BBC ON THIS DAY | 16 | 1979: Blunt revealed as 'fourth man' About This Site | Text Only 1979: Blunt revealed as 'fourth man' The Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, has named Sir Anthony Blunt, a former security service officer and personal adviser on art to the Queen as the "fourth man" in the Cambridge spy ring. The announcement - given in a written answer in the Commons - ends a 15-year cover-up. Mrs Thatcher revealed he had confessed to the authorities in 1964 but under a secret deal was granted immunity from prosecution. Minutes after the Prime Minister's statement Buckingham Palace said he was being stripped of his knighthood. The news comes after renewed speculation about Professor Blunt's role in the defection in 1951 of spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, prompted by a new book The Climate of Treason. In hiding Professor Blunt has gone into hiding. He is believed to have fled the country and gone to somewhere in southern Europe. Ministers admitted the professor's lawyer had been warned in advance about the prime minister's statement - although he was not told exactly what it would say.

He had been part of a Cambridge spy ring made up of Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, and Harold "Kim" Philby - who was in charge of British intelligence's anti-communist counter-espionage from 1944-46. Burgess and Maclean defected in 1951 following a tip-off from Philby. He defected himself in 1963. Professor Blunt became a Marxist under the influence of his Cambridge friend Guy Burgess. In World War II he served as an officer in MI5 between 1940 and 1945. The authorities were aware of his Marxist views but did not consider him to be a security risk. Professor Blunt's name emerged during investigations into the defection of Burgess and Maclean. He was interviewed 11 times but did not confess. In 1964 new information came to light which implicated Blunt in the Cambridge spy ring. The Attorney General decided the only way to get to the truth of the affair was to persuade Blunt to confess by offering him immunity from prosecution. He admitted he had become an agent of Russian intelligence and talent-spotted for them at Cambridge in the 1930s.

While with MI5 he used his old contacts in the Russian intelligence service to assist in the arrangements for Burgess and Macleans' defection. During this time Blunt was allowed to remain art adviser to the Queen. The security services did not want to risk losing his co-operation by forcing him to resign. Andrew Boyle, author of the book The Climate of Treason, published ten days ago, said he had known Professor Blunt was the fourth man for three years. Blunt Revealed as 'Fourth Man' Blunt Revealed as 'Fourth Man' Blunt Revealed as 'Fourth Man' On 23 April 1964, Anthony Blunt confessed to MI5 that he was a Soviet spy. Queen Elizabeth II was informed shortly after. Rather than being tried for treason, Blunt was given full immunity from prosecution, on the proviso that he would feed information about the Soviets to MI5. The public knew nothing of this. Blunt, a prominent art historian, went on to Keeper of the Queen's Pictures. Blunt's identity was represented under the name 'Maurice' in Andrew Boyle's bestselling book The Climate of Treason, published in laye 1979.

With this, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher went to the House and revealed Blunt's treachery. Blunt was then, finally, stripped of his knighthood. BBC The World at One: Andrew Boyle discusses the Climate of Reason [click] Blunt Interview, BBC 9'OClock News, 20 November 1979 [click] Department of Politics and International Studies Social Sciences Building, The University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom To contact a member of staff, please use the staff directory BBC NEWS | Special Report | 1999 | 09/99 | Britain betrayed | The Cambridge spy ring Monday, 13 September, 1999, 15:07 GMT 16:07 UK The Cambridge spy ring Guy Burgess (right) fled to Moscow In the 1930s a number of young men at Cambridge University were recruited as Soviet spies. They became known by the KGB as the 'magnificent five' but were better known in Britain as the Cambridge spy ring. They were not motivated by financial gain but by the belief that capitalism was corrupt and that the Soviet Union offered a better model for society.

The Cambridge spy ring was informally led by Harold 'Kim' Philby. He and his friends later moved into jobs in British Intelligence and the Foreign Office where they had access to top secret information. They spent their working lives passing valuable information to the Soviet Union. Kim Philby was head of anti-Communist counter-espionage Kim Philby (1912-1988) worked for British Intelligence from 1944-46 as head of anti-Communist counter-espionage. He also became secretary of the British embassy in Washington and worked with the CIA from 1949-1951. He later worked as a journalist in Beirut and in 1963 disappeared. It was later discovered he had moved to Russia where he had been granted citizenship. Guy Burgess (1910-63) worked for the BBC from 1936-1939 and 1941-44. While working for the BBC in the 1940s he was also employed by MI5. Later moving to the Foreign Office he became a secretary under Kim Philby in Washington in 1950.

Burgess was recalled from the US in 1950 for 'serious misconduct' and subsequently he and fellow spy Donald Maclean disappeared. They emerged in the Soviet Union a few years later. Burgess eventually died in Moscow. Donald Maclean was warned by Philby that he was under suspicion After his years at Cambridge Donald Maclean (1913-1983) joined the diplomatic service. In 1950 he became head of the American Department at the Foreign Office where he had access to top secret information on atomic development. Maclean was warned by Philby that he was under suspicion and he subsequently disappeared with Guy Burgess. He re-appeared in Russia in 1956. In 1979 it was revealed that he had escaped with the help of fellow spy Anthony Blunt. Anthony Blunt was publicly revealed to be a Soviet spy in 1979 Anthony Blunt (1907-1983) acted as a talent scout supplying the names of possible recruits to the communist cause. During World War II he worked for British Intelligence.

