Cambridge Five

Creation and Operations

Introduction
“Cambridge Five” or “Magnificent Five” is the name given to a group of five young men whom all graduated from Cambridge University. They betrayed their country by spying for the Soviet Union and passing them secret information. They were probably the most successful Soviet spies to penetrate the western intelligence. Their actions allow the Soviet Union to get access to vital intelligence and created rift between the British and the Americans. This essay will look at the background of each member and how they joined the Soviet intelligence services, their operations and its impact in the world of espionage. In addition, this essay will evaluate the significance of each individual’s actions and how it affected intelligence services.

Origin of Cambridge Five
Cambridge Five refers to a spy ring which the members were all part of Cambridge University. It is unclear there were more than five men, regardless the five individuals are Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross. They all attended Cambridge University between 1926 and 1934 studying in different disciplines with a strong belief in Communism. They were all good friends with each other with the exception of Cairncross who was never really part of the circle.
The first of the Cambridge Five group and probably the most famous was Harold Adrian Russell Philby, also known as Kim codenamed Sohnchen, then Tom and Stanley. He was born in India on January 1, 1912. His father is St John Bridger Philby who worked in the Indian Civil Service as a civil servant. He later became a Muslim, married a Saudi slave girl as his second wife, and lives in Mecca as an Arab. St John spoke seven different languages, wrote for The Times, stood for parliament twice, won international honour as an explorer, and was a member of London clubs. In October 1929, Philby attended Trinity College at Cambridge to study History, but then changed to Economics. Not long after he started school, he joined the Cambridge University Socialist Society (CUSS) founded by leftists to replace the university Labour Club which collapsed under the MacDonald government. According to Philby, “It was the Labour disaster of 1931 which first set me seriously to thinking about possible alternatives to the Labour Party”. Philby became the CUSS treasurer in 1932-3 and was exposed to the idea of Communism. Due to the influence of his economic lecture Maurice Dobb he eventually became a Communist before he graduated. Philby was then introduced to a communist group in Paris which passed him onto a communist underground organization in Vienna where he met his first wife Litzi Friedman. Witnessing the events in Vienna such as the massacres of Socialists and trade unionists by government further enforced his belief as a Communist. In May 1934, Philby returned to London where he met several Communist militants, some of which are NKVD agents and caught the attention of the Soviet Intelligence. One of Litzi’s communist friend Edith Tudor Hart brought Philby into contact with Arnold Deutsch—an illegal NKVD agent with codename “Otto”—who helped Philby get into contact with the Soviet intelligence service. Philby’s first mission was to recruit a few other agents to form a network. He travelled back to Cambridge where he met Guy Burgess and convinced him to join. Guy Burgess was born on 1910 and codenamed Madchen or Hicks. He was the son of an officer in the Royal Navy. Burgess initially attended the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, but by the end of his second year, he dropped out despite being a bright student. He was then transferred to Eton where he won both the Rosebery and the Gladstone prizes for history. After Eton, Burgess won a scholarship for Trinity College at Cambridge and went to the university in October 1930. He was very smart, he has excellent charisma and humour, and his deep culture was attractive to both the professors and other undergraduates. Furthermore, he was extremely good-looking and thus quickly became very popular with many admirers. He is a brilliant talker, able to bend others to his will, but has a habit of drinking and often has sex with taxi drivers and other men. It is during this time that his friend Anthony Blunt invited him to the secret society of Apostles where Burgess caught the attention of Maurice Dobb who exposed the idea of Marxist to Burgess. Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess were close at Cambridge, Blunt was a lover and an admirer of Burgess’ brilliant intellect, in return Burgess tried to convince Blunt to be a Communist.
In 1932, Burgess became a Marxist and joined the Communist party in 1933. When Philby came to visit Burgess in 1934, Philby told him of the horrors he had seen in Austria and his determination to work for the Soviet secret service. With a little push, Burgess agreed to meet Deutsch (Otto) and spent part of his 1934 summer vacation in Germany. After his return from Germany, he was so devastated by what he had seen that Burgess had no second thoughts about joining Soviet secret service. He publicly announces his break with Communist convictions while adopting a clandestine existence. Anthony Frederick Blunt was born in Bournemouth on the south coast of England on September 26, 1907 codenamed Johnson, Tony and Yan. His father was Reverend Arthur Stanley Vaughan Blunt and his mother was Hilda Violet Master. He is the youngest of three boys. Stanley was vicar of the parish of Ham in Surrey, a village on the outskirts of London. The Blunts had blood ties with the royal family. It can be traced that the Blunts were distant relative of Queen Elizabeth II. Hilda also had royal ties. Her father John Master taught Princess Mary Adelaide (later Queen Mary) how to skate, and the two girls-Mary and Hilda—was close friends and often played together. Anthony Blunt showed an interest in art at a very young age, he was keen on architecture and history of painting. When he was fourteen, he won a scholarship