īetween 19, Maclean passed numerous secrets to Moscow. But although they struggled to keep secrets, that did not stop them from delivering information Burgess reportedly handed over about 389 top secret documents to the Soviets within the early part of 1945, along with an additional 168 documents in December of 1949. Maclean was also known to have leaked information about his secret activities to his brother and close friends.

It is said that one time, while highly intoxicated, Burgess accidentally dropped one of the secret files he had taken from the Foreign Office while leaving a pub, jeopardizing his second identity. Maclean and Burgess were reportedly seen by their Soviet handlers as 'hopeless drunks' due to the fact that they had a hard time keeping their secret occupations to themselves. Burgess also began supplying information from various positions between 19, first as a BBC correspondent, then as an active member of British intelligence, and then finally as a member of the Foreign Office. Maclean began delivering information to the Soviet operatives as a member of the Foreign Office in 1934. Having both disagreed with the idea of capitalism, they were recruited by Soviet intelligence operatives and became undercover agents. Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess ĭonald Maclean met Guy Burgess as a student at the University of Cambridge in the early 1930s. Nonetheless, the Soviets accepted a great deal of secret information-1,771 documents from Blunt, 4,605 from Burgess, 4,593 from MacLean and 5,832 from Cairncross-from 1941 until 1945. One report later stated, 'About half the documents the British spies sent to Moscow were never even read' due to Soviet paranoia. Modin reported that Soviet intelligence mistrusted the Cambridge double agents during the Second World War and had difficulty believing that the men would have access to top secret documents they were particularly suspicious of Harold 'Kim' Philby, wondering how he could have become an agent given his communist past. The following five supplied intelligence to the Soviet Union under their controller, Yuri Modin, who later defected to the West. Other Apostles accused of having spied for the Soviets include Michael Straight. Blunt and Burgess were both members of the University Pitt Club as well as the Cambridge Apostles, exclusive secret societies at Cambridge University. Many others have also been accused of membership in the Cambridge ring. Perhaps as important as the intelligence they passed was the demoralizing effect to the British establishment of their slow unmasking, and the mistrust in British security this caused in the United States. They passed large amounts of intelligence to the Soviets, so much so that the KGB became suspicious that at least some of it was false. All pursued successful careers in branches of the British government. Īll of the five were convinced that the Marxism–Leninism of Soviet communism was the best available political system, and especially the best defence against the rise of fascism. A Fellow of Trinity College, Blunt was several years older than Burgess, Maclean, and Philby he acted as a talent-spotter and recruiter. Blunt claimed that they were not recruited as agents until after they had graduated. Debate surrounds the exact timing of their recruitment by Soviet intelligence. The term 'Cambridge' refers to the recruitment of the group during their education at the University of Cambridge in the 1930s. The moniker Cambridge Four evolved to become the Cambridge Five after Cairncross was added.

Their involvement was kept secret for many years: until 1979 for Blunt, and 1990 for Cairncross. Following Philby's flight, British intelligence obtained confessions from Anthony Blunt (1907–1983, cryptonym: Johnson) and then John Cairncross (1913–1995, cryptonym: Liszt), who have come to be seen as the last two of a group of five. Suspicion immediately fell on Harold 'Kim' Philby (1912–1988, cryptonyms: Sonny, Stanley), who eventually fled to the Soviet Union in 1963. The general public first became aware of the conspiracy after the sudden flight of Donald Maclean (1913–1983, cryptonym: Homer) and Guy Burgess (1911–1963, cryptonym: Hicks) to the Soviet Union in 1951. The number and membership of the ring emerged slowly, from the 1950s onwards. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for spying. The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the Cold War and was active from the 1930s until at least the early 1950s. British ring of spies for the Soviet Union Kim Philby, as depicted on a Soviet Union stamp

Ww2 soviet spy network