none yet
No user corrections yet.
Comments
Document-wide discussion. Follow the Community Standards.
No comments on this document yet.
Bottom Reader Ad Slot
Bottom Reader Ad Slot placeholder
If you would like to support SpookStack without paying out of pocket, please consider allowing advertising cookies. It helps cover hosting costs and keeps the archive free to browse. You can change this choice at any time.

Continue Exploring

Use the strongest next step for this document: continue reading, jump to the topic hub, or move into the matching agency collection.
Continue Reading at Page 57
Jump straight to page 57 of 60.
Reader
Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 35
Stay inside Cambridge Five Spy Ring with another closely related document.
Topic
FBI Documents & FOIA Archive
Open the FBI agency landing page for stronger archive context.
FBI
Cambridge Five Spy Ring Topic Hub
See the topic overview, related documents, and linked subtopics.
Hub

Agency Collection

This document also belongs in the FBI Documents & FOIA Archive landing page, which is the stronger starting point for agency-level browsing and for searches focused on FBI records.
FBI Documents & FOIA Archive
Open the agency landing page for introduction text, topic links, and more FBI documents.
FBI

Explore This Archive Cluster

This document belongs to the Intelligence Operations archive hub and the more specific Cambridge Five Spy Ring topic page. Use these hub pages when you want the broader collection context, linked subtopics, and more documents around the same archive thread.
Related subtopics
MKULTRA
28 documents · 928 known pages
Subtopic
Interpol
17 documents · 1676 known pages
Subtopic
Basque Intelligence Service
10 documents · 965 known pages
Subtopic
Release 2000 08
2 documents · 77 known pages
Subtopic
08 08 Cia-Rdp96-00789R000100260002-1
1 documents · 4 known pages
Subtopic
08 08 Cia-Rdp96-00789R002600320004-5
1 documents · 12 known pages
Subtopic