to Marlborough and set off in 1921. In 1926, Blunt earned a scholarship to Trinity College in Cambridge where he opted to study mathematics. He then decided to change to language after the first year. During his first year at Cambridge, Blunt’s homosexuality fully awakened, he had a number of affairs but was only really attracted to Guy Burgess. During his relationship with Burgess, Burgess consistently tried to turn Blunt into a Communist. At first, Blunt was reluctant, but Burgess argued that the western society is rotting art, and eventually Blunt became a Communist and joined Burgess to work for Soviet secret services. Donald Duart Maclean was born on May 25, 1913 in Marylebone, he was codenamed Stuart, Wise, Lyric, or Homer. He was the son of Sir Donald Maclean, a Presbyterian who was a Minister of Education under Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Henry Asquith. Donald Maclean junior was sent to Gresham’s School, at Holt in Norfolk at a very young age. Upon leaving Gresham’s School he won scholarship to Trinity College at Cambridge and studied foreign languages and literature in 1931. During his time at Cambridge, he met Guy Burgess with whom he often discussed politics and Marxist theory. During his last year, he was recruited by Burgess to work for Soviet secret services. Near the end of 1944, the name John Cairncross codename Carelian was added to the four agents whose case that Yuri Modin was handling. It wasn’t revealed later that Cairncross was the “fifth man”. John Cairncross was born in 1913 in Glasgow. Unlike the others, Cairncross comes from a family of lower middle-class, a completely different social class than the other four. He won a scholarship to Cambridge from Hamilton Academy to study modern languages. During his time in Cambridge, he won another scholarship to study French literature at Sorbonne during 1933-34. Cairncross had a Socialist nature, but he never got involved with the communist party. In 1936, he was recruited to work for Soviet intelligence and announced a public break with Marxist theory. The five individuals were all recruited at different times, even though they are good friends with each other, each of they operated separately penetrating different department in British government.
Operations and Impact
All five members of the group had worked in the government office in their life, all except Blunt held a position in the Foreign Office. They provided Moscow with information that helped the survival against Germany. In addition they provided information on the internal structure and operations of British Intelligence Service. More importantly the arms conflict with the USA and Britain, also known as the Cold War.
After joining the NKVD, Philby was assigned the task of penetrating the British Foreign Office or SIS. His first attempt ended quite fast, so he took another approach and became an editor for a London-based liberal monthly called Review of Reviews. In 1936, the Spanish Civil War broke out and Philby received his first intelligence mission. By May 1937, Philby became one of the two official correspondents for The Times in Spain. This gave him access to information on the extent of German and Italian military assistance to Franco, the head of State. After the war in Spain, Philby with the help of Burgess was able to join Section D (or Section IX)—the SIS sabotage and black propaganda unit. After the war started, Philby found a job in the Iberian subsection of SIS Section V (Counterintelligence). In 1942-43, Philby was promoted to be the deputy of Felix Cowgill-head of Section V.
Burgess also had his fair of difficulties. After graduation he drifted from job to job doing various work. In 1936 he joined the BBC and started looking for people with intelligence connections. It wasn’t until 1938, that he entered MI6 as an agent for a trail period. He became the first of the Cambridge Five to enter the British Intelligence Service. In January 1939, Burgess officially joined Section D with the recommendation of his friend. One of his major accomplishments was helping Philby join Section D. When Section D was absorbed in 1940 by Special Operation Executive (SOE), Burgess was fired for being disrespectful.
After graduation, Maclean joined the Foreign Office in October 1935. His first job was the secretary to the Western Department responsible for Switzerland, Spain, Portugal and Low Countries. Even though he had limited access to many Foreign Office materials, he was able to transmit the complete minutes of the Committee of Imperial Department meeting on December 1936. Maclean was also able to pass on codebreaking information. In 1938, he was promoted to a secretary at the British Embassy in Paris.
Blunt left Cambridge in 1937 and joined the Warburg Institute in London as an art teacher. In 1939 he left his job and served several months in military service. He also undertook counter-espionage training at Minley Manor School in Hampshire. In 1940, the deputy director of British counter-espionage services found Blunt a place in MI5. He soon became close friends with Dick White, the future head of SIS. They both shared a passion for art and had frequent heart-to-heart conversations where Dick revealed items of information that when pieced together proved to be vital. Through Blunt, the Soviet Embassy in London was always well informed in advance of any British counter-espionage activities in British in advance including names of all the people that British are trying to turn, location of the bugs, and operations against Communist Party in Britain. Although these aren’t top secret information, it did allow the Soviet intelligence to work under ideal conditions in London as the risks were essentially eliminated. Blunt also had access to the War Office and Government Coding and Cipher School (GC&CS) in Bletchley through his friend Leo Long whom he recruited back in 1935. The information he acquired often complemented the information that Philby provided.
