Toffs, Queers and Traitors: The Extraordinary Life of Guy Burgess

0:00:08 > 0:00:12# Unforgettable

0:00:14 > 0:00:17# That's what you are

0:00:21 > 0:00:24# Unforgettable

0:00:26 > 0:00:30# Though near or far. #

0:00:31 > 0:00:35There is something odd, I suppose, about anyone who betrays their country.

0:00:35 > 0:00:39# Like a song of love

0:00:39 > 0:00:41# That clings to me... #

0:00:41 > 0:00:45But perhaps the oddest of all drank himself to death

0:00:45 > 0:00:49here in Russia at the age of 52.

0:00:50 > 0:00:52For the last years of his life,

0:00:52 > 0:00:57he'd lived on the third floor of this apartment block in Moscow,

0:00:57 > 0:01:00dreaming of England,

0:01:00 > 0:01:01behind an unmarked door.

0:01:04 > 0:01:07What I do remember physically about him was his mouth.

0:01:07 > 0:01:10# In every way... #

0:01:10 > 0:01:14I can actually remember looking at the man's mouth,

0:01:14 > 0:01:16because it was very shiny.

0:01:16 > 0:01:18# And forever more... #

0:01:18 > 0:01:21My mother liked him. My mother liked him a lot.

0:01:21 > 0:01:23I think she was a bit of a fag hag, you know.

0:01:24 > 0:01:27To me, I'm sorry to say, the word was queer -

0:01:27 > 0:01:29that was what they called themselves.

0:01:29 > 0:01:31"We're all queer as coots."

0:01:39 > 0:01:4312 years earlier, his disappearance one summer night

0:01:43 > 0:01:46had delivered a body blow to British intelligence.

0:01:48 > 0:01:50The heavens fell in.

0:01:50 > 0:01:54They were absolutely stunned, they were aghast.

0:01:54 > 0:01:58He was one of them - he came from the right school and university

0:01:58 > 0:02:02and he could actually be extremely kind and loyal.

0:02:03 > 0:02:07So why did Guy Burgess, and others in his gilded circle,

0:02:07 > 0:02:10betray their class - and their country?

0:02:12 > 0:02:15They were strange people, all these Cambridge spies, really strange.

0:02:18 > 0:02:24Sometimes I think that it was the boredom of the British establishment

0:02:24 > 0:02:28which made them spy for Stalin.

0:02:33 > 0:02:37I think I knew he was a great sort of spy figure,

0:02:37 > 0:02:38and I was rather alarmed by him.

0:02:40 > 0:02:41Oh, how did you know that?

0:02:41 > 0:02:43Well, one just...

0:02:43 > 0:02:44We all knew!

0:02:45 > 0:02:50All except us spy catchers, who only knew when he had gone.

0:03:00 > 0:03:02# I'm a gambler

0:03:02 > 0:03:04# I keep on taking chances

0:03:04 > 0:03:09# And I'm playing with my time

0:03:09 > 0:03:12# And if I lose

0:03:12 > 0:03:15# Well, now, I ain't gonna wallow

0:03:15 > 0:03:17# I keep laying it down

0:03:17 > 0:03:19# Hard on the line

0:03:19 > 0:03:22This is where it starts.

0:03:22 > 0:03:24A clever boy, father just dead,

0:03:24 > 0:03:27is a pupil at Britain's most famous public school.

0:03:27 > 0:03:30SAT NAV: You have reached your destination.

0:03:30 > 0:03:32And this, more or less, is where it ends...

0:03:32 > 0:03:33The drink, the drink!

0:03:33 > 0:03:36..the same boy portrayed as a washed-up exile,

0:03:36 > 0:03:38drinking to stave off his loneliness.

0:03:38 > 0:03:41- HE RETCHES - Aren't you feeling well?

0:03:41 > 0:03:44Oh, yes, thank you.

0:03:44 > 0:03:46- I'm perfectly all right. - HE VOMITS

0:03:46 > 0:03:48Who are you?

0:03:48 > 0:03:51The film was based on a real moment in Guy Burgess' life.

0:03:51 > 0:03:52I love your frock.

0:03:54 > 0:03:57It was the height of the Cold War.

0:03:57 > 0:04:00Some famous British actors were performing in Moscow.

0:04:00 > 0:04:02Not for a King upon whose property...

0:04:02 > 0:04:07Sir Michael Redgrave, whom Burgess had known at university,

0:04:07 > 0:04:08was playing Hamlet.

0:04:08 > 0:04:13There was a sort of stir in the theatre, and this word went round -

0:04:13 > 0:04:16Guy Burgess is in the building.

0:04:16 > 0:04:20I saw him standing, looking very lost backstage,

0:04:20 > 0:04:25and somebody said to me, "He's come round to see

0:04:25 > 0:04:28"Michael Redgrave, and Michael won't let him in."

0:04:28 > 0:04:31There was a sort of shabby glamour to him.

