BEFORE GORONWY REES DIED LAST MONTH HE DISCLOSED NEW FACTS ABOUT DIPLOMAT-SPIES TO ANDREW BOYLE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000100600022-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 21, 2010
• Sequence Number: 22
• Publication Date: January 13, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
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LONDON OBSERVER
13 January 1980
iV - THE day 'Mrs
Thatcher sensation-
ally revealed that
Anthony Blunt had
When Rees recovered con-.!
sciousness, the'only visitor outside
his family whom he asked to see
was Andrew Boyle whose book,
`The Climate of Treason,' serial-
ised in THE OFSFFVF.R,' led to the
unmasking of- Blunt.'. Talking to
Boyle about_Anthong Blunt's tele-
vised press conference, at which 1
the former Keeper of the Queert's;
Pictures gave disingenuous replies
to a.strin,g of undemanding ques-
tions, Goronwy--Rees was roused,
to anger:-
` ANTHONY BLUNT cast a long
shadow over my life, just as I may-
well have cast a long shadow.; over
his. It sickened me listening to
his well-bred voice. I felt a little
pity for his predicament at first--
but not. for=more than -a. few
moments. His sheer nerve,'-con-
tinues to amaze and haunt me. -
'You, Andrew, were largely
instrumental in exposing him1
publicly as a'Soviet spy. No doubt)
there are sentimentalists who have;
abused you, and -who will - 'go on'
;abusing you,, for:putt.ng an? old)
man '.~f great -erudition 'iii: the)
pillory to-account.for his shame-
less treachery against his own
country. .; , : ?,
' 'Disregard the sentimentalists,
whether they happen to be his
friends, his former pupils. his."dis-
tant admirers or simply that body
of confused or immature onlookers
who still don't. know or don't care
what went spiritually wrong here
when Stalinist. Marxism was all
the rage in the 1930s. Like many
'others, I was accidentally caught
no in it through my close personal
friendship with Guy Burgess.-. =
`I first met Burgess at the start
of the summer term of 1932,when
he arrived. in Oxford from. Cam-1
bridge to stay the- weekend, with1
Maurice Bowra, ,< who. -. was.1
Dean of Wadham CoIlege._There.
was a lot of coming. and .going'
then between the two universities.1
I had been elected'a Fellow of All,
Souls.the previous year on gradu
ating from.New. College.- It: isn't'
given to. every 'clever,- ambitious
schoolboy from a. fairly narrow
Welsh lower middle-class :home
and background to find his dreams
of academic, prowess fulfilled so
early : by the time I'd come 'of age,
I ' was' already listed in- 'Who's
Who. I -mistakenly thought the
1.1-1A . .... ....,. a_e.I - -1
Lying 'hack in his hospital -bed.
-and pondering the past ..Rees
,admitted that the uneven trian-
gular relationship he enjoyed from
then onwards with Burgess and
the haughty, enigmatic Blunt cost
him dearly in the end.
'I was, in more senses than one,
the odd man out. For I was hetero-
sexual ; and' I was not .interested
enough in politics to start plotting
for any revolutionary Marxist
solution to all our ills as a nation.
They were already committed to
the Marxist:cause ; their commit-
ment was: cemented by homo-
.sexuality.
`At the time of --our original
meeting Guy, was already an -open
Communist. Among his many ac-
tivities,-social and political, -he
spoke most 'freely of his success
.in -helping to organise a recent
strike of busmen in the town of
Cambridge. Blunt - no matter,
what he says now -- was by then,
also a covert member of the
.Party and, as a young don, a kind
'of Grey Eminence behind Burgess
and other disciples, most of whom
belonged to The Apostles. 'I
neverJoined the . Communist
movement.,though'my views were
Marxist-tinged , and anti-Fascist'
and I was certainly influenced to
some extent by the thrust of Guy's
original and brilliant mind. -
'Marxism for Guy was a way of
looking at the world which
.seemed as natural and unforced
as breathing. You can imagine my'
incredulity on learning some two
years later that, quite apart from
faiiing to achieve all that was ex-
pected of him academically, Bur-'
Bess had inexplicably turned a
political - somersault, declared
himself a Fascist and gone down
from Cambridge.
