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Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 8
Page 26
26 / 101
O
Guy Burgess, though he preferred What was
clean at this time was
the company of the able to tffe——pens and Maciean at this tim ae
v4
ood connections
~ artistic. alro moved on tne edge of
“Tr ye same World, @ was ol a very
Trinky the oth. two years later, i heiwht. with blue eves, an on
by Gresham's tool And Trinity quisitive nose, sensual mouth, curly
” hair and alert fox-terrier expres-
Tal TT F
Cambridge y kngiy each other th sion. He was immensely energetic,
members of the left-wing circle , @_@reat talker, reader, boaster,
there. But there is no evid-| Walker, who swam like an otter an
. : ; drank, not like a feckless under-
pace of that oppressive Darenta’ graduate, as Donald was apt to do,
SULMOTILY Wied Griyves Young mien. » Tal wma Garatatcian Bottle.
to revolt. | bub like some Radelaisian GOL
Pre-War Cambridge
Marxists ©
r was more than ten years since’
the end of the first world war,
and a new generation was growing
up which found no outlet in home
politics for the adventurous or
aitruistic impulses of the adole-
scent. Marxism satisfied both the
rebelliousness of youth and its
craving for dogma. .
The Cambriage Communists sub-
stituted a new father or super-ego
‘or the old one, and accepted a
new justice and a stricter
authority. They felt they had
exposed the weaknesses of Liberal-
able.
’ Contrasts in Their
.
THE physical type to which
Donald Maclean, despite his
puppy fat, belonged was that of
the elongated, schizophrenic, sad-
countenanced Don Quixote—
introverted and diffident, an
sudden outbursts of’ aggression:
whereas Guy Burgess, despite
his intelligence, was a round-faced,
golden-pated Sancho Panza,
ium glong with their elders’ ignor- extrovert. exhibitionist, manic.
ence of economic affairs. Te this cynical and argumentative, avidly
veneration Communism made an Curious, yet sometimes vague
‘ntellectual appeal. standing for amd incompetent. With all his
toughness. moreover, Guy Burgess
ove, liberty and social justice and
y j wanted intensely to be liked and
lor & new approach to life and
urt. Yet it was connected with a
political party, and this party is S@lionalist and an enthusiastic
aot inelined to relinquish Its hotd. builder-up of his friends. Beneath
“Yhe Comintern,” says Arthur the “ terribilita " of his Marxist
‘loestier, “ carried on a white-slave
irafiic whose victims were young
Hicalists flirting
with — violence."
Tne feelings of
such young men
ure described in
numerous novels
and poems. or in
such tracts as
Mr Stephen
Spender’s “ For-
te moral cowardice of the publi
hoolboy.
HE FIRST
HIS IS
instalmen
ward from :
Liberalism” , the end of May last year. It will be
They imvalved
betraval of
le writers’ own
.ountry, and the
‘lose of Marxism
was seldom
‘@thal.
What were
these two young
menlike? Donald
peculiar problems arising in an age of
—_— = = - =
1 Characters vos
idealist and a dreamer given to
was indeed likeable, a good conver- |
nalyses one divined the affection- .
Connolly’s personal and intimate study of Guy
Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members
of the Foreign Office staff who vanished towards
particular interest by those concerned with the
conflict which is often projected on the plane of
private personality. A second. and concluding
article will appear next week.
ae
common to both Bur-
heir instability:
and ambitious fous men of
Vigence and & :
ms rere somehow parodies o
what they set out to be
could take them
engaged to
the younger Pitt. Burgess, indigen
ally, was & great reader of fiction;
swiper whose thirst was unquench his favourite authors were’ Mrs.
ell and Balzac and, later 6n.
Mr. EB. M. Forster. ° Lenin had said -
somewhere that he had learnt joore
about France from Balvac’s novels
than irom au misbuly-DOOKs pul
together. Accordingly Balzac;was
the greatest writer of all times.”
(Koestier.)
Donald was seldom heard to talk
litics, Guy hever seemed to stop.
e was the type of bumptious
Marxist who saw himself as Saint-
Just, who enjoyed making the flesn
of his bourgeois listeners creep by
his picture of the justice which
' history would mete out to them.
| Grubby, intemperate and promis-
cuous, he loved to moralise over his
friends and satirise their smug
class- unconscious behaviour, so
reckless of the reckoning in store.
But when bedtime came, very late,
and it was the moment to put the
analyses away, the word “ Prepos-
terous ’ dying on his lips, he would
imply a dispensation under which
this one house at least. this family,
these guests, might be spared the
worst consequences, thanks to tie
rotection Gf their — brilliant
friend we
hunger-marching ¢
sition woud be so commandibg
the happy} workers’ Utopia.
f Mr.
read with
ideological
——_ sr rr
ime when Apyssipia
+ was the
mattered, before the Ru an
purges ha ken place and the
especial bitterness of Communist
controversy had arisen. There were
Maclean was Loo wt--j--.---.---- ee ee
sandy - haired, po --—-
‘all. with great latent physical An old Etonian, an “Apos
trength, but fat and = rather ho had taken a First In History
lubby, Meeting him, one was at Cambridge, and was tempted to
‘onscious af both amisability and become a don, he yet seemed an
veakness. He did not seem adventurer with a first-class mind,
who would always be in the know,
a framer of secret licies, @
financial wizard already and a
future editor, at least, of “ The
Times.” Though he enjoye
bout of luxury. he was indifferent
to appearances and even hostile
efuge on the more impetuous and to his own. Urilike Donaid. he
mancipated fringes of Bloomshury——cancealed his sexual diffidence by
nd Chelsea. Such a young man _ over-confidence._ _
an be set right by the devotion of ©
i intelligent, older woman, and it
_ political animal but resembled
“ae clever helpless youth in @
‘Tuxley novel, an ogtsize Cheribino
ntent on amoroug experience but
oo shy and clums: succeed. The
hadow of an august atmosphere
iy heavy on him, and he sought
‘as a misfortune that Donald was
ist not quite able to inspire such
attach sa .
attachment; charming, clever
d affectionate, he was still too
tnfarmed. :
charming
a. eo
very - and the
ty’s claim to represen 2
xtreme left-wing was not disputeg.
Unlike ali other political partie,
. Nobody
quite seriously:
they were two characters in a late
ovel, Laurel and Hardy
RUS edt iay Telleyrand and
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