UNITED KINGDOM

Spy Cases

Burgess & Maclean

Cecil, Robert. A Divided Life: A Personal Portrait of the Spy Donald Maclean. London: Bodley Head, 1988. New York: Morrow, 1989.

According to Chambers, "Cecil is a Whitehall mandarin who knew Maclean and gives his perceptive view of the man."

Petersen says the book contains "[c]onsiderable information on U.S. intelligence and damage assessment of Maclean's service in Washington."

For Haslam, I&NS 4.3, Cecil's account avoids sensationalism and obvious exaggeration, but also displays "a certain carelessness with facts that should be better known and more accurately rendered." Nonetheless, the reader will find "much of interest and new insights ... on Maclean."

Driberg, Tom. Guy Burgess: A Portrait with Background. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1956.

Fisher, John. Burgess and Maclean: A New Look at the Foreign Office Spies. London: Hale, 1977.

Clark comment: This is not the book to read on this case. Even with its imperfections, Boyle's The Climate of Treason (1979) is a much better starting point.

Constantinides says that Fisher "massages old facts and theories and devotes much attention to details that are not central to the case and its significance."

Green, Martin Burgess. Children of the Sun: A Narrative of Decadence in England After 1918. New York: Basic Books, 1976.

Wilcox: "Account of Guy Burgess."

Hamrick, S.J. Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.

According to DKR, AFIO WIN 44-04 (29 Nov. 2004), the author argues that "British intelligence knew far earlier [than the spring of 1951] that Maclean was Moscow's agent and concealed that knowledge in a 1949-1951 counterespionage operation that deceived Philby and Burgess. Hamrick also finds evidence that in 1949-1950 the British ran a disinformation op that used Philby to mislead Moscow about British-U.S. retaliatory capability in case of Soviet aggression against Western Europe."

Bath, NIPQ 21.1 (Mar. 2005), calls this work "an interesting, if not totally convincing, exercise in theory." On the other hand, Kruh, Cryptologia 29.2 (Apr. 2005), Hamrick presents "compelling evidence" regarding the use of Philby in a disinformation initiative against the Soviets. The author "breaks new ground in reinterpreting ... the final espionage years of three famous spies."

To Goodman, I&NS 21.1 (Feb. 2006), this book is "based on conjecture." The author's "reading of the primary sources ... is fundamentally and unacceptably flawed." The reviewer concludes that the book's content is "pure fabrication." Similarly, West, IJI&C 19.1 (Spring 2006), finds "serious and glaring faultlines crisscrossing Hamrick's landscape." He concludes that the author's "elaborate 'deception' ... is but a fleeting mirage."

Lefebvre, H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews, Feb. 2005 [http://www.h-net.org], comments that the author "is particularly adept at finding holes and fallacies of omission or assumption in the material he perused. To make his case, however, he must fill in the blanks through logical deduction, often without any supporting and corroborating evidence other than the coherence of his propositions."

Hennessy, Peter, and Kathleen Townsend. "The Documentary Spoor of Burgess and Maclean." Intelligence and National Security 2, no. 2 (Apr. 1987): 291-301.

Because Burgess and Maclean were diplomats (as opposed to Philby and Blunt who worked for clandestine organizations), the routine policy papers of the Foreign Office available in the Public Record Office can be used to trace some of their activities.

Hoare, Geoffrey. The Missing Macleans. New York: Viking, 1955. London: Cassell, 1955. [Chambers]

Hopkins, Michael F. "Review Article: A British Cold War?" Intelligence and National Security 7, no. 4 (Oct. 1992): 479-482.

The works reviewed here are all edited collections: Anne Deighton, ed., Britain and the First Cold War (London: Macmillan, 1990); Michael Dockrill and John W. Young, eds, British Foreign Policy, 1945-1956 (London: Macmillan, 1989); and John Zametica, ed., British Officials and British Foreign Policy, 1945-1950 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1990). According to the reviewer, all of "these books largely omit[] the intelligence dimension." The only article focused on intelligence is Sheila Kerr's essay on Donald Maclean in the Deighton book. Kerr's article is highly speculative but is, nonetheless, "a shrewd analysis."

Kerr, Sheila. "Investigating Soviet Espionage and Subversion: The Case of Donald Maclean." Intelligence and National Security 17, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 101-116.

The author concludes that the available intelligence record is insufficient to determine intelligence's or Maclean's "impact on the collection and analysis that supported the formulation and implementation of Soviet foreign policy."

Medvedev, Roy. "Requiem for a Traitor: A Spy's Lonely Loyalty to Old, Betrayed Ideals." Washington Post, 19 Jun. 1983, B1, B4.

Rocca and Dziak note that this article is on Donald Maclean's death in Moscow.

Newton, Verne W. The Cambridge Spies: The Untold Story of Maclean, Philby, and Burgess in America. New York: Madison Books, 1990. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991. Lanham, MD: Madison, 1993. [pb]

Surveillant 1.5 notes that the author "covers exciting new ground by focusing on the American side of the story" from 1944 to 1951. Bamford, NYTBR, 30 Jun. 1991, sees this U.S. flavor to the story as "what separates this book ... from other books on the British scandal." He finds The Cambridge Spies to be both "interesting and well- researched."

To Kerr, I&NS 9.1, the title is a "rather odd choice" since the book is largely about Maclean. This is a "very worthy effort," but is "flawed in both conception and execution.... [He] reduces the motives of three very different individuals into just one disreputable motive: they became Soviets agents because they were impelled by an addiction to the drug of deceit."

According to Carver, IJI&C 5.1, "Newton's conclusion that Maclean was far more valuable to the Soviets than either Burgess or Philby is hard to fault." However, the author "sometimes gets carried away with his argument and indulges in overkill," and several of his "best quotations ... are completely unsourced."

Goulden, IJI&C 6.2, says this is "the most comprehensive account to date of the damage done by the three British traitors.... The book will be of value and interest even to buffs familiar with the plethora of earlier studies."

Powers, NYRB (13 May 1993) and Intelligence Wars (2004), 295-320, takes note of Newton's argument "that Maclean knew the [U.S. nuclear] arsenal was empty and told the KGB," and adds that "Stalin's eerie confidence while his minions seized power in Czechoslovakia and his armies risked war by closing the highways to Berlin strongly suggests that Newton was right. Maclean's information may thus have changed history."

For Charles, I&NS 15.2, this is "a work short on evidence but long on speculation.... The author is prone to supposition in attributing specific intelligence success to Donald Maclean."

Purdy, Anthony, and Douglas Sutherland. Burgess and Maclean. London: Secker & Warburg, 1963. [Chambers]

Sansom, A. W. I Spied Spies. London: Harrap, 1965.

Constantinides: The author headed British Field Security in Cairo in World War II and stayed in Cairo after the war as security officer at the British embassy in the period when Donald Maclean served there. He gives a good description of the Kondor case, but does not mention that the British knew the Kondor mission was coming. For the later period, "Maclean's activities outside the embassy are vividly described."

Thompson, Francis J. Destination Washington. London: Hale, 1960.

Wilcox: "Early account of the Philby, Burgess and Maclean spy scandal in England. Relates U.S. aspects of case."

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