Cairncross first started his career in 1936 working in the Foreign Office. Due to his anti-social personalities, he never fitted in, and was transferred from department to department for two years. In 1938, he finally settled down as the Treasurer of Foreign Office. In 1940, Cairncross was appointed as the private secretary to Lord Hankey who was an influential figure that helped with the creation of British Intelligence Services. Hankey’s position gave him extraordinary privileges. He had access to all the important government documents such as telegraphic correspondence of Foreign Secretary, reports on foreign policy, defence, industry and scientific research. As his private secretary, Cairncross was able to view and pass on the information to the Soviet intelligence. One of those documents described a joint manufacture of an atomic bomb between the Americans and British. Based on the information, the Allies were able to create a nuclear device based on uranium 235. From then on, thousands of documents were sent to Soviet Union and Cairncross became the first agent to inform the Soviet of the atomic bomb plan. Carincross infiltrated the British intelligence world in 1942 where he worked as NKVD’s main contact in GC&CS for one year. His main task was to analyze intercepted Luftwaffe signals. One of his biggest accomplishments was the intercepts of ENIGMA—German coding—traffic where he learned of a German attack on the Soviet Union. Cairncross provided Soviet intelligence with information regarding the attack and the unit identifications such as the disposition of Luftwaffe squadrons. This information allow the Soviet to launch a pre-empted attack on the German airbases which resulted in the destruction of over 500 German planes at the cost of 122 Soviet aircraft. Allowing the Soviet to win the Battle of Kursk In 1943, Carincross acquired technical data about new German Tiger tank. This data allowed Soviet to manufacture armour-piercing shells capable of destroying these tanks. This resulted in Soviet victory of the great tank battle at Kurskaia Douga in July 1943. These two exploits awarded Cairncross with the Order of the Red Banner, one of the highest honours the Soviet Union bestow. Although the information provided by Cairncross was useful, it wasn’t much compared to Philby, who during this exact time had risen to a high position within the SIS.
Nearing the end of WWII, SIS re-established Section IX as a specialized Counterintelligence section against the Soviet Union. Through luck and hard work, Philby was appointed the head of Section IX. He changed the structure of Section from counter-espionage to an offensive operation. Within eighteen months, he transformed a one-man, one-room section into a large department with over thirty staff occupying an entire floor. He was in charge of recruiting spies and mounting sabotage operations against Soviet Union. This position gave the Soviet incredible leverage, the head of Soviet Counter-espionage section is a Soviet agent himself. This allowed him to protect Soviet penetration agents, at the same time reveal to Moscow all British operations.
In 1947, Philby was sent to Turkey as section chief of SIS in Istanbul. Part of the reason was for Philby to gain field experience. The current head of SIS Menzies was close to retirement and SIS realised that Philby was an extremely capable agent. Some argued that sending Philby to Turkey was to “groom” him for the position of “C”-chief of SIS. In 1949, Philby was assigned as the chief British Intelligence representative in Washington D.C. His main task was liaising with the new American intelligence service-CIA and promotes more Anglo-American intelligence cooperation. Philby’s new position of being the middle man between British and American intelligence service allowed the Soviet to exploit this relationship. In addition, all files shared between British intelligence and American intelligence would have to pass through Philby, allowing him access to top secret information including atomic ones. Some argued that this was the primary target of KGB. To damage the Anglo-American co-operation in the intelligence field and set back their progress. In fact, CIA and FBI’s distrust of British intelligence service was so great that in 1950, Americans stopped sharing their atomic bomb plan. It took decades to repair this trust. Before Philby was signed to Washington, Maclean was already in Washington.
In 1944, Maclean appointed to Washington as the First Secretary. When he joined the foreign office back in 1935, his colleague regarded him as one of their brightest young men. It was only natural that when position of British Secretary to the Combined Policy Committee became open, Maclean would automatically be assigned to it. As the Secretary to the Combined Policy Committee, he was assigned a top-secret mission to co-ordinate the American Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb with the British Tube Alloys Project. The function of the committee was to control the exchange of information between Canada, Britain, and USA. This position allowed Maclean to pass details of vital atomic secrets being pooled together by the three countries back to Soviet Union. In addition, he was able to obtain a non-escort pass to the U.S. Atomic H.Q. in Washington, which he would take frequent visits at night. This allowed him to obtain vital information that was held back by the Americans. One of those vital secrets that he passed was a cheap American process that converts wastes from South African goldmine into high-grade uranium. This information is vital because uranium was believed to be in critically short supply and it’s one of the key ingredients in atomic bomb. In addition he informed the Soviet intelligence details of the top-secret negotiation which led up to the signing of the North Atlantic Pact in April 1949. In 1950, Maclean was appointed the head of American department. This position allowed him to inform Moscow details regarding U.S.–Japan Peace Treaty negotiation and the Korean War strategy.

