Cambridge Historian Writes Definitive History Of Britain's MI5
Christopher Andrew, a history professor at Cambridge University, recently published the first authorized history of the domestic branch of the British intelligence establishment -- officially designated the Security Service and commonly known as MI5. In writing his book, titled"Defend The Realm," Andrew had extensive access to MI5 archives, although parts of it still remain closed. He discussed the results of the work in an interview with RFE/RL correspondent Ahto Lobjakas.
RFE/RL: What, in your view, was MI5's biggest failure in the Cold War?
Christopher Andrew: I think that it was the amount of time taken to discover the five leading spies from my university. It's rather ironic that a historian from Cambridge University should have been the person who was appointed to write the [MI5] history. But, in other words, it was the five,"The Magnificent Five" as the KGB, or some of the KGB, began to call them after the film"The Magnificent Seven" came out in 1960. It loved Westerns. The reasons were, partly, because [the British government] had had no vetting system before World War II, so these people had got embedded. But MI5's investigation [also] missed a number of key points.This is a rare example in which it's really misled by a defector. Anatoly Golitsyn, who came over at the beginning of the 1960s, was the most dangerous kind of KGB defector -- in other words, one who has some really good intelligence combined with an awful lot of conspiracy theories. Now, he insisted that the Cambridge Five all had been at Cambridge at the same time and that they all knew each other. Now, MI5 accepted that definition, and it wasn't until 1980 that it actually solved the case. It solved the case then because there was another defector, Oleg Gordievsky, who was far, far, far better informed than Golitsyn had ever been -- and had no conspiracy theories.
MI5 then discovered that it had actually solved the case in 1964. In other words, it had found the identity of the five major spies at Cambridge, but [had missed that] two of them -- Anthony Blunt, the so-called"fourth man," and John Cairncross, the so-called"fifth man," certainly fourth and fifth in order of discovery, and also fourth and fifth in order of recruitment -- it hadn't grasped that they were part of the ring of five. You know, to suddenly realize in 1982 that your most difficult intelligence problem had been solved 18 years before -- yes, I think that was the worst example.
RFE/RL: What effect did the Cambridge Five have on the conduct of the Cold War?
Andrew: One of the things that treachery always does is very difficult to calculate. In other words, where you create distrust, that has a corrosive, long-term effect. Otherwise, plainly, the main damage they did was not in Britain, it was in Eastern Europe. And there are people who died -- who were killed, and in a number of cases tortured to death -- because of members of the [Cambridge] Five, and who would not otherwise have met that grisly fate.
You know, [British intelligence agent and Cambridge Five member Kim] Philby was a young idealist, the first of them to be recruited [by the Soviets] in 1934. You can see just by looking at his memoirs -- which, of course, were a public relations job -- the way that he becomes brutalized by working for Josef Stalin. It’s difficult, after all, to remain a normal human being if you're working for Josef Stalin.
So, for example, he talks about"freedom fighters" -- because that's what they are, that's what I think they're recognized as nowadays, certainly in Ukraine -- [parachuting] into Ukraine. Kim Philby had provided the coordinates and they were picked up. And he makes a little joke of it. He says,"I don't know exactly what happened to them, of course, but I can make a pretty good guess." So, treachery costs lives, and the [Cambridge] Five cost lives...
Read entire article at Radio Free Europe
RFE/RL: What, in your view, was MI5's biggest failure in the Cold War?
Christopher Andrew: I think that it was the amount of time taken to discover the five leading spies from my university. It's rather ironic that a historian from Cambridge University should have been the person who was appointed to write the [MI5] history. But, in other words, it was the five,"The Magnificent Five" as the KGB, or some of the KGB, began to call them after the film"The Magnificent Seven" came out in 1960. It loved Westerns. The reasons were, partly, because [the British government] had had no vetting system before World War II, so these people had got embedded. But MI5's investigation [also] missed a number of key points.This is a rare example in which it's really misled by a defector. Anatoly Golitsyn, who came over at the beginning of the 1960s, was the most dangerous kind of KGB defector -- in other words, one who has some really good intelligence combined with an awful lot of conspiracy theories. Now, he insisted that the Cambridge Five all had been at Cambridge at the same time and that they all knew each other. Now, MI5 accepted that definition, and it wasn't until 1980 that it actually solved the case. It solved the case then because there was another defector, Oleg Gordievsky, who was far, far, far better informed than Golitsyn had ever been -- and had no conspiracy theories.
MI5 then discovered that it had actually solved the case in 1964. In other words, it had found the identity of the five major spies at Cambridge, but [had missed that] two of them -- Anthony Blunt, the so-called"fourth man," and John Cairncross, the so-called"fifth man," certainly fourth and fifth in order of discovery, and also fourth and fifth in order of recruitment -- it hadn't grasped that they were part of the ring of five. You know, to suddenly realize in 1982 that your most difficult intelligence problem had been solved 18 years before -- yes, I think that was the worst example.
RFE/RL: What effect did the Cambridge Five have on the conduct of the Cold War?
Andrew: One of the things that treachery always does is very difficult to calculate. In other words, where you create distrust, that has a corrosive, long-term effect. Otherwise, plainly, the main damage they did was not in Britain, it was in Eastern Europe. And there are people who died -- who were killed, and in a number of cases tortured to death -- because of members of the [Cambridge] Five, and who would not otherwise have met that grisly fate.
You know, [British intelligence agent and Cambridge Five member Kim] Philby was a young idealist, the first of them to be recruited [by the Soviets] in 1934. You can see just by looking at his memoirs -- which, of course, were a public relations job -- the way that he becomes brutalized by working for Josef Stalin. It’s difficult, after all, to remain a normal human being if you're working for Josef Stalin.
So, for example, he talks about"freedom fighters" -- because that's what they are, that's what I think they're recognized as nowadays, certainly in Ukraine -- [parachuting] into Ukraine. Kim Philby had provided the coordinates and they were picked up. And he makes a little joke of it. He says,"I don't know exactly what happened to them, of course, but I can make a pretty good guess." So, treachery costs lives, and the [Cambridge] Five cost lives...