'I had left Oxford by then to!
work on the Manchester Guardian
as a leader-writer, briefly meeting
not only spied for the
Russians,, but had
ret pardon, the man best-placed
to tell the story of Blunt's treach-'
ery . was dying >_of ' cancer in:
hospital. ;.; ? ~,=
Goronw,y .Rees, former E. Cates;
Bursar of All. Souls College, Ox-
ford, had been a close friend and
confidant of .Guy Burgess when!
the Cambrid.-e trio' of spies-Bur-
gess, Blunt and'. Maclean -.--were!
Last Navsmber^Rees was. lying
in Charing Cross Hospital and, in.'
the hectic days following they
exposure of Blunt,' the removal of
his knighthood by Royal' decree
cnd the all-too-public humiliation
of Britain's Secret Intelligence
Service, the sick-man?- together
with other patients-was block-
aded by striking hospital workersi
with -banners proclaiming:-
"Goronwy Rees, the spy's friertd,
is here,' and' Get well Goronwy-
others can't even get treatment.'
But Rees himself, although,
close to Burgess; was never a spy,,)
or a homosexual, or even a mem-i
her of the Communist Party-ands
he later suffered, grievously from1
Blunt's evil influence. "A day or tivo after Mrs That-
cher's revelations, a reporter from
a national daily newspaper posing
as - a. Cambridge.- don, T: E:-.- B.
Howarth of Nfagdalene College,'
`bluffed his way to..Rees's bedside;
in the, hopes of ;.getting a story,
but the dying man was too iliW'to-
talk.
Rees lost consciousness shortly
afterwards and his-doctors took,
the precaution of calling in tze_
police to guard him. Tests proved.
hat the patient was suffering'
from a serious deficiency of sugar
in.. his blood; this tips consistent
with his malignant _condition,'l7ut
it L. cuid also have. i girt . consrstent
with a massive injection of insulin
riven by an, intruder. In a decade
that had brought about the bizarre
murder of Geargi.Mvlarkov, it made
:sense to protect.-Rees not. only
.from over-zealous'journali.sts, but
.also from` the risk of more dan-
gerous intruders: i
cQ.NTINUFM
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Malcolm Muggeridge about a
week before he- and.? his wife de-
parted for Moscow, where he
rapidly shed his- illusions about
Stalinist Marxism as a short-cut to
the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.;
Burgess and Blunt, of course, also,
paid visits to Moscow; these were
brief visits in= the spirit of pil-
grims, but exceedingly important
visits for all that. I couldn't ima
11gine why Burgess had openly re-
'nounced his Communist faith and
reneged on his former- friends;
and associates. It didn't make
sense. Only when,-.in 1935-6, we
-became neighbours, in ?London;
did I hear his explanation'
-.. `I asked Goronwy Rees what he,
made of Anthony Blunt's cate-i
.gorical statement 'that he had,
never . been homosexually at-'
tached to Burgess.. . .
`-.That-- is a .. convenient_ false-!,
only one of many uttered)
by : someone who. lives up -coma
pletely to, your definition of the
classic agent as a `.`'controlled
schizophrenic . who has so11
thoroughly mastered the 'art- off
lying: that nothing will. shake orb
break-him down. buy Burgess al-I
ways boasted openly -of his ". con-
quests,"' and Blunt was, definitely
taken ' to bed Whim, becoming
more deeply "Marxist" in the
process. Later Guy even pimped
...''.
for him
`How can you be so' certain ?'
I--insisted. .' Burgess possessed
such -a, powerful Walter ?Mitty
streak that-you !or-if had difficulty in
knowing when to believe
him.'.