After the defection of Kim Philby in 1964 Blunt confessed his involvement in exchange for immunity from prosecution, but his role was not made public until 1979. Also an art historian, Blunt continued in his role as surveyor of the Queen's pictures and Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art. When his full role the "fourth man" of the Cambridge spy ring was revealed in 1979 he was stripped of his knighthood and academic honours. The identity of the mysterious fifth man that intelligence experts had suspected to be part of the spy ring was revealed in 1990. John Cairncross leaked information about Bletchley Park John Cairncross was spotted by Anthony Blunt at Cambridge and introduced to Guy Burgess. He was recruited to the Communist party in 1937 and worked in the Foreign Office alongside Donald Maclean. While working at the Treasury he was able to leak details about the military decoding centre, Bletchley Park. Cairncross' information enabled Soviet spies to change their codes as British Intelligence were about to crack them. His information about British and American atomic weapons programmes are thought to have been the foundation of the Soviet nuclear programme.

WATCH/LISTEN ANTHONY BLUNT, FOURTH MAN IN BRITISH SPYING SCANDAL, IS DEAD AT 75 - NYTimes.com ANTHONY BLUNT, FOURTH MAN IN BRITISH SPYING SCANDAL, IS DEAD AT 75 By JON NORDHEIMER, Special to the New York Times Published: March 27, 1983 LONDON, March 26— Anthony Blunt, a former curator of Queen Elizabeth II's art collection who in 1979 was exposed as having been the mysterious fourth man in a Soviet spying ring, collapsed and died at breakfast in his London home today. He was 75 years old. Mr. Blunt, who had a history of heart trouble, died in his elegant sixth-floor apartment near Marble Arch, according to his brother. His exposure as the mysterious fourth man sought in the celebrated Burgess-Maclean-Philby spying scandal that rocked Britain in the 1950's and 1960's caused a sensation when it was brought to light by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in November 1979.

He was immediately stripped of a knighthood that had been conferred on him in 1956 and which he had retained even after the British authorities had heard him confess in 1964 to subversive activities that had reached back to his days as a brilliant young don at Cambridge University. Recruited Spies for Soviet In his confession Mr. Blunt acknowledged that he had recruited spies for the Soviet Union from among young radical students at Cambridge, passed information to the Russians while he served as a high-ranking British intelligence officer during World War II, and had helped two of his former Cambridge students who had become Soviet ''moles'' inside the British Foreign Service, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, escape to the Soviet Union in 1951 just as their activities were about to be exposed. Mr. Burgess died in the Soviet Union in 1963 and the death of Mr. Maclean was announced just three weeks ago by Moscow.

The other Soviet mole in the spy scandal, Harold (Kim) Philby, who also fled to the Soviet Union after his part in the espionage ring became known in 1963, is now the only surviving member of the spying ring that had its roots in the elite circle of Cambridge University radicals in the 1930's. Mr. Blunt resigned from the British Academy, where he was recognized as a distinguished and much-honored art historian, but he was never directly punished by the British Government because he had been granted immunity from prosecution at the time he made his secret confession in 1964. The revelation that he had maintained his reputation and standing in the upper reaches of social and art circles for 15 years after his role as a spy had become known to the authorities was denounced in Parliament as an example of how individuals with powerful friends could be protected in British society. Retained as Queen's Curator There were also questions raised about why Mr. Blunt had been kept on after 1964 as curator of the Queen's art collection - formally known as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures - when the Government learned of his spying. It was regarded as almost certain that the Queen herself had been informed of Mr.

Blunt's confession. The explanation given was that his role at Buckingham Palace carried with it no access to classified information, and it was also decided not to embarrass him in any way that would end his continuing cooperation with the authorities on matters of intelligence. Mr. Blunt served from 1947 to 1974 as director of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, and is credited with training a generation of art historians in England and winning the institute recognition as one of the best in the world for the study of art history. But all his professional accomplishments were ultimately overshadowed by his early devotion to Communism and the betrayal of his country. At Cambridge he was a central and influential figure in a university club called the Apostles, whose members, most of whom came from the ranks of the privileged, saw themselves as the leading intellectuals of revolution. Tried to Recruit American One American member of this circle, Michael Straight, in a book recently published, described how Mr. Blunt, then a young don, invited him in 1937 to become a Soviet agent in the United States. Mr. Straight said he declined the offer. Later, during the Kennedy Administration, Mr. Straight revealed his contacts with Mr.

