![]() ![]() Lord Pakenham now provided details of Maclean’s recent behaviour, reporting that at a recent dinner Maclean: “was drinking very heavily … His whole behaviour gave the impression that he was definitely unhappy and distraught and that he would be capable of any rash and violent act.” (Underneath this an official has scribbled: “This reinforced what we have heard from other sources”).īack in the USSR: a press release signed by Maclean and Burgess after their defection. On the other hand, one never wants to blacken somebody’s character if one can help it and to say nothing is often the line of least resistance. Yet despite considering him a “positive menace” and “a deplorable selection for the Foreign Service”, Gladwyn added: Lord Gladwyn, by this time Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations, recalled Burgess as: “about the most unreliable man I ever met” and questioned “whether I should not at an earlier stage have expressed to someone … my own doubts about Burgess’s character”. To do so – to tell tales – would have been considered to be in bad taste. Prior to their disappearance, colleagues and friends within the Foreign Service had been reluctant to make formal reports, even when they had cause to question their behaviour. As a report prepared at the request of the then prime minister, Clement Attlee, was forced to admit:Īs a result of intensive investigation by the Security Service and of statements volunteered by friends and acquaintances … we have learnt a good deal about their character and personal behaviour which we did not know before. Yet one area where this material has particular value is in shedding light on the fallout that followed within the Foreign Office, at both a departmental and a personal level.ĭepartmental distaste for security matters is immediately made apparent – while there was a wealth of personal knowledge about both men and their at times erratic behaviour, very little of it was “officially” known. Given the nature of the activities of the Cambridge spies, the value of the official government record in relation to their treachery will inevitably have some quite obvious limitations. The papers also shed light on the Foreign Office’s obsession with Burgess’ sexuality which led to the introduction of harsh measures which would blight the lives of homosexuals employed in the Foreign Office for the next four decades. New papers released from the National Archives spell out the dismay and disarray that followed the dramatic defection of Cambridge spies, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess more than 60 years ago as colleagues and friends struggled to come to terms with the treachery of two men they had considered to be erratic and promiscuous, but not traitors. ![]()
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