Memorial Hall Library

Stalin's Englishman, Guy Burgess, the Cold War, and the Cambridge spy ring, Andrew Lownie

eng

individual biography

no index present

non fiction

Stalin's Englishman

932576915

Andrew Lownie

Guy Burgess, the Cold War, and the Cambridge spy ring

"Guy Burgess was the most important, complex, and fascinating of The Cambridge Spies--Maclean, Philby, Blunt--brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed to his Russian handlers. In this first full biography, Andrew Lownie shows us how even Burgess's chaotic personal life of drunken philandering did nothing to stop his penetration and betrayal of the British Intelligence Service. Even when he was under suspicion, the fabled charm which had enabled many close personal relationships with influential establishment figures (including Winston Churchill) prevented his exposure as a spy for many years. Through interviews with more than a hundred people who knew Burgess personally, many of whom have never spoken about him before, and the discovery of hitherto secret files, Stalin's Englishman brilliantly unravels the many lives of Guy Burgess in all their intriguing, chilling, colorful, tragi-comic wonder"--, Provided by publisher

Prologue: Full Circle : Saturday, 5 October 1963 -- Beginnings -- Schooldays -- Eton Again -- Cambridge Undergraduate -- Cambridge Postgraduate -- The Third Man -- London -- The BBC -- Russian Recruiter -- Jack and Peter -- British Agent -- Meeting Churchill -- Section D -- "Rather Confidential Work" -- Bentinck Street -- Back at the BBC -- MI5 Agent Handler -- Propagandist -- The News Department -- Relationships -- Back at the Centre of Power -- Russian Controls -- Settling Down -- The Information Research Department -- The Far East Department -- Disciplinary Action -- Washington -- Disgrace -- Sent Home -- Back in Britain -- The Final Week -- The Bird Has Flown -- The Story Breaks -- Repercussions -- Petrov -- The Missing Diplomats Reappear -- First Steps -- "I'm Very Glad I Came" -- An Englishman Abroad -- Visitors -- "I'm a communist, of course, but I'm a British communist, and I hate Russia!" -- Summing Up -- Appendix