0:04:31 > 0:04:34Craven A. For your throat's sake.

0:04:34 > 0:04:38We certainly knew exactly who he was and what he'd done.

0:04:39 > 0:04:44I thought, my God, to have chosen to live in this country,

0:04:44 > 0:04:49because of some belief you had years ago -

0:04:49 > 0:04:51he must've been in some kind of hell.

0:04:59 > 0:05:02The road to hell had started here.

0:05:05 > 0:05:09He'd arrived from Eton six months shy of his 20th birthday,

0:05:09 > 0:05:13with a scholarship in history, a rich mother to support him,

0:05:13 > 0:05:17and an unrestrained appetite for sex with other men.

0:05:17 > 0:05:21If you look at the Trinity College coffee table book,

0:05:21 > 0:05:23it talks about the fact that in the 1930s

0:05:23 > 0:05:27homosexuality was thought to be more bonding than football.

0:05:31 > 0:05:36In that sort of world, Burgess was an instantaneous success.

0:05:36 > 0:05:37The intellect and the charm -

0:05:37 > 0:05:40these are the two words that keep coming back time and again.

0:05:40 > 0:05:43His brilliant intellect and his extraordinary charm.

0:05:43 > 0:05:46There were many people whose opinion mattered

0:05:46 > 0:05:48who were utterly in raptures about him.

0:05:50 > 0:05:53One of them was a young don called Steven Runciman,

0:05:53 > 0:05:57who came from a grand family near the Scottish border.

0:05:57 > 0:06:02Runciman was just starting out on what became a magisterial career

0:06:02 > 0:06:06as a Byzantine historian, and has left touching relics

0:06:06 > 0:06:09of his infatuation with the brilliant budding spy.

0:06:09 > 0:06:12If you open Steven Runciman's photo album,

0:06:12 > 0:06:17the very first page from 1932, August '32,

0:06:17 > 0:06:20they're all of Guy Burgess.

0:06:27 > 0:06:30And these are Steven Runciman's diaries,

0:06:30 > 0:06:34wonderful little tidily-written ones.

0:06:34 > 0:06:39And here, October '32, for instance, "Tea with Guy.

0:06:39 > 0:06:42"Lunch with Jack H and Guy.

0:06:42 > 0:06:44"Guy. Lunch with Guy..."

0:06:48 > 0:06:52Almost everyone that Burgess decided to seduce, he succeeded in doing.

0:06:53 > 0:06:55They say that he tried to seduce the captain of the boat club

0:06:55 > 0:06:57on the first night in Cambridge.

0:06:59 > 0:07:03Fatefully, he also caught the eye of another stellar don,

0:07:03 > 0:07:07mathematician turned art historian Anthony Blunt.

0:07:09 > 0:07:12They're part of clearly this similar group, but Blunt is much older -

0:07:12 > 0:07:16he's a don - and they're brought together, and in fact become lovers,

0:07:16 > 0:07:19and eventually very, very close friends.

0:07:23 > 0:07:27In those days, homosexuality was illegal but,

0:07:27 > 0:07:30in some circles anyway, not socially taboo.

0:07:30 > 0:07:35So, yes, this is my father, pretty much his last photograph,

0:07:35 > 0:07:37the year he died.

0:07:37 > 0:07:42Tim Johnston's father Kemball was neither gay nor particularly academic,

0:07:42 > 0:07:45but he later became close friends with both Blunt and Burgess.

0:07:45 > 0:07:47This was more of the period...

0:07:47 > 0:07:50In fact, they were both godfathers to another son,

0:07:50 > 0:07:52named Guy Anthony after them.

0:07:52 > 0:07:56Well, our mother said how enormously she liked Guy and how much she

0:07:56 > 0:08:00enjoyed his company, and what a pain it was that if you invited him

0:08:00 > 0:08:02to anything you always had to have Anthony as well.

0:08:02 > 0:08:05She found him very sort of stiff and self-interested,

0:08:05 > 0:08:08I think the thing with Guy was his huge kind of

0:08:08 > 0:08:10generosity of spirit,

0:08:10 > 0:08:12which I think they certainly both enjoyed.

0:08:15 > 0:08:19What Burgess longed for was an invitation to join the Apostles,

0:08:19 > 0:08:22a secretive elite of Cambridge intellectuals.

0:08:23 > 0:08:25Blunt was already a member,

0:08:25 > 0:08:29and through him Burgess finally got his invitation.

0:08:29 > 0:08:30Heaven on Earth.

0:08:30 > 0:08:32Many of them were gay,

0:08:32 > 0:08:35and I think there was a strong feeling that if they weren't being

0:08:35 > 0:08:38recognised by society because of their sexuality

0:08:38 > 0:08:39they didn't feel they had

0:08:39 > 0:08:42any obligations to society themselves.

0:08:47 > 0:08:53But outside the aesthetes' gilded cage, that society was facing a crisis.

0:08:56 > 0:09:00European democracies had been weakened by the worldwide slump.