? ` Guy always talked candidly to
me about the squalid homosexual
side of his make-up, perhaps be-
cause, - to him, it wasn't at :all
squalid.or revolting but rather an
expression of his immense joie
de vivre. I did not grasp the sini-
ster aims of it until years later,
partly because this perversion was
currently widespread and fashion-
able, notably among undergradu.
ates from the public schools. Like
Malcolm Muggeridge, I was a
grammar school product. We were,
for the most part, uncontaminated.
`After making one initial pass at
pie which I firmly resisted, Burgess
cheerfully accepted the fact that I
was not attracted to men as lovers.
This didn't stop him talking end-l
lessly and often tediously about his
conquests,-of whotn.Blunt was-one.,
` I saw - little,. enough -of -Blunt,.
despite having heard so much
about him, until F=-was appointed
assistant': editor of the 'Spectator.:
in 1935. By theh'I had grown accus-
tomed to. Guy's absurd posturing
as an upside-down Marxist conver-
'ted to his own highly=.individual
istic brand of 'Fascism,. which-
seemed -to have sprung '--from
a synthetic sort-of -despair at'TBri-
tain's vacillating -policy, in:India
and to be. bound up with the
resulting mortal threat to the sur-
vival of the British, Empire.
'He and I lived close to each
other and we remained friendly so
long as we avoided political argu-
ments. His ' restless intellectual
curiosity' still fascinated me. He
.had become secretary to captain
.Jack Macnamara, .the-right-wing;
'Tory MP for Chelmsford. who '
shared Guy's sexual tastes and who
introduced him to the pro-Hitler
Anglo-German Fellowship.
` Philby, another of Burgess's
-brief sexual conquests by the way,
was worming his . way _ into the
same organisation almost simul-
taneously by another route. Philby
:and.I were only casual acquaint-;;
ances who met:-on occasion -.at
'Guy's Chester Square flat. Blunt,
kept aloof from the Anglo-German !;
Fellowship on leaving Trinity Col-'
lege,. Cambridge, to join the staff;
of the Warburg Institute. I got to',
know him better when he began
to' contribute :regular articles to.i
the,Spectator'on -art. It was curi {
ous how so obviously learned -a:I
man,depended on the guidance of,'
Guy Burgess in formulating his
views for the printed page.
'It was during, this - busy and
enjoyable period of early man-;
hood that I met, and took an imme-
diate-dislike to, Donald Maclean
aboard a friend's yacht in South- 1
ampton. Blunt I could stomach, but
not Maclean :- his' air of empty
superiority affronted.me. His name
was quite familiar. to me, since
Burgess had often spoken admir-
ingly of him-and boasted inci-
dentally of having bedded hip,,
too, at Cambridge.'
'Was that the only occasion,'
I asked, 'on which Maclean came!
into your life? Did anything occur
at that time which might have
alterted you to the double 'life he
was already leading as a Soviet
agent?'
: Goronwy Rees -paused for al
while, then said `One small inci-
dent does come back, insignificant
though it appeared then. Maclean
and I had a mutual friend : her
]Christian name was Barbara:-Now
Barbara was a professionalphoto-
.photo
'grapher with a studio in Mayfair,
and she told me one day how skil-
ful Donald was with a camera-so
skilful that she'd.no hesitation in
letting him use the studio for his,!
bwn work. It's easy to see the;
importance of such unconnected.
trifles in retrospect: Krivitsky,I
the first major Soviet defector,;
?saw specimens of Maclean's handi-I
iyork in Moscow:-Such clues meant,
clothing to me in the 1930s,'
..-Rees spent the next few minutes
discussing the `generation-gap'!
which makes it so difficult for men!
