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.

Chronology

• 1911 Born in Devonport, England
• Studied at Eton College
• Studied at Dartmouth Royal Naval College
• Studied at Trinity College, Cambridge. Meets the rest of the spy-ring and becomes a supporter of the Communist party. Inducted into the Cambridge Apostles, a secret society that was strongly Marxist at that point
• 1934 To hide his sympathies, renounces communism and joins the Anglo-German Fellowship, a pro-Nazi group. Philby is also a member
• 1936 until 1944 worked for the BBC. Produced the programme The Week in Westminster
• (Note: 1939 to 1941 Seconded to MI5 to work on war propaganda)
• 1944 Joins the Foreign Office news department
• 1947 Sent to Washington, DC as a second secretary of the British Embassy
• 1951 March, met Michael Straight in D.C.; Kim Philby warns Burgess and Donald Maclean that Maclean is under suspicion and will most likely be unmasked. They both flee and go into hiding.
• 1956 They appear in Moscow
• 1963 Died in Moscow; in the same year, Kim Philby defects to Soviet Union.
• 1983 The grandson of Donald MacLean marries the great-grand-niece of Guy Burgess in Dayton, Ohio (USA).