0:09:02 > 0:09:04Fascism was on the rise.

0:09:08 > 0:09:11America, for the most part, didn't want to get involved.

0:09:16 > 0:09:20To young idealists at Cambridge, what offered hope was

0:09:20 > 0:09:23the great social experiment in Russia called Communism.

0:09:25 > 0:09:31I don't think there was any thinking person who was not pro-Russia, pro-Soviet.

0:09:33 > 0:09:36Because Moscow was opposed to this...

0:09:38 > 0:09:41Father had been on a walking tour of Germany and Austria,

0:09:41 > 0:09:45I think about the time the Nazis came to power, and he could see -

0:09:45 > 0:09:48he could see what they were like, he could see what they were becoming,

0:09:48 > 0:09:52what was coming. Everybody could see it apart from these people.

0:09:52 > 0:09:54"These people" were the British Government.

0:09:54 > 0:09:57They were all sucking up to the Nazis.

0:10:00 > 0:10:05Guy had been proclaiming his belief in Marxism ever since he'd arrived

0:10:05 > 0:10:09at Cambridge, but he now had a real choice to make,

0:10:09 > 0:10:13and his boyish confidence had taken a beating.

0:10:13 > 0:10:16For one thing, he hadn't got the first class degree

0:10:16 > 0:10:20everyone expected, pleading sickness when the exams came up.

0:10:21 > 0:10:24And although the college allowed him to stay on another year,

0:10:24 > 0:10:28new kids on the block were stealing his political thunder.

0:10:30 > 0:10:34Most notably, this man, John Cornford...

0:10:35 > 0:10:39..four years younger than Burgess, great grandson of Charles Darwin,

0:10:39 > 0:10:42poet and political activist.

0:10:43 > 0:10:50He frankly dwarfs Burgess in terms of importance in the circles of Cambridge Communism.

0:10:55 > 0:10:58He was the great inspirational figure,

0:10:58 > 0:11:01and he galvanised the student communist movement.

0:11:02 > 0:11:06To Cornford, communism meant action on the streets -

0:11:06 > 0:11:10not preaching Marxist theory to other privileged students.

0:11:12 > 0:11:15This is Jane Bernal.

0:11:15 > 0:11:19Her mother, Margot Heinemann, was a communist activist, too.

0:11:19 > 0:11:21And, soon, Cornford's lover.

0:11:22 > 0:11:27He was hard up at the time and not very interested in clothes

0:11:27 > 0:11:31or material possessions, so he was actually very scruffy.

0:11:31 > 0:11:33By contrast, the legend goes,

0:11:33 > 0:11:37Burgess used to turn up on demonstrations wearing an old Etonian tie.

0:11:41 > 0:11:43But in the Cambridge city archive,

0:11:43 > 0:11:47you can find the first clue the security services missed -

0:11:47 > 0:11:52the day he openly sided with communists against the established order.

0:11:52 > 0:11:56There's a march to the war memorial on Armistice Day.

0:11:56 > 0:11:58They assembled on Parker's Piece,

0:11:58 > 0:12:04they walked along Trumpington Street where the Fitzwilliam Museum is,

0:12:04 > 0:12:08and then the road narrows down quite abruptly outside Peterhouse College.

0:12:08 > 0:12:11And at that point it really kicked off.

0:12:11 > 0:12:15The toffs from the rowing clubs who were the opposition, as it were,

0:12:15 > 0:12:19were buying up fruit and vegetable and fish from the stalls,

0:12:19 > 0:12:22and pelting the marchers with them.

0:12:22 > 0:12:27And Burgess' role is to drive a car which has been protected with

0:12:27 > 0:12:29cushions, and basically ram the crowd.

0:12:31 > 0:12:35So that's I think where he enters the stage, you know, as a communist,

0:12:35 > 0:12:36a very open communist.

0:12:53 > 0:12:55Roll on three years.

0:12:55 > 0:12:59Cornford has been killed in the Spanish Civil War, while Burgess?

0:12:59 > 0:13:02Well, he's found a different way to serve the cause.

0:13:02 > 0:13:04And this is Guy Burgess at Cambridge University,

0:13:04 > 0:13:08and we'll pretty quickly come onto this whole thing, the connection...

0:13:08 > 0:13:12Stewart Purvis is leading a walking tour you can take through streets

0:13:12 > 0:13:17that were practically colonised by Soviet agents during the '30s.

0:13:17 > 0:13:21He's become an expert on the rival networks that lived cheek by jowl here.

0:13:23 > 0:13:25You can walk down Lawn Road.

0:13:25 > 0:13:29You start at number four, you've got a GRU building -

0:13:29 > 0:13:34number nine is an NKVD building, number 12 is a GRU building.

0:13:34 > 0:13:39And in the Isokon Gallery you've got the GRU and the NKVD.

0:13:39 > 0:13:42One of those agents here was a man called Arnold Deutsch,

0:13