,and women born after the Second'
World War to understand the'
peculiar, unrepeatable climate of
unrest-social and political as
well as spiritual-which turned a'
minority of their predecessors
into traitors and a sizeable major-
ity into their witting or unwitting
accessories. What the French
critic and essayist, Julien Benda,
-called la traltison des clercs (the
treason of the educated classes)
ran deeper in the Thirties than
was contm-inly realised. -
I'm not seeking now to excuse,
myself by saving I was one of the
'bien pcn ants -who allowed him-
self to be taken in. There were'
many of us who believed our mood
of rebelliousness against the com-'
placency and irresolution of gov-
ernment-was justified, especially%
during the Spanish Civil War. But,:
equally, I was hopelessly duped by:
Burgess on -the unforgettable
evening he tried to lure me..into
that spy ring. .
'I had recently reviewed in the:
Spectator an emotional book on;
Britain's .distressed areas, and'
Guy had embarrassed me by heap-1
ing inordinate praise on what I'&
written. That evening, drinking'
Irish whiskey in my 'flat, he
returned to the subject and I
begged him.to drop it. Why should
he, said Burgess, when it was plain';
I had the root of the matter in me?
Then he confided that -he'd been
a Comintern agent ever since com-
ing down from Cambridge.. I.
accused him of inventing a tall
story. He convinced me momen-;
tarily that he was telling the truth;
adding that he wanted me to work
with him and others for the cause.
Who were the " others," I deman-
ded? I pressed him to give me one
name. Somewhat reluctantly he
'
`The name he gave 'me was
that of Anthony Blunt. It im-l
pressed me deeply because Blunt'
was highly regarded by everyone
1. knew for his intellect and his)
apparent integrity. As I put it1
once elsewhere : "He quite cnn-I
spicuously possessed all those vir-
tues which Guy did not; all they!
had in common, except friend-i
ship, was that both were homo
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sexuals. But it now appeared than eve of the'Second Woria war. Img,
i
h
'
they were both also Comintern
agents."
` I faithfully promised Burgess
the
i
on
that I-would never ment
matter to Blunt. I kept that pro-, the Soviet Union against the
mise. Nor did I inform anyone else' `imperialists,' Britain and France.'
until after the flight of Burgess 'I remember bow-strained Bur-
and Maclean to Moscow nearly 15, gess was on the eve of war.' Rees1
years later in 1951. The point is said..` He'd rushed home from a
that - though' I found Guy uncan- holiday in France and actually:
?nily persuasive whenever I was in had the nerve to raise once more
his company, I still only had his the question of serving the Comin-
word for the story of a Comintern ~ tern in my hearing. I choked hint'
ring.. And in all matters- except) off. He agreed never to mention',,
his homosexual conquests I never) the subject again. I was eventually,
could wholly bring- myself to, commissioned in the Royal Welch'
accept for long anything he chose Fusiliers about the time Blunt was'
to tell me.' - recruited into.MIS ;-it was during
Blunt apart, what was it, I the chaotic summer of 1940 after
wondered, about the Comintern of Blunt, as an Intelligence officer
the. mid-Thirties . which- mis.'ed' with a unit : of the retreating)
Rees into supposing that the ring; British Expeditionary Force,. and',
i
of conspirators to which Burgess 1 Philby, as a war correspondent!,
belonged did not go in for espion- i with The Times; bad been evacu-
age? aced from France. -
`Well, the Comintern and its ` When on leave in London later
works struck me at the time as a: in the war, I visited Guy from
worthy organisation to belong to, time.to time in the large flit he'd
since it was dedicated ostensibly rented from Victor Rothschild
to helping the international work- above-the offices of The Practi-
ing class. I did nothing about the tioner, -the medical newspaper,
offer to join, all the same, nor did at 5 Bentinck Street, a few
Burgess renew it. You see-and 11 minutes' walk from Broadcasting'
can't stress this too strongly-I' House.
just wasn't sure if he'd been pull- ` Anthony Blunt was also in per-
ing my leg. manent residence, as were two
`In those days I pretended to highly placed girl secretaries en
be more working-class than was gaged in important official work.
actually the case. My family Richard: Llewellyn Davies, the
e
h
enjoyed more of this world's
goods than most of our neigh-
bours. My father, as a Methodists
'Minister trained at Mansfield Col-I
lege, must have had an income ofd
some #400 per annum, a good
salary by going standards. I sup-
pose I adopted my working-class
pose because I felt an outsider
among Guy's numerous and often
strangely . assorted homosexual
friends. I also felt I was resented
by?some of them. I believe you're
right; .Andrew, in stating that
Anthony Blunt later came.to hate
me. I had no idea then how dia-
bolically hard. and callous he
would become in the course of
leading his double-life.'
