The Trinity Six - Charles Cumming [158]
Cairncross was identified as a Soviet agent in 1952. However, his involvement in the Cambridge ring was covered up by the British government. In 1964, Blunt also signed a full confession, in return for immunity from prosecution. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher admitted to the House of Commons that Sir Anthony Blunt, one of the pillars of the British Establishment, had been a Soviet asset for more than thirty years. MI5 and SIS faced a further bout of bloodletting.
Guy Burgess died of alcoholism in Moscow in 1963. Maclean, who worked for the Soviet Foreign Ministry, died in 1983. In the same year, Blunt, who had been stripped of his knighthood, died at his home in London. Five years later, Kim Philby was granted a full state burial by the Soviet authorities. Cairncross, who had lived in Italy, Thailand and France, died in 1995, five years after the Soviet defector Oleg Gordievsky confirmed him as the ‘Fifth Man’.
The recruitment of the Cambridge Spies is regarded as the most successful ‘penetration’ by a foreign Intelligence service in the history of espionage. In Russia, the men from Trinity College were known simply as ‘The Magnificent Five’.
C.C. London 2010
By the same author
A Spy by Nature
The Hidden Man
The Spanish Game
Typhoon
Copyright
Copyright © Charles Cumming 2011
Charles Cumming asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-00-733779-8
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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