Guy Burgess

Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess (1911-1963) was a flamboyant, homosexual, British-born intelligence officer and double agent who worked for the Soviet Union, was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring within the MI5. Burgess and Anthony Blunt contributed to the Soviet cause with the transmission of secret Foreign Office and MI5 documents that described Allied military strategy.

Biography

Burgess was the son of a naval officer and although he attended Royal Naval College, Dartmouth he failed in attempting to follow in his father's footsteps.

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Like most of the Cambridge five, he came from a privileged background, attending Eton College, and eventually attending Cambridge University, where he was recruited into the Cambridge Apostles, a secret, elite, debating society, whose members at the time included Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby.

Related Topics:
Eton College - Cambridge University - Cambridge Apostles - Anthony Blunt - Kim Philby

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Notorious for his bad behaviour, and overt alcoholism, Burgess initially worked in the media for The Times and a brief career at the BBC as a host of a program about Parliament - wherein he was able to enlarge his acquaintance of important politicians . He spent some time in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. At Cambridge, he had been a friend of Julian Bell, the English poet who was tragically killed driving an ambulance in that conflict. He, and apparently the other members of the "Five" were also very divided about the impact of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which compromised their hard left ideals.

Related Topics:
Alcoholism - The Times - BBC - Spain - Spanish Civil War - Julian Bell - Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

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He was most useful to the Soviets in his position as secretary to the British Deputy Foreign Minister, Hector McNeil. As McNeil's secretary, Burgess was able to transmit top secret Foreign Office documents to the KGB on a regular basis, secreting them out at night to be photographed by his controller and returning them to McNeil's desk in the morning. When assigned to Washington DC, Hector McNeil cautioned him to avoid three things : "the race thing", contact with the radical element, and homosexual adventuring. "Oh," said the irrepressible Burgess, "you mean I shouldn't make a pass at Paul Robeson?"

Related Topics:
Hector McNeil - Washington DC - Paul Robeson

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Assigned to the British embassy in the USA, Burgess continued his life as an unpredictable heavy drinker and indiscreet homosexual. He lived with Kim Philby in a basement flat, perhaps so that Philby could keep an eye on him. Nonetheless, Burgess was irrepressible, once insulting the wife of a high-ranking CIA official at one of Philby's dinner parties. The FBI described him in a report as "a loud, foul-mouthed queer with a penchant for seducing hitchhikers."

Related Topics:
Kim Philby - CIA - FBI

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After he was unmasked as a double agent, Burgess moved to Moscow on a moonlit flit with Donald Maclean arranged by Yuri Modin. However, unlike Donald Maclean who became a respected Soviet citizen in exile and lived until the 80s, Burgess seems not to have taken to life in the USSR so well. Homosexuality in particular, was much more frowned upon in the Soviet Union, and this may have been a problem, even though he had a state sanctioned lover. Also, unlike Maclean, he never bothered to learn Russian, and even continued to order his clothes from his Savile Row tailor.

Related Topics:
Moscow - Donald Maclean - Yuri Modin - Soviet - USSR - Russian - Savile Row

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Becoming ever more dependent on drink, he appears to have been killed by his alcoholism.

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Harold Nicolson, diplomat and writer, describes Burgess a year before his defection in a letter to his wife:

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:'I dined with Guy Burgess. Oh my dear, what a sad, sad thing this constant drinking is! Guy used to have one of the most rapid and acute minds I knew. Now his is just an imitation (and a pretty bad one) of what he once was. Not that he was actually drunk yesterday. He was just soaked and silly. I felt angry about it.'

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:-Harold Nicolson to his wife Vita Sackville-West, January 25, 1950

Related Topics:
Vita Sackville-West - 1950

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