Blunt and also Guy gess to the F.B.I. He was subsequently interrogated by the British authorities, who told him that his information was the first substantive account of the espionage of Mr. Blunt, who at the time was Sir Anthony Blunt with personal connections at Buckingham Palace. It was this information that led to the questioning of Sir Anthony, his confession and acceptence of immunity in return for continued cooperation. He had been under suspicion for many years but had always maintained his innocence. But confronted with Mr. Straight's allegations, he at last acknowledged his crimes. Sir Michael Havers, the British Attorney General, later described the moment. ''He maintained his denial,'' he said. ''He was offered immunity from prosecution. He sat in silence for a while. He got up, looked out of the window, poured himself a drink and after a few minutes confessed.'' Defended His Behavior After his public unmasking nearly four years ago, Mr.

Blunt said he had made ''an appalling mistake'' that he came to ''bitterly regret,'' but he defended his past behavior in a brief statement: ''In the mid-1930's it seemed to me and to many of my contemporaries that the Communist Party and Russia constituted the only firm bulwark against Fascism, since the Western democracies were taking an uncertain, compromising attitude towards Germany.'' Details of the nature of the espionage carried out by Mr. Blunt for the Russians have never been revealed, although it is believed that they did not directly cause loss of life or compromise military operations. Mr. Blunt is to be cremated after a private funeral. Illustrations: photo of Anthony Blunt Anthony Blunt | British art historian and spy | Britannica.com British art historian and spy Written By: Alternative Titles: Anthony Frederick Blunt, Sir Anthony Blunt Anthony Blunt British art historian and spy Also known as John Vassall Anthony Blunt, in full Anthony Frederick Blunt, also called (1956–79) Sir Anthony Blunt (born Sept.

26, 1907, Bournemouth , Hampshire , Eng.—died March 26, 1983, London ), British art historian who late in his life was revealed to have been a Soviet spy. While a fellow of Trinity College , Cambridge, in the 1930s Blunt became a member of a circle of disaffected young men led by Guy Burgess , under whose influence he was soon involved in espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union . His public career was brilliant. From 1937 he published scores of scholarly papers and books by which he largely established art history in Great Britain. He was an authority on 17th-century painting , particularly that of Nicolas Poussin . During World War II he served in MI-5, a military intelligence organization, and was able to supply secret information to the Soviets and, more importantly, to give warning to fellow agents of counterintelligence operations that might endanger them. In 1945 Blunt was appointed surveyor of the king’s (later the queen’s) pictures, and in 1947 he became director of the Courtauld Institute, one of the world’s leading centres of training and research in art history.

His major publications in subsequent years included Art and Architecture in France 1500–1700 (1953) and Nicolas Poussin (1966–67). Although his active intelligence work had apparently ceased in 1945, he maintained contacts with Soviet agents and in 1951 was able to arrange for the escape of Burgess and Donald Maclean from Britain . In 1964, after the defection of Kim Philby , he was confronted by British authorities and secretly confessed his Soviet connections. Not until 1979, seven years after he retired from his posts, was his past made public. In the outcry that surrounded his being revealed as the long-sought “fourth man” in the spy ring, he was stripped of the knighthood that had been awarded him in 1956. In 2009 the British Library released to the public Blunt’s memoir. Although he wrote that being a Soviet spy was “the biggest mistake” of his life, Blunt failed to provide much information about his espionage work.

Learn More in these related articles: The fourth man speaks: Last testimony of Anthony Blunt | The Independent News The fourth man speaks: Last testimony of Anthony Blunt After 25 years locked away, the memoirs of a Cambridge spy have finally been released. Andy McSmith discovers what drove him to betray his country Wednesday 22 July 2009 23:00 BST Click to follow The fourth man speaks: Last testimony of Anthony Blunt 1/2 2/2 PA Avery sad, isolated old man set down to write an account of his life, 25 years ago, hoping that he might explain the terrible mistake that had hung over the whole of his adult life. Yesterday the public got its first view of the last testimony of Anthony Blunt, art historian and Soviet spy, which had been kept under a lock and key in the British Library since he died, subject to a 25-year rule banning anyone from reading them. The quarter century is now up and anyone curious enough can join the queue of readers at the library to dip into a long memoir by an old man looking back on a life soured by what he called the, "biggest mistake of my life".

He had confessed in 1964 but his treachery and confession were kept as state secret for 15 years until, in 1979, the writer Andrew Boyle used the US Freedom of Information Act, for which there was then no British equivalent, to tease out the fact that there was an unnamed "fourth man" in the Cambridge spy ring. Margaret Thatcher then identified that person as Sir Anthony, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures. He describes the start of his fascination with Guy Burgess, the man who drew him into the murky world of espionage. When they first met, in 1931, Blunt was 24 and a don at Trinity College in Cambridge while Burgess was a 20-year-old undergraduate. They were both gay, but Blunt denies they were ever lovers. At first he was put off by the younger man, "because he began immediately to talk very indiscreetly about the private lives of people who were quite unknown to me". But later he fell for "the liveliness and penetrating quality of his mind".

