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Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 23

49 pages · May 23, 2026 · Broad topic: War & Geopolitics · Topic: Cambridge Five Spy Ring · 49 pages OCR'd
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“SMOKING: 4 om" WALKING: \,: | UR md i: And no one sa curiae emuCiaMMRS ue ¥ living here, and at? m an inaccessible; . country lodge, or dacha, Guy Burgess had enjoyed immunity from the frenzied in- quisitiveness of the Western journalists, one of whom was_ still bombarding him with tele- 7 8 almost daily. ; » As he walked freely about | Moscow, on and off, for five years, it seems extraordinary, | None the less, that none of them ever saw or found him. «| |, Within 20 minutes of his call; , 1 walked across the corner of : ‘the square to the Moskva. ' Guy Burgess was standing ‘outside the hotel entrance. He was Instantly recognisable de- spite @ slight greying of his: dark hair. ' His bird-pright, ragamuffin face was tanned by the Caucs- sian sun; he had Just Teturned - from his holiday st Sochi wjth hig mother. : e came forward to meet re | ani we shook hands. I felt a! “lite like Stanley discoveribe ut netiqne—and our frst wor Ss. vele, of course, as banal as Stanley's." Se ‘Uguuangnaneas ar umaeee - It isn’t allowed | ERNE . UY said characteris- ‘ cally: “I'm afraid we've “both got: , Tather fatter since we last saw ; each other.” We went up to his ‘flat (the Uftwoman rebuking ° him for smoking in the lift). In the weeks that followed we . : Met many times and’ talked. The conversation in which he . answered most of the questions that people in Britain have been : asiiing in vain for the past five ' did not take place on any ng day. ” y o1 1 was spread over most of 3 month. Again and aga I « rekén ' Mbscow ‘the discussions betwhen “BYrgess and Maclean .that Jed ; ' immediately up to it, and fhe! ae of ‘ppint that “nad hitherto " lained a complete mystery: :hpw they went. ‘the actual rout tHey tool ‘ tyne ' “In the dialogue that follow. mittent questionnalre. avi put it together go that it reads 7 connectedly. ota + But Guy Burgess did in fact say, at one time or another.” | every word and phrase tbat I.) ave here attributed to him. and he assures me that he-accepts this as an authoritative record : ; of this part of our. discussions. :! ‘This episode: starts -In ° May + 1951, when Guy Burgess had Just" returned from his job at / the British Embassy in Wash- * 4 ington. DRIBERG: Well, this ts the | point in your lite— the return from Washington, * the Korean War—which was } really the breaking point... ‘and the point at which ‘the | general public first heard of yor : + Yea. I do beg yor BURGESS: 22% emphasize. th ai and recall the situatio iw@ were in then. There wi ‘a serious risk that the Americans would force an extension of the Korean War. Six days before Donald and Tf Jeft England, the New York , Tines had ‘said; “Sudden eace could work havoc, with * business.” : « Lots of us shared { DRIBERG: your anxiety. But i. ‘think {t's only fair to gay that MacArthur had in fact been sacked @ few weeks earlier, and that Attlee had shown--when he flew to Wash- Ington in December 1950—that : Britain had an independent policy on the Far Fast and wasn’t afraid to express it + Yes, and I thought ROESS: Sait "gs icy was absolutely corr t it wasn’t only the ramedia : sifuation that made me feel to leave the Foreign Off EAVING: Sao es | \...The reason’ whk;' j 7 RnR aU T was much more the . appall e ‘ Sping exverence ; Embassy in Washington—that terrible and senorant, subservi- : ence to the State Department— : and the realisation. you see, that this was what my life would. be ‘for the next 20 vears) e553) I wouldn’y have minded nearly ‘| {| 80 much if I could have sat in + the Foreign Office all the time, “ i But T knew Tcouldn’t do that : i various ae . warmees” me ! fons ove! : ‘ and ‘Washington 15 supposed to { be one of the top Embassies 60 : what on earth could the others: j be like? A place like Bogota I ; ‘That's ally why Ya made up | Sthee lane be ave the Foreign. ington’ ated Tong Bee” ani 1 thous! it of coming to. Td even tentatively fxeg up” | ache? etatnes, 80g up ‘ baron 8s diplomatic adviser, : { chael Berry (Daily Tel graph) had talked tome sbout | tt wnen he was in Washingion’ + Some months bef
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