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Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 30

69 pages · May 09, 2026 · Broad topic: Intelligence Operations · Topic: Cambridge Five Spy Ring · 69 pages OCR'd
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Macleans are very keen to eel you and have ‘invited .us ee | looked forward 10 th 2 with enormous curivsity, as Tha. slready begun to grasp how restricted our life was going to be: in 10 days [ -had spoken to no one other than Kim, Sergei and-—with a few myers and sign fanguage—to Zena the housekeeper. Ai last I was to meet the couple whose situation mest closely resembled our own. The Macleans—another Anglc- American couple—had defected to Russia in dramatic circumstances, but they had a Naturally, ] was extremely curious to know how they lived and how they Russian society. They surely. knew the ropes and [ was eager to learn -all T could from them. strict control that he had met the Macleans only a couple of weeks before my arrival. He had known Donald as a young man but had seen little of him during his later Foreign Office career. There was no comrade- ship between them, such as had bound Kim to Burgess: human sympathy of attraction. What they had in common was theic dedi- cated work for the Russians. Kim had not met Melinda before arriving Hao MOL Me, wacuinaa OoLore armiving lo Moscow, That evening they gave mea warm welcome. Apart ‘from occasional visits from relatives, I was the first rson from the Western world they ad met in a Jong while with whom they could speak freely. I faced a barrage of questions: they wanted to know what was happening in London and New York, where I had so otrecently been, which of our mutual friends I had seen, what ' everyone was doing and thinking out there in the West. Touch of envy greatly liked to take a look for them- selves. Unlike myself, Melinda had allowed her American passport to expire many years before and she without taking a risk. Already, on . our first meeting, I detected a touch 4 of : expatriates regarded me: was still valid. Most of all, I was still an American. - ' After dinner we setiled down to a hand of bridge. and this was the pattern of many future meetings. Twice or three times a week, we would dine. play bridge and gossip. If the building in which we lived was plain and sombre, dating from before the Revolution, the Macleans’ apart- ment was high up in one of tha massive, heavily-ornamented piles, . had a fine view Over the i) xcow Fiver from their — aoa af ere ae wo = 1OQ-years start. . had adjusted to the complexities of | Kim had been kept under such - and Wittle | ~ may have shared Undoybtedly, they would have . the envy with which these ‘ ; I could’ * come and go as I chose; my passport - ayant _-- characteristic of Stalin's Teign. They . weyoleud ot. ede, ledine ABD Ublbe mistakable fiavour of London S¥‘1. But the chint-cs wefe rather and foreign furnishings were to replace. Apart from the drawing-room. which was larger and more ambitious than ours, the family was crammed into two small bedrooms: one for their daughter who was then 12; another for the two boys Fergie and Donald, 18 and 20; while Donald and Melinda slept on sofas in the drawing-room. The girl, Mimsey, was born after inr father defected. and went to Russia as an- infant; she spoke Russian like a native and struck Kim and me as being unusually spoiled and terribly rude to her mother. Th older boy attended Moscof University, and his brother technical institute, None of af children looked Russian, perhaps be- cause they dressed themselves from parcels of clothes which Melinda's mother’ and sister constantly sent from Arnerica and England. So conceited Altogether it was not a very happy household, and’ I sometimes wondered why Melinda, who had clearly been close to divorcing Donald a number of times, had m in Moscow, She is convictions and -been an accomplice of nis espionage, but she seemed to yearn for the luxuries of Western capitalism— from which she was not wholly cut off, thanks to her mother's packages. Donald was an enormous man, almost six foot six, in his middle chosen to join cnostn to pon mr ‘fifties, undoubtedly intelligent, but with an unappealing conceit. From our first meeting, I did not feel we would ever become close friends. His wife was a short, plumpish brunetic, not unattractive, extremely nervous and highly strung, with an annoying | habit of repeating herself. On that first evening it was quite obvious that no love was lost between therm. She was amtising in her way and some- one new to talk to. We left their house late that even- -~ ing feeling quite sorry for her, but could go no farther west than Prague ;:. they seemed to know 2 good many people, were both working, and their social life seemed relatively glamor- ous to me. I wondered when we, too, would be allowed the freedom to. make friends. 1 In a sense the Macleans had long | ago served their period of exile. I . learned that before being allowed to come to Moscow, they had been kept on ice for .two ‘yeats al Kuybyshey, a fast-growing indus- trial city on the Volga. Burgess and Maclean arrived in the Soviet Union in 195}, when Stalin was preparing - his final purge. "They were lucky to ' " gurvive, and the fact that they were a considerable distance from Moscow | “may havejhad something to do with.. iv 4 ” oo Like. DeLoagn 2 Mohr Bishop Casper Callahan Conrad Felt Gale Rosen Sullivan Tavel Trotter Tele, Room Holmes Gandy The Washington Post Times Herald The Washington Daily News The Evening Star (Washingtom —__ The Sunday Star (Washington) ____ Daily News (New York) Sunday News (New York) y New York Post —2———_________ ae The New York Times The Sun (Baltimore) The Worker 0 The New Leader The Wall Seree1 Journal The National Observer ——___ People’s World - “es 67 Dae The Cb: ne rvew ‘eer ee foge af t¢ (pen den /
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