Blunt wrote: "He could be perverse both in argument and in behaviour, but in the former he would wriggle back to sense and in the latter he would apologise in such an engaging manner that it was difficult to be angry for long. His sex life was already fairly full, but he did not blazon it about as he was to do later." Blunt was not then interested in politics, despite the events unfolding in Europe, but Burgess was. "I found that Cambridge had been hit by Marxism and that most of my friends among my junior contemporaries – including Guy Burgess – had either joined the Communist Party or were at least very close to it politically. "Eventually, largely owing to the influence of Guy Burgess ... I realised that one could no longer stand aside. The issue of Fascism, as posed by the advent to power of Hitler and later by the Spanish Civil War, became so urgent that the Ivory Tower no longer provided adequate refuge." Blunt considered following his friend's lead by joining the Communist Party, until Burgess revealed the startling secret that he had resigned on instructions from the Comintern, who wanted him working for them inside the government or the BBC. "I was thus faced with the most important decision of my life.

I might have joined the Communist Party, but Guy, who was an extraordinarily persuasive person, convinced me that I could do more good by joining him in his work. What I did not realise at the time is that I was so naïve politically that I was not justified in committing myself to any political action of this kind. The atmosphere in Cambridge was so intense, the enthusiasm for any anti-fascist activity was so great, that I made the biggest mistake of my life." Blunt also confirmed what historians of the spy trade have long suspected, that Burgess fled east on impulse. Investigators were closing in on Donald Maclean, a London-based diplomat known to his soviet spymasters as "Homer". Burgess and the leader of the Cambridge spy ring, Kim Philby, were in New York. Philby persuaded Burgess to cross the Atlantic to warn Maclean, not expecting they would both flee to the USSR. Blunt insists he played no "active part" in arranging their escape plan via a cross-Channel ferry to France, although he acknowledged that he had been in "constant contact" with Burgess throughout."I may have conveyed a message from Guy to his Russian contact but I have no recollection of even doing this," he wrote.

But after that, anyone expecting a story resembling a John le Carré novel is in for a disappointing read. Blunt gave no details away about how he first contacted the NKVD, the foreunner of the KGB, nor how he stayed in contact with his Russian controllers, or what information he passed on. No names are mentioned except for those already well known. "I simply found it unthinkable that I should denounce my friends; and it certainly never occurred to me to do so," he wrote. He was obviously anxious to dispel the wilder stories about Burgess's sexual activities and the house they shared in Bentinck Street, west London, where it was suggested that life was an "alternation of sexual orgies and conspiratorial conversations designed to hinder the war effort" when the inhabitants were in fact immersed in war work that left them "too tired to behave in the manner suggested". He added: "It is true that Guy had a number of friends who visited him regularly, but it was a rule of the house that causal pick-up was forbidden; and Guy observed this rule." After 1945, Blunt wanted to put it all behind him. "In fact I was disillusioned about Marxism as well as about Russia.

What I personally hoped to do was to hear no more of my Russian friends, to return to my normal academic life. Of course it was not as simple as that, because there remained the fact that I knew of the continuing activities of Guy, Donald, and Kim." The rest of his memoir is about his life as an art historian in which he took justifiable pride. At age 70, he had an outstanding reputation as a specialist in the works of Nicolas Poussin. He had been a director of the Courtauld Institute of Art and professor of history of art at London University. In 1945, he was appointed Surveyor of the King's Pictures and continued in this role for decades on behalf of the Queen. It was for that that he was knighted in 1956. His world was smashed to pieces in 1979 after the writer Andrew Boyle published a book called The Climate of Treason . Boyle had established that there was a fourth member of the Cambridge spy ring and had spoken to a journalist named Goronwy Rees who described how Blunt had once told him that betraying your friends was worse than betraying your country, a dictum he took from EM Forster.

Boyle did not quite have the evidence to accuse the Queen's art historian of being an ex-spy, so identified him only by the pseudonym, "Maurice", a reference to Forster's novel about homosexuality. After the book appeared, Margaret Thatcher told an astonished House of Commons in November 1979 that the man renowned as the virtual founder of the Courtaulds Institute was indeed a former Soviet agent. Blunt was stripped of his knighthood and for the remainder of his life could not show his face without being recognised. In his memoirs, though, he records his pleasant surprise that he received 200 to 300 supportive letters and only six that were hostile. Brian Sewell, 78, who was tutored by Blunt and became a close friend, said Blunt found it impossible to research his past. "He was very worried about getting dates wrong, but as an immediately recognisable figure, any time he went anywhere where he could have backed up any of these events, he couldn't do it. He couldn't get to the newspaper libraries. Nobody would give him any help. In the end he simply gave up.

