ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

Cambridge University Spy RingThough Blunt did conduct espionage for the Sovietsafter World War II, a majority of his operations was conductedduring wartime. He was the first member of theCambridge spy ring to retire from service, returning to hiscareer as an art historian and museum curator, and theonly member to remain in Britain.In 1964, an American, Michael Straight, who hadattended Cambridge with Blunt told FBI and MI-5 agentsthat Blunt had tried to recruit him to spy for the SovietUnion. After being exposed as a member of the Cambridgespy ring, Blunt provided MI-5 and MI-6 with someinformation regarding his past operations and associates,most of whom had by 1964 died or defected to Russia andwere out of reach of British prosecutors. In exchange,Blunt was not tried for his offenses. He continued hiscareer in art history, managing the Courtauld Collectionuntil his retirement. His career as a spy for the SovietUnion was exposed to the public by the governmentofficials under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979.He was stripped of his knighthood and academic honors.By the time of his exposure, the public was already wellacquainted with the stories of agents Maclean, Burgess,and Philby. Blunt was then presumed to be the finalmember of the infamous Cambridge spy ring.John Carincross. In 1990, a fifth member of the Cambridgering was publicly identified. John Carincross (1913–1995)worked with Maclean in the Foreign Office before beingtransferred to the offices of the Treasury in 1940. Throughhis connections with British intelligence and the Treasury,Carincross obtained a significant amount of informationabout the British Cipher School and code-breaking programat Bletchley Park. Heeding Carincross’s warnings,Soviet intelligence changed their diplomatic, military, andintelligence codes before the end of World War II. BletchleyPark cryptologists thus, had to begin anew with effortsto break the Soviet code.Carincross also leaked information about British andAmerican nuclear programs. Analysts estimate that theSoviet Union was able to develop nuclear weapons threeyears faster, and millions of dollars cheaper, with the aidof intelligence from moles such as the Cambridge spies.Similar to Blunt, when Carincross was exposed, heprovided information about Soviet espionage networks toBritish intelligence. While the ultimate usefulness of suchinformation remains the subject of debate, he was nonethelessgranted some level of immunity from prosecution.When his career as a Soviet spy was made public, he leftEngland for France.The legacy of the Cambridge University spy ring. The actualdamage to British and American national security causedby the activities of the Cambridge spy ring may never befully assessed. Even with the declassification of reportsand archives in the former Soviet Union, a comprehensiveaccount of secrets stolen by the ring remains illusive. TheCambridge spies did have a profound short-term influenceon British and American intelligence operations.Both nations stepped up counterespionage efforts to rootout similar moles in government agencies. Competitivetensions between MI-5 and MI-6 in Britain, and the CIA andFBI in the United States, were greatly exacerbated afterKim Philby’s defection. The agencies blamed each otherfor not conducting adequate background checks on Britishpersonnel sent to work on joint Anglo-American intelligenceoperations, and for not discovering the Soviet spynetwork in time to prevent the loss of substantial information.The incident humbled both the British and Americanintelligence communities, and even fostered mistrust betweenthe two nations. For a decade, Britain and Americanintelligence forces shared only limited information.Relations between the British and American intelligencecommunities gradually became more supportive,eventually returning to the cooperative status enjoyed inthe early Cold War years. When the Cold War ended withthe fall of the Soviet Union, the extent to which rivalnations infiltrated each other’s governments with spynetworks was made apparent. Declassification of documentsrelating to Cold War espionage proved the Cambridgespy ring was far from alone in its operations.The Cambridge ring gained its notoriety not onlyfrom its exploits of espionage, but also because of itseemingly unlikely cast of characters—upper class, wellschooled,British citizens who fit well into the “old boys”network that dominated the British civil service. Theirsocial credibility helped them gain access to the nation’stop secrets. Further complicating the legacy of the spy ringwas the effectiveness with which the group operated.Philby, Burgess, Blunt, Maclean, and Carincross spentyears building reputations as loyal British citizens andstaunch anti-communists before beginning active espionageduring World War II. With the exception of onepayment made to Kim Philby when his family was in direfinancial need, none of the Cambridge spies demandedcompensation for their services to Soviet intelligence. Thegroup thus seemed ideologically loyal to communism, asopposed to performing espionage for personal gain.Regardless of motive or the ultimate success of theiroperations, the Cambridge spies are some of the mostinfamous figures of British intelligence. Subsequentincidences of British citizens in the employ of Sovietintelligence stealing sensitive information from high-levelofficials further embarrassed British intelligence. In 1963,the Profumo Affair exploded to public attention whenintelligence agents and journalists learned that the mistressof a British cabinet minister was a Soviet informant.The “Sex for Secrets” scandal helped bring down theadministration of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Ironically,Macmillan, while serving as Foreign Secretary, clearedKim Philby of wrong-doing eight years before his ultimatedefection.Labeled traitors in Britain and America, the “magnificentfive” enjoyed fame in the Soviet Union. When Kim154 Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and Security