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PERSON FILE · 16 April 1911 – 30 August 1963

Guy Burgess

BBC producer, wartime intelligence hand and Foreign Office official who spied for Moscow from 1935 and fled to the Soviet Union with Donald Maclean in May 1951.

1911–1963

3 min read · 5 sources, 1 primary

Portrait: Guy Burgess, 1935. KEYSTONE Pictures USA. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Guy Burgess was the least discreet of the Cambridge agents and, for most of his career, the one nobody in authority suspected. His MI5 file lists two aliases from the night he disappeared, "Roger STYLES" and "Jim Andreyevich ELIOT," and assesses him as a Soviet agent from the 1930s.1

Early life and recruitment

Burgess was born at Devonport on 16 April 1911, the son of a naval officer, and was educated at Eton, the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth and Trinity College, Cambridge.5 At Cambridge he joined the Communist Party and moved in the same circles as Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt. He was recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1935 on Philby's recommendation and left Cambridge that year without completing a degree.5

After the 1951 flight, the Security Service learned that Burgess had said in 1937 that he was working for "a secret branch of the Comintern" and that Blunt was one of his sources. Margaret Thatcher disclosed this in her 1979 statement on Blunt, noting that there was no supporting evidence for it at the time.4

BBC, Section D and wartime work

In July 1936 Burgess joined the BBC as an assistant producer in the Talks Department.5 In 1938 he moved to Section D, the new sabotage and propaganda branch of SIS, where he brought Philby in; when Section D was absorbed into the Special Operations Executive in 1940 he returned to the BBC.5 Through the war he also did freelance work for British intelligence. MI5's 2015 file release confirmed that Burgess had run agents on MI5's behalf during the Second World War.3

In 1944 he joined the Foreign Office. As an assistant to Hector McNeil, Minister of State under Ernest Bevin, he saw a wide range of material on postwar policy.5

Washington and the flight

In 1950 Burgess was given the temporary rank of Second Secretary at the British Embassy in Washington, where he lodged with Philby.5 His conduct there led to his recall. On 11 June 1951 the Foreign Secretary, Herbert Morrison, told the Commons that Burgess had been "recently recalled" from Washington "owing to his general unsuitability in the position he held."2

By then Burgess was gone. Morrison set out the official timeline: the two men had left Southampton, "ostensibly on a week-end cruise," on the night of 25 May 1951, disembarked at St. Malo the next day, and their absence was established on 29 May. Neither had been dismissed; both were suspended from 1 June.2 MI5's files show that its surveillance of Maclean had picked up a meeting with Burgess shortly before they fled.3

Why Burgess went is still not certain. Maclean was the man under investigation, and Burgess was not then a suspect. Burgess himself later told the journalist Tom Driberg that he went because he was leaving the Foreign Office anyway; historians have offered other explanations, including Soviet pressure, and the released files do not settle the question.5

Moscow

The Soviet government kept silent until February 1956, when Burgess and Maclean appeared briefly before a few journalists in Moscow and issued a statement claiming they had acted to improve understanding between East and West.5 Burgess never left the Soviet Union. Visitors from Britain described a lonely life, and he died in Moscow on 30 August 1963, aged 52.5

His flight set off years of questions in Parliament about a "third man" who had warned the pair, a question answered only in 1963 (see Kim Philby and The Cambridge Five).5

Key dates

  1. 1935 Recruited by Soviet intelligence.
  2. July 1936 Joins the BBC Talks Department.
  3. 1938 Joins SIS's new Section D.
  4. 1944 Joins the Foreign Office.
  5. 1950 Posted to the British Embassy in Washington as Second Secretary.
  6. 25 May 1951 Leaves Southampton with Donald Maclean; both reach Moscow.
  7. February 1956 Appears with Maclean at a short press conference in Moscow.

Sources

  1. Other KV 2/4101: Guy Francis De Moncy BURGESS (catalogue description), The National Archives (UK), Discovery catalogue (1939–1951).
  2. Other Foreign Service (Missing Officials), HC Deb 11 June 1951 vol 488 cc1668–75, UK Parliament, Hansard (1951-06-11).
  3. Official history October 2015 release of historical MI5 files, MI5 (Security Service), archived by the Internet Archive (2015-10).
  4. Other Security (Sir Anthony Blunt), written answer, HC Deb 15 November 1979 vol 973 cc679–81W, UK Parliament, Hansard (1979-11-15).
  5. Wikipedia Guy Burgess, Wikipedia.
  6. Wikipedia English Wikipedia article (used for cross-checking).

Elsewhere in the files

Read next

1934 – 23 January 1963 The Cambridge Five Five Cambridge graduates recruited by Soviet intelligence in the 1930s reached MI6, MI5, the Foreign Office and Bletchley Park, and were exposed one by one between 1951 and 1990. United Kingdom · 1909 Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) Britain's foreign intelligence service, founded in 1909 as the foreign section of the Secret Service Bureau, run by a chief known as 'C', and not placed on a statutory footing until the Intelligence Services Act 1994. United Kingdom · 1909 Security Service (MI5) Britain's domestic security service, founded in 1909 as the home section of the Secret Service Bureau: hunter of German spies in two world wars, runner of the Double-Cross System, and a target of Soviet penetration. 1 February 1943 – 1 October 1980 The Venona project The US Army codebreaking program that, from 1943 to 1980, read parts of some 2,900 wartime Soviet intelligence cables and exposed Fuchs, the Rosenbergs and Donald Maclean.