I always thought that it would turn out to be the damp squib of all damp squibs." Cambridge spy ring: What they did next Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean In 1951, a major scandal erupted when the two high ranking government officials defected to the Soviet Union. Maclean, a diplomat based in London, was due to be interrogated as a suspected Soviet spy. Burgess, a double agent working inside MI5, flew from New York to warn him, and decided to flee with him, though he was not under suspicion. Kim Philby For years after the Burgess and Maclean affair there were rumours of a "third man" in the spy ring. Philby was suspected because he and Burgess had been fellow students at Cambridge. He bluffed his way out of trouble, but fled to the USSR in 1963 when he was under investigation again. He was probably the most effective and dangerous Soviet agent ever to infiltrate British intelligence.

John Cairncross There were even rumours of a "fifth man" but his name did not emerge until 1990, when the KGB defector Oleg Gordievsky fingered John Cairncross, another Cambridge graduate, who worked at the Bletchley spy centre during the war. He confessed in 1951. His confession, like Blunt's, was kept secret, and he was allowed to emigrate. He denied being the "fifth man". More about: Donald Maclean | British diplomat and spy | Britannica.com British diplomat and spy James Bryce, Viscount Bryce Donald Maclean, (born May 25, 1913, London , Eng.—died March 11, 1983, Moscow , Russia , U.S.S.R.), British diplomat who spied for the Soviet Union in World War II and early in the Cold War period. At the University of Cambridge in the 1930s, Maclean was part of a group of relatively privileged young men, among them Guy Burgess , who all shared a fashionable disdain for capitalist democracy .

Recruited as an agent by Soviet intelligence operatives, he began supplying information as a member of the British Foreign Office from 1934. As first secretary and then head of chancery at the British embassy in Washington, D.C. , Maclean gained the post of secretary of the Combined Policy Committee on Atomic Development and was privy to highly classified information. He also supplied the Soviet Union with secret material relating to the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization . As head of the American department at the Foreign Office in 1950, he helped formulate Anglo-American policy for the Korean War . In May 1951 Maclean received a warning that a counterintelligence investigation by British and U.S. agencies was targeting him. Along with Burgess, who was also acting as a spy, he fled England and mysteriously vanished. No trace of the two men appeared until 1956, when they surfaced in Moscow and announced their long-standing allegiance to communism. In 1963 they were joined by Kim Philby , another Cambridge and Foreign Office colleague, who, it was revealed, had given them the warning in 1951.

Not until 1979 was it made public that the inferred “fourth man” in the spy ring was Anthony Blunt , a respected art historian and member of the queen’s household. It had been Blunt, also a Cambridge colleague, who had contacted Soviet agents to arrange for Maclean’s and Burgess’s escape from England. Learn More in these related articles: TV Weekend - Portrait of an Art Historian and Spy - NYTimes.com Published: October 2, 1992 Correction Appended Public television's "Masterpiece Theater" is thrust into a hall of mirrors this Sunday with a presentation that includes not only the Alan Bennett play "A Question of Attribution" but also an afterword that includes, among other things, Alistair Cooke taking exception to certain Bennett statements. Written as a stage companion piece for Mr. Bennett's play "An Englishman Abroad," which was originally a television drama based on a real-life anecdote involving the British spy Anthony Burgess, "A Question of Attribution" offers a portrait of Sir Anthony Blunt.

He was the art adviser to Queen Elizabeth II who in 1979 was revealed to be the fourth man in the Burgess-Maclean-Philby spy ring; he was subsequently stripped of his knighthood. As Blunt, portrayed with unassailably prim propriety by James Fox, investigates the authenticity of a Titian at Buckingham Palace, he discovers that British Intelligence is closing in on him for more spy information, with the warning that six years earlier he had been promised immunity, not anonymity. The ensuing game of cat-and-mouse is played out on several levels, each quite sophisticated. There is Blunt the arch, cleverly self-deprecating lecturer ("I care far more for objects than I do for people, don't you? Paintings don't let you down"). And Blunt the patronizing snob, given to underestimating the shrewdness of what he would consider the rabble. And Blunt the wily survivor, keenly sensitive to the slightest ripples of trouble. "An awfully able man," one normally jaded acquaintance says.

"That's the tragedy of it." The play's centerpiece is a scene in which Blunt, removing the possibly fake Titian from the palace, is come upon unexpectedly by Queen Elizabeth. Played by Prunella Scales with a dignity that could be construed as either respectful or wicked, complete with a proper little purse hanging on her arm, the Queen chats about her art collection with seeming casualness. But when the conversation turns to forgery and something being not what it seems to be, Blunt is alarmed enough to say that he prefers the word enigma to fake. Later he says, "I was talking about art; I'm not sure what she was talking about." Directed by John Schlesinger and running for a little more than 70 minutes, "A Question of Attribution" is exquisitely constructed as it explores, with quintessential British understatement, how moral intersections may or may not intersect with esthetic criteria. Also contributing first-rate performances are Geoffrey Palmer, Jason Flemyng, Edward De Souza and Mark Payton. After the play, a short documentary offers excerpts from an interview with Blunt, along with comments from Mr. Fox and Mr.

Bennett, who berates a BBC interviewer as "a callow young man" for pursuing questions suggesting that Blunt's spying was connected in some way to his homosexuality. Mr. Bennett also says that little evidence exists that Blunt "did any substantial damage." And he argues that Blunt should not have been stripped of his knighthood, saying the honor related solely to his accomplishments as an art historian, which remain intact. Mr. Cooke, the series host, takes exception. He rejects as "fanciful in the extreme" that Blunt was on the lower rungs of traitorous espionage, and then concludes: "The fact that a man was the world's expert on Poussin and a splendid art historian does not, to me, diminish or cushion his responsibility for sending countless decent people to their deaths." This is about as close as the normally lofty "Masterpiece Theater" has ever come to the equivalent of a street brawl. Good show.

'Ghostwriter' Sunday at 6 P.M., Channel 13 Sunday at 7 P.M., Channel 21 A new series from Children's Television Workshop is aimed at 7- to 10-year-olds for an ambitious campaign against what is called the literacy crisis. Among the goals: Get youngsters to enjoy reading and writing; provide effective reading-and-writing strategies. The tools: Multi-episode mystery-adventure tales, a cast of six young performers from different ethnic and racial backgrounds, and an invisible character who can communicate only through the written word. Determined to be hip and inventive, the 42-part series gets off to a somewhat sluggish start, but still should be required viewing for any commercial broadcasters who insist, shamelessly, that cartoons like "G.I. Joe" are educational. Masterpiece Theater A Question of Attribution PBS, Sunday at 9 P.M. (Channel 13 in New York) Original play and screenplay by Alan Bennett; a BBC production presented on Masterpiece Theater by WGBH, Boston; directed by John Schlesinger; Innes Lloyd, producer; Richard Broke, executive producer; Rebecca Eaton, executive producer for WGBH; Alistair Cooke, host. Sir Anthony Blunt . . .

James Fox Queen Elizabeth II . . . Prunella Scales Donleavy . . . Geoffrey Palmer Chubb . . . David Calder Collins . . . Edward De Souza Colin . . . Jason Flemyng Radiologist . . . Gregory Floy Restorer (Robertson) . . . John Cater Consultant . . . Richard Beeb Mrs. Chubb . . . Ann Beach Receptionist . . . Julia St. John Phillips . . . Mark Payton Miss Bracewell . . . Anne Jameson County Lady . . . Barbara Hicks Photo: James Fox (Barry Boxall) Correction: October 5, 1992, Monday A television review on Friday about "A Question of Attribution" on "Masterpiece Theater" misidentified a British spy. He was Guy Burgess, not Anthony Burgess. Cold War Soviet Spies ï¿½ï¿½ American Civil War Cold War Soviet Spies The spy who started the Cold War by passing Britain`s atomic bomb secrets to the Soviet Union For 10 years a Soviet spy codenamed Eric revealed Britain's nuclear secrets to Moscow, paving the way for the Cold War.

The KGB treasured him; MI5 suspected him, trailed him, opened his letters and monitored his every move. But he was never caught. Now, with the opening of MI5 and KGB archives, Eric can be id'ed as Engelbert (Bertie) Broda, a Austrian scientist who evaded Britain's spy-catchers while working as a Soviet mole in the heart of the wartime nuclear research programme. The amazing story of Bertie Broda is like a spy novel: a tale of espionage and counter-espionage, elaborate spycraft, deception, and double-life. (timesonline.co.uk) KGB material released online by Cold War project The Cold War International History Project has released the Vassiliev Notebooks - an important new source of information on Soviet intelligence in the US 1930-1950. Though the KGB's archive remains closed, ex-KGB officer turned journalist Alexander Vassiliev was given the unique chance to spend 2 years browsing over materials from the KGB archive taking notes on some of the KGB's most sensitive files.

Though Vassiliev's access was not unchained, the 1115 pages of notes that he was able to take shed new light on such essential topics as Alger Hiss, the Rosenberg case, and 'Enormous,' the massive Soviet effort to gather intelligence on the atomic bomb project. (slashdot.org) The diaries of Anthony Blunt, the Queen's art adviser and Russian spy, published The buzz over one of the most infamous spy scandals in British history will be reignited with the memoirs of Sir Anthony Blunt, the Queen's art adviser who was exposed as a Russian agent. Blunt's account of his role as the fourth man in the Cambridge spy ring (Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Kim Philby) will be out in July 2009. He died in 1983 and his memoirs were locked up in the British Library. Blunt was exposed in 1979 when PM Margaret Thatcher named him in the Commons as a spy after a cover-up that lasted over a decade. Blunt, a former MI5 officer, had confessed in 1964, but was, under a secret deal, given immunity from prosecution.

(dailymail.co.uk) Julius Rosenberg may have enlisted two spies to steal atomic secrets Julius Rosenberg, who recruited David Greenglass to steal atomic secrets, also enlisted a second spy to infiltrate the Manhattan Project, claims a new book by authorities on Soviet espionage. The authors of "Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America" say that the spy nicknamed in Soviet cables as "Fogel" or "Persian" was not Robert Oppenheimer or Philip Morrison as some have theorized, but Russell W. McNutt, an unnoticeable engineer who helped build the uranium processing plant in Oak Ridge. He had been id'ed as a Communist sympathizer, but earlier American intelligence did not id him as a member of the Rosenberg spy ring. [Buy from Amazon: US , UK , CA , DE , FR ] (nytimes.com) Rosenberg spy case man admits to espionage after more than 50 years A US man convicted in the biggest espionage trial of the Cold War has, after over 50 years, admitted his guilt. The disclosure came as new information cast doubt on the conviction of another defendant, Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union.

Morton Sobell maintained his innocence throughout the half century after his conviction as one of the defendants in the 1951 Rosenberg spy trial. But now he answered, when asked if he had spied: "Yeah, yeah, yeah, call it that. I never thought of it as that in those terms." Sobell spent 18 years in U.S. prisons for passing secrets to the Soviets during WW2. (afp) Tourists flock to Korea to see last Cold War frontier The heavily-fortified land border between South Korea and North Korea is drawing in an increasing number of tourists. Visitors come from South Korea and overseas to see the watchtowers, monuments to peace like as the "friendship bridge," and to dine at restaurants in the Imjingak tourism park. The two Koreas have been separated by a 4km wide strip of land since 1953. The Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) - the last Cold War frontier - is nearly completely unoccupied and full of mines. (earthtimes) 9 Britons who betrayed their country to the Soviet Union and KGB Russia's spy service has formally identified Britons who betrayed their country to the Soviet Union.

Moscow's foreign intelligence service, the SVR, has posted the details of 9 Britons who worked for the Kremlin on its website, along with 13 Russians who too spied on the UK. The SVR has 'outed' some agents who claimed that they had either never been in the pay of Moscow or had only done so with reluctance. Moscow has also praised John Cairncross for assisting the Red Army to one of their greatest World War II victories. The SVR has published the 'heroes gallery' as part of a drive to draw in recruits. (scotsman) An American 'regular guy' was a Russian top spy - George Koval He had all-American cover: born in Iowa, college in Manhattan, army buddies with whom he played baseball. George Koval was also a top Soviet spy, codenamed Delmar, trained by Stalin's bureau of military intelligence. Historians say Koval appears to have been one of the most important spies of the 20th century. On Nov. 2, the Kremlin announced that Putin had posthumously given the highest Russian award to a Soviet agent who in WWII had penetrated the Manhattan Project.

The announcement hailed Koval as "the only Soviet intelligence officer" to infiltrate the project's secret plants. Since then, historians and old friends of Koval's have raced to unearth his story. (iht) Soviet spy Aleksandr Feklisov dies at 93, stole US atomic secrets Legendary Soviet spy Aleksandr Feklisov, who helped the Soviet Union get the secret formula for an atom bomb, has died at 93. He was responsible for stealing nuclear technology from the US - cutting half the time it took the Soviets to test an atomic weapon. The KGB handler also played a key role in bringing the USSR and the US back from the brink of a nuclear conflict during the Cuban missile crisis. Born in 1914, Feklisov joined the NKVD in 1940. A handler who recruited agents and gathered information, he was sent to Washington and London to track down the nuclear formula. (russiatoday) Oleg Gordievsky honoured - The highest ranking Soviet spy to defect Former Soviet spy Oleg Gordievsky who defected to Britain will be honoured by the Queen. He will be made a Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George.

The one-time KGB colonel's honour is the same accolade held by fictional James Bond. Gordievsky who became the highest ranking Soviet spy to defect to the West, is being recognised for services to UK security. Disillusioned with the situation in his homeland, he operated as a double agent during the Cold War. He passed on an unprecedented amount of information to British security while serving as KGB bureau chief in London. (bbc) Soviet spy seduced girls in British embassy A Soviet spy, who employed his skills of seduction to gather secrets, infiltrated Britain's embassy in Prague. The agent, codenamed Victor, was recruited by the Czech StB secret police in 1959 after they spotted his charisma. Once trained, the spy, whose real name was Jiri Bartos, was unleashed on lonely secretaries at the embassy where he was activated as a "social agent". "His job was to seduce the girls at the embassy and the wives of delegation staff. He was supposed to be in love with them and he was very successful." The revelation comes as the Czech Republic opens its huge Cold War archive. (telegraph) Ex-KGB double agent on hunger strike in U.K.

for defector pension A former Russian KGB spy has gone on a hunger strike in Britain demanding a decent defector's pension for passing secrets to British intelligence during the Cold War. A former double agent, Viktor Makarov fled to the U.K. hoping to continue his career in intelligence. But his dream did not materialize, and Makarov has since survived on benefits in a small town. Makarov was arrested in 1987 and released after 5 years in a Soviet labor camp. He was then smuggled to the U.K. with the help of the British Secret Intelligence Service MI6. The British govt has denied Makarov a pension, as he is not officially recognized as a defector. (rian) How the Cold War Began -- The Hunt for Soviet Spies On Sept. 5, 1945, Igor Gouzenko left his post at the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa for the last time. Gouzenko, a cipher clerk for Red Army Intelligence, the GRU, had made a momentous decision -- to defect and bring along documentation detailing the Soviet Union's extensive espionage operations in Canada.

