Queen Elizabeth II wasn’t advised particulars of her long-time artwork adviser’s double life as a Soviet spy as a result of palace officers did not need to add to her worries, newly declassified paperwork reveal.
The information about royal artwork historian Anthony Blunt are amongst a trove from the intelligence company MI5 launched Tuesday by Britain’s Nationwide Archives. They shed new gentle on a spy ring linked to Cambridge College within the Nineteen Thirties, whose members spilled secrets and techniques to the Soviet Union from the center of the U.Ok. intelligence institution.
Blunt, who labored at Buckingham Palace as Surveyor of the Queen’s Footage, was beneath suspicion for years earlier than he lastly confessed in 1964 that, as a senior MI5 officer throughout World Conflict II, he had handed secret data to Soviet brokers.
In one of many newly launched information, an MI5 officer notes that Blunt stated he felt “profound reduction” at unburdening himself. In return for data he supplied, Blunt was allowed to maintain his job, his knighthood and his social standing – and the queen was apparently saved at midnight.
In 1972, her non-public secretary, Martin Charteris, advised MI5 chief Michael Hanley that “the queen didn’t know and he noticed no benefit in telling her about it now; it might solely add to her worries and there was nothing that might performed about him.”
Professor Anthony Blunt, former surveyor of the Queen’s footage, photographed on the Courtauld Institute with Queen Elizabeth II on Nov. 15, 1979.
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The federal government determined to inform the monarch in 1973, when Blunt was unwell, fearing a media uproar as soon as Blunt died and journalists have been in a position to publish tales with out worry of libel fits.
Charteris reported that “she took all of it very calmly and with out shock,” and “remembered that he had been beneath suspicion manner again” within the early Fifties. Historian Christopher Andrew says within the official historical past of MI5 that the queen had beforehand been advised about Blunt in “normal phrases.”
Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022 on the age of 96.
Blunt was publicly unmasked as a spy by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher within the Home of Commons in November 1979. He was lastly stripped of his knighthood, however by no means prosecuted, and died in 1983 on the age of 75.
Recordsdata held by Britain’s secretive intelligence companies often stay categorized for a number of many years, however the companies are inching towards extra openness. Among the newly launched paperwork will characteristic in an exhibition, entitled “MI5: Official Secrets and techniques,” opening on the Nationwide Archives in London later this yr.
Two of the Cambridge spies, Donald Maclean and Man Burgess, fled to Russia in 1951. A 3rd, Kim Philby, continued to work for overseas intelligence company MI6 regardless of falling beneath suspicion. As proof of his duplicity mounted, he was confronted in Beirut in January 1963 by his pal and fellow MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott.
The declassified information embrace Philby’s typed confession and a transcript of his dialogue with Elliott.
Clockwise from high left, Anthony Blunt, Man Burgess (who died in Moscow in 1963), Donald MacLean and Kim Philby, who tipped off Burgess and MacLean in 1951 forcing them to defect after which defecting himself in 1963.
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In it, Philby admitted he had betrayed Konstantin Volkov, a KGB officer who tried to defect to the West in 1945, bringing with him particulars of moles inside British intelligence – together with Philby himself. Because of Philby’s intervention, Volkov was kidnapped in Istanbul, taken again to Moscow and executed.
Elliott reported that Philby stated that if he had his life to steer once more, he would most likely have behaved in the identical manner.
“I actually did really feel an amazing loyalty to MI6. I used to be handled very, very effectively in it and I made some actually marvelous pals there,” Philby stated, based on the transcript. “However the overruling inspiration was the opposite aspect.”
Philby advised Elliott that the selection confronted now that he was uncovered was “between suicide and prosecution.” As an alternative, he fled to Moscow, the place he died in 1988.
The Cambridge spies have impressed myriad books, performs films and TV reveals, together with the 2023 collection ” A Spy Amongst Mates,” starring Man Pearce as Philby and Damian Lewis as Elliott. Blunt featured in a 2019 episode of ” The Crown,” performed by Samuel West.
A file about spy Anthony Blunt from the exhibition “MI5: Official Secrets and techniques” is pictured on the Nationwide Archives in London, Britain, January 13, 2025.
Marissa Davison / REUTERS
In response to information launched in 2014, members of the Cambridge spy ring have been seen by their Soviet handlers as hopeless drunks incapable of protecting secrets and techniques, the BBC reported.
One passage describes Burgess as a person “continuously drunk,” and one other notice describes Maclean as “not superb at protecting secrets and techniques,” the BBC reported. It provides he was “continuously drunk” and binged on alcohol.