Rees - recalled - that Burgess
mocked him - in 1939 for joining
the 90th Field Regiment, a Terri-
torial unit stationed conveniently
close, to the offices of the Spec-
tator. Volunteering for military
service was looked down on as
an empty, absurd gesture.'At the
BBC, where Burgess : had been
working as a talks producer much
y
r
t
at
sought after by MPs, he found! Guy and his associates, they would
t
time to freelance for the Secre
Service as well as serve his Soviet have had him drummed out or,
control-his informants including court-martialled. It.+as in that)
Bentincl: Street flat that I heard
Edouard Pfeiffer, . a notorious them. rehearsing their arguments.
homosexual in the inner councils in favour of ditching the bomber)
of Daladier's unstable French offensive and re-allocating men,
Government. and resources so that a Second
One unforeseen event rocked Front could be mounted in 1943;
Burgess's imperturbability: this at the probable, though accept-,
was the Nazi-Soviet Pact on the)
e;
Blunt and t
in common with
rest, Burgess gradually adjusted
himself to the cynical Moscow line'
and quietly went on working for-
,
er ex- pos
architect and anot
from Trinity College, Cambridge,'.,
fell in love with one of them'
and then emulated the man-who .
came-to-dinner by "hanging up his
hat" and never. leaving. The sar-1
donic phrase was not mine but
Guy'.s.
A the most frequt-nt of
able, cost-as they saw it-of
an Allied holocaust on the
beaches of France.' .
Although many voices were
raised at that: time in the clamour I
for -a `Second Front Now,' Gor
onwy Rees believed that the)
Soviet sympathisers of Bentinckl
Street helped to orchestrate the
discord. If- their activities bads.
been confined solely to propa-
ganda, the damage would riot have
been too serious, but :-
`When Mrs Thatcher told the
Commons that Anthony Blunt
could not he held responsible fore
any British lives while he was in
MIS, that may have been so, but
what about the lives of Poles, of,
Finns, of Ukrainians, even . -of!
German Communists from 1.940;
until the invasion of Russia'
mid-1941?
` Just as Philby's position --of l
trust in SIS increasingly enabledi
him to tip-off his - Kremlin!
masters about plans like the post
war attempt at a counter-coup in !Albania, Albania, so Blunt at his desk iuj
the security directorate obviously,
did damage to Britain ott -the
Soviet Union's behalf. He held a'
strategic post, under Liddell 1ii', -
the German section, with access!
to all the secretariat files 1
that mattered : the strengths and
weaknesses of MIS itself, its coin-~
position, its internal problems,'
especially the laxity of its surveil
lance over an atomic physicist like'
Dr Klaus Fuchs when Fuchs wasi
eventually recruited to spy fort
Russia.'
mong
the casual visitors I noticed ill,
1943-44 were J. D. Bernal, the,
scientist, John Strachey, the poli
tician, and Guy Liddell, ? a long..,
serving senior -officer of M15,
'whose marriage had recently!
broken up and who was a colleague,
of Blunt's. He was also -on close'
terms with Burgess.
`You told me, Andrew, that Sir',
Arthur Harris, Coin mander-in-
Chief, Bomber Command, recom
mended to the Air Ministry. in i
very forceful language about this;
time the removal of Strachey, a i,
former Communist, from his Com-'!
mand. Well, if the Air Ministry or
Harris could have eavesdropped)
on some of the political intrigues
indulged in with
ache
St
h
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