Gouzenko's information, which related not only to Soviet penetrations in Canada but also to those in the U.S. and Britain, resulted in the first postwar spy scandal, which undercut positive feelings toward the Soviet Union that had been generated by the concluded Allied effort against Nazi Germany. (washingtonpost) Russian gets 13-year sentence for passing secrets to MI6 A retired Russian special services colonel has been sentenced to 13 years in a penal colony for passing state secrets to MI6, in the espionage episode pitting London against Moscow. The ruling by the Moscow district military court was announced after a closed trial in which Sergey Skripal, 55, was prosecuted for high treason in the form of espionage. Experts say that despite the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, western and Russian spies are still locked in a battle for military secrets. (guardian) The Soviet's longest serving KGB spy in the UK The Cold War spy Melita Norwood, whose secret life was unmasked 6 years ago has died aged 93. Mrs Norwood worked for the KGB for 40 years and was believed to be the Soviet's longest serving spy in the UK.

In the 1940s she was a secretary with the Non Ferrous Metals Research Association and passed on vital secrets of Britain's nuclear weapons programme. A lifelong communist, Mrs Norwood said she had wanted to help Russia's "new system". (bbc) Anthony Blunt memoir reveals Soviet spy's regret at 'the biggest mistake of my life' | World news | The Guardian Close This article is 7 years old The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Friday 24 July 2009 Writing about the memoir of Anthony Blunt, the art historian who spied for the Soviet Union, we should have said that this manuscript had now been made public – rather than published – by the British Library. Anthony Blunt, the former surveyor of the Queen's pictures who was unmasked as a wartime Soviet spy, admitted that his activities were the biggest mistake of his life and led to him contemplate suicide, his memoir made public today by the British Library reveals.

The 30,000-word document was written after Blunt's exposure as the "fourth man" of the notorious Cambridge spy ring with instructions that it should not be released until 25 years after his death, which occurred in 1984. The manuscript, given to the library anonymously, gives a fascinating picture of the political atmosphere among Cambridge students in the 1930s, though it is more reticent about whatever secrets Blunt gave away while he was working for MI5 during the second world war – not an obvious career progression for an art historian expert in 18th-century French works. His enthusiasm for Soviet communism was triggered by contact with Guy Burgess, the spy at the centre of the ring, who persuaded him that he would be much more valuable to the cause if he did not join the Communist party. "I might have joined … but Guy, who was an extraordinarily persuasive person, convinced me that I could do more good by joining him in his work," he wrote. "What I did not realise at the time is that I was so naive politically that I was not justified in committing myself to any political action of this kind.

"The atmosphere in Cambridge was so intense, the enthusiasm for any anti-fascist activity was so great, that I made the biggest mistake of my life." Blunt said Marxism had hit Cambridge and leftwing causes had taken on an almost religious quality among most of his friends, but insisted that he was only interested in its application to art history. In the late 30s, as international tension increased, he decided "the ivory tower no longer provided adequate refuge". Blunt, a don at Trinity College, was attracted to Burgess, although apparently not physically, although both men were homosexual, Burgess flamboyantly so. He said he did not originally take to the undergraduate because of his indiscreet gossip, but was won over by "the liveliness and penetrating quality of his mind" and interests. "He could be perverse both in argument and behaviour, but in the former he would wriggle back to sense and in the latter he would apologise in such an engaging manner that it was difficult to be angry for long.

"His sex life was already fairly full, but he did not blazon it about as he was to do later." The manuscript insists there was nothing physical in their relationship then or later when they shared a house during the war in Bentinck Street, London. Far from taking part in "an alternation of sexual orgies and conspiratorial conversations", the regular inhabitants were too tired from work to behave in that manner, Blunt said. "It is true that Guy had a number of friends who visited him regularly, but it was a rule of the house that casual pick-up was forbidden and Guy observed this rule." In Cambridge, Blunt acted originally as a talent-spotter of potential recruits, among them John Cairncross – the "fifth man" of the ring – and Michael Straight, the American who later denounced him. Blunt confessed to the security services rather than fleeing to the Soviet Union – "I realised I would take any risk in this country rather than go to Russia" – and assumed that his identity would never be revealed.

"I believed, naively, that the security service would see it, partly in its own interest, that the story would never become public." His public exposure in 1979 came as an appalling shock, he wrote, but he decided not to kill himself: "I came to the conclusion that it would be a cowardly solution." In any event he had a number of art books he wanted to finish writing. Blunt said he was staggered to have received more than 200 supportive letters and only half a dozen hostile ones after he was unmasked.

Question: Who was given the name 'Fourth Man' when he was revealed as a spy in 1979?
Answer: Anthony Blunt