UKC

Reading 'A Spy Among Friends' by Ben MacIntyre at the moment.

For someone who isn't a big reader ,I'm really enjoying seeing into the world of Cold War espionage.

After further reading on Wiki etc ,I still can't understand why Philby ,Burgess, Maclean ,and the rest, so willingly went down the murky road of spying for Russia.

Interesting stuff.

In reply to andymac:


Because, at the time, there was a lost of post-war pro-communist, pro-Soviet support as the natural opposition to fascism, as well as some philosophical antipathy to US capitalism? Also, because they were flattered and excited to be asked?

In reply to andymac:

Possibly some were blackmailed?

In reply to andymac:

Peter Wright's 'Spycatcher' is an interesting and entertaining read with some good insights into the mindset of the Cambridge spies, Blunt in particular.

In reply to andymac:

I thought it was a great read, check out his other books too!

In reply to jezb1:


Yep.

Operation ZigZag next.

Already seen the Operation Mincemeat documentary.It was the author himself who was the presenter.

In reply to Rigid Raider:


Suspect that blackmail had a lot to do with it.

Not so much with Philby though.

In reply to Dave Garnett:


The antipathy to,and mistrust of the US was certainly true.

The Americans were viewed as the biggest threat to the British Empire, and world peace.

In reply to andymac:

There were all from the top echolons of British society, many are children born in the empire, maybe they'd seen plenty of how depraved British society could be and wanted a different world? I'd imagine that motivations were different, but wasnt Blunt a member of the communist party when he joined MI5, so they would of known this, probably ran multiple agents/ officers within the communist party so would of known all about whatever he was doing. All very murky business if you ask me, need to read more.

D

In reply to Paul Robertson:


I used to have Peter Wright's old desk when I worked at Marconi Research in the eighties (at least according to a colleague who ought to have known). Very nice it was too.

In reply to Dauphin:


Stop now, pretty please.

In reply to andymac:


I've just started reading again in the last couple of months, so I'm on the look out for books to read.
That sounds a good one, thanks!

Should find plenty of good suggestions on here considering the intellectual might of UKC

In reply to andymac:

In the 1930's the communists were seen as the only people seriously opposing the rise of fascism. Also, the world-wide slump had destroyed many people's faith in capitalism.
In his own autobiography Philby cites the 1931 general election as an important personal tipping point. The Tories had, in his and many others' view, got in by means of such a sustained campaign of lies as to call into question the very validity of democracy.

Plus ca change...

In reply to andymac:

Been reading "The greatest traitor" about George Blake. Worth a read, I'd never heard of him before.

In reply to Mike-W-99:
The shadow of those days of Soviet espionage and skulduggery still hangs over us with current assassination, suspicion and denials by the Kremlin.

In reply to Mike-W-99:

You'd have been 20 or so when the people who helped him escape from prison were tried. It was quite a case at the time, the jury didn't follow the judge's gentle nudging, so I'd imagine that you've forgotten rather than never heard of Blake before.

In reply to Mike Highbury:

At uni partying back then. It probably passed me by. I do remember the fuss spycatcher caused though.

In reply to andymac:

Some of the "spies" we have had in our midst have had much murkier backgrounds and blackmail definitely played a part.

This particular chap was arrested in the room I worked in at RAF Digby back in my Secret Squirrel days, (well before I got there though a number of my colleagues remember the event well):

http://www.raf-lincolnshire.info/digby/digbyhistory_ch5_1963_1978.htm (see 1968)

And here is another one of those who went before me - a very murky background indeed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Prime

In reply to andymac:

Between 1969 and 1971 I worked for the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association (BNF) in London. Also working there was a secretary called Melita Norwood, who retired in 1972. Only many years later was she revealed, in her eighties, to have been a long-serving KGB agent. There was much sniggering incredulity among the humanities-trained media types over this "grannie spy" and the rather obscure and humdrum-sounding place where she worked.
Actually she was one of the most important agents ever to operate here. The fissile components of nuclear weapons (uranium, plutonium, palladium, beryllium etc.) are, of course, all non-ferrous metals, and in order to make a bomb these have to be cast and accurately machined into complex shapes, requiring detailed knowledge of their physical and chemical properties. This research was done in the post-war years at BNF, which had some of the best metallurgists in the country. The resulting information passed across her desk, and thence to the Soviet Union where it greatly assisted their atom-bomb project.

She retained her devotion to communism to the end, saying "I did what I did, not for money, but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost,given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and a health service".

In reply to Andy Long:

Crikey !

I was reading about her the other night.

When you see her ,you realise how she slipped under the radar.

In reply to Trangia:


One of the other ,alleged,spies I was reading about was Anna Chapman .

She was one of an alleged spy ring working in and around Washington DC a few years ago.

You will remember her.She ,her husband ,and a few others were deported back to Moscow in an East meets West agent trade.

She was allegedly in the process of charming the pants off one of Barack Obamas advisors. Believe the call it a 'honeytrap' in the business.

The Anna Chapman,KGB spy ring must ,I assume ,have been the inspiration for the TV series (can't remember the name) .Keri Russell is in it.

Nope.cant remember the name.

In reply to andymac:

She was gorgeous!

In reply to Yanis Nayu:


I would have fallen into the honeytrap.