Conclusion
The information that the Cambridge Five provided no doubt helped the Soviet Union. Cairncross’ work in the GC&CS helped the Soviet predict German attacks and allowed them to form counter measures. Blunt’s work in MI5 allowed Soviet spies working in London to roam freely. But the most important are the damage done by Burgess, Maclean and Philby. Their infiltration into the Foreign Office gave the Soviet vital atomic bomb information as well as damaging the Anglo-American relationship. The information regarding atomic development that Maclean passed to the Soviet helped to speed up the Soviet’s development of their atomic bomb. The most successful of the five was probably Philby. He was on the shortlist to becoming the next head of SIS. If that was to happen, then the damage would be incomprehensible.

Bibliography
Barrie Penrose, Simon Freeman, Conspiracy of Silence: The Secret Life of Anthony Blunt, (London: Grafton Books,1986),
Bernard Porter, Plots and Paranoia-History of Political Espionage in Britain 1790-1988, (London: Unwin Hyman Ltd, 1989)
Genrikh Borovik, The Philby Files: Secret life of Master Spy Kim Philby, trans. Antonina W. Bouis (Canada: Little, Brown & Company Limited, 1994)
Jeffrey T. Richelson, A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995)
Kim Philby, My Silent War (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968)
Phillip Knightley, Philby K.G.B. Masterspy (Great Britain: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1988)

Phillip Knightley, The Cambridge Spies, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/coldwar/cambridge_spies_01.shtml, Last updated 2011-02-17
Yuri Modin, My Five Cambridge Friends, trans. Anthony Roberts (Paris: Editions Robert Laffont, 1994
Crime and Punishment: The Picture Encyclopedia, (Westport: H.S. Stuttman, Inc., 1994)

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[ 1 ]. Phillip Knightley, Philby K.G.B. Masterspy (Great Britain: Andre Deutsch Limited, 1988), pp. 19-20.
[ 2 ]. Kim Philby, My Silent War (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968), pp. xvii.
[ 3 ]. Knightley, pp. 30, 36, 44-45
[ 4 ]. Yuri Modin, My Five Cambridge Friends, trans. Anthony Roberts (Paris: Editions Robert Laffont, 1994), pp. 50-53
[ 5 ]. Modin, pp. 65-66
[ 6 ]. Modin, pp. 72-73
[ 7 ]. Barrie Penrose, Simon Freeman, Conspiracy of Silence: The Secret Life of Anthony Blunt, (London: Grafton Books,1986), pp. 1-3, 14-15
[ 8 ]. Modin, pp. 72-74
[ 9 ]. Modin, pp. 94-95
[ 10 ]. Modin, pp. 104-107
[ 11 ]. Jeffrey T. Richelson, A Century of Spies: Intelligence in the Twentieth Century, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 92-94
[ 12 ]. Modin, pp. 80-81
[ 13 ]. Richelson, pp. 93-94
[ 14 ]. Modin, pp. 81-82, 89-94
[ 15 ]. Modin, pp. 108-111
[ 16 ]. Richelson, pp. 94, 135-136
[ 17 ]. Modin, pp. 114
[ 18 ]. Knightley, pp. 123-125
[ 19 ]. Genrikh Borovik, The Philby Files: Secret life of Master Spy Kim Philby, trans. Antonina W. Bouis (Canada: Little, Brown & Company Limited, 1994) pp.250-251, 256
[ 20 ]. Bernard Porter, Plots and Paranoia-History of Political Espionage in Britain 1790-1988, (London: Unwin Hyman Ltd, 1989) pp. 183
[ 21 ]. Crime and Punishment, (Westport: H.S. Stuttman, Inc., 1994) pp. 411