cookie
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 5,927
- Location
- Sydney Australia
This is from the British Telegraph for Loungers' historical Info
The bluff that fooled Soviet spy Burgess
By Ben Fenton
Last Updated: 2:01am GMT 30/01/2007
One of Britain's most notorious traitors was tricked into staying in exile in Moscow by a Government that knew it had insufficient evidence to convict him of espionage. Guy Burgess could have come home untouched by British justice whenever he wanted despite having worked within the Establishment for almost two decades as a Soviet agent.
Traitor Guy Burgess died from a heart attack in exile in Russia
Formerly top secret Cabinet documents discovered by The Daily Telegraph show that Harold Macmillan, then prime minister, organised a top-level cover-up to disguise the fact that it could not prosecute Burgess, the notorious Cambridge spy, for treason. Burgess defected in 1951 with his friend Donald Maclean, who was about to be arrested for espionage. Eight years later he wanted to come back to visit his dying mother, Evelyn, the documents discovered in the National Archives in Kew disclose.
When Macmillan led a high-profile delegation to Moscow in 1959, Burgess approached Sir Winston Churchill's son, Randolph, a journalist, asking him to pass on a message. Churchill refused, but one of his colleagues secretly agreed to act as courier and Macmillan, Burgess's fellow Old Etonian, received the request.
He ordered Sir Patrick Dean, one of the senior Foreign Office officials travelling with him, to contact London and the file contains the original telegram that Dean sent. "Burgess, who has been active with some of the less reputable Press representatives here has now [sent] the following message to the Prime Minister: 'I will not make embarrassments for Her Majesty's Government if they don't make them for me. I will give no interviews without permission. I was grateful in the early days that Her Majesty's Government said nothing hostile to me. I for my part have never said a lot of things that I could have said'."
Harold Macmillan let Burgess
think that he was a wanted man
Burgess, like everyone else at the time, was working on the assumption that he was a wanted man in Britain and asked for permission to slip secretly into the country to visit his mother and then return to exile in Moscow. Dean's telegram seeking advice from London was considered by the Cabinet.
Rab Butler, the Home Secretary, wrote back: "[We] were advised by [the] Attorney General that there are no (repeat no) grounds on which Burgess could be prosecuted by the Crown if he returns to this country.
"In these circumstances, [we] agree with your own feeling that if any reply to Burgess is necessary, it should be deferred to the last possible moment of your visit and should then be to the effect that he will not be given any travel facilities and that neither you nor any member of the Executive has power to grant him the safe conduct for which he has asked. In this way we may succeed in creating in his mind such doubt that he will decide to stay where he is.
"This would be the most satisfactory outcome."
That is precisely what happened, with Burgess receiving no reply to his plea.
His mother died a little later and the spy himself died of a heart attack in 1963, ignorant of the fact that he could have been in Britain all that time.
The file also shows that three years after the Macmillan visit, the Foreign Office got wind of the fact that Maclean had flown to Cuba on a propaganda visit and might return via London.
"If he did so and was not arrested, we should be much criticised," said Reginald Manningham-Buller, the Attorney General and father of Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, current head of MI5.
The Attorney General said the case against Maclean was "not entirely satisfactory".
He went on: "It will be impossible to keep the grant of a warrant secret. All the ports and airports will have to be informed and it is bound to leak. I do not think this would be a bad thing.
"It might well prevent Maclean returning here. Indeed, I would welcome an inspired leak."
In due course, Macmillan ordered a leak and the press reported that, should the two spies set foot on British soil, they would be arrested and flung into jail. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet, however, knew otherwise.
The bluff that fooled Soviet spy Burgess
By Ben Fenton
Last Updated: 2:01am GMT 30/01/2007
One of Britain's most notorious traitors was tricked into staying in exile in Moscow by a Government that knew it had insufficient evidence to convict him of espionage. Guy Burgess could have come home untouched by British justice whenever he wanted despite having worked within the Establishment for almost two decades as a Soviet agent.
Traitor Guy Burgess died from a heart attack in exile in Russia
Formerly top secret Cabinet documents discovered by The Daily Telegraph show that Harold Macmillan, then prime minister, organised a top-level cover-up to disguise the fact that it could not prosecute Burgess, the notorious Cambridge spy, for treason. Burgess defected in 1951 with his friend Donald Maclean, who was about to be arrested for espionage. Eight years later he wanted to come back to visit his dying mother, Evelyn, the documents discovered in the National Archives in Kew disclose.
When Macmillan led a high-profile delegation to Moscow in 1959, Burgess approached Sir Winston Churchill's son, Randolph, a journalist, asking him to pass on a message. Churchill refused, but one of his colleagues secretly agreed to act as courier and Macmillan, Burgess's fellow Old Etonian, received the request.
He ordered Sir Patrick Dean, one of the senior Foreign Office officials travelling with him, to contact London and the file contains the original telegram that Dean sent. "Burgess, who has been active with some of the less reputable Press representatives here has now [sent] the following message to the Prime Minister: 'I will not make embarrassments for Her Majesty's Government if they don't make them for me. I will give no interviews without permission. I was grateful in the early days that Her Majesty's Government said nothing hostile to me. I for my part have never said a lot of things that I could have said'."
Harold Macmillan let Burgess
think that he was a wanted man
Burgess, like everyone else at the time, was working on the assumption that he was a wanted man in Britain and asked for permission to slip secretly into the country to visit his mother and then return to exile in Moscow. Dean's telegram seeking advice from London was considered by the Cabinet.
Rab Butler, the Home Secretary, wrote back: "[We] were advised by [the] Attorney General that there are no (repeat no) grounds on which Burgess could be prosecuted by the Crown if he returns to this country.
"In these circumstances, [we] agree with your own feeling that if any reply to Burgess is necessary, it should be deferred to the last possible moment of your visit and should then be to the effect that he will not be given any travel facilities and that neither you nor any member of the Executive has power to grant him the safe conduct for which he has asked. In this way we may succeed in creating in his mind such doubt that he will decide to stay where he is.
"This would be the most satisfactory outcome."
That is precisely what happened, with Burgess receiving no reply to his plea.
His mother died a little later and the spy himself died of a heart attack in 1963, ignorant of the fact that he could have been in Britain all that time.
The file also shows that three years after the Macmillan visit, the Foreign Office got wind of the fact that Maclean had flown to Cuba on a propaganda visit and might return via London.
"If he did so and was not arrested, we should be much criticised," said Reginald Manningham-Buller, the Attorney General and father of Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, current head of MI5.
The Attorney General said the case against Maclean was "not entirely satisfactory".
He went on: "It will be impossible to keep the grant of a warrant secret. All the ports and airports will have to be informed and it is bound to leak. I do not think this would be a bad thing.
"It might well prevent Maclean returning here. Indeed, I would welcome an inspired leak."
In due course, Macmillan ordered a leak and the press reported that, should the two spies set foot on British soil, they would be arrested and flung into jail. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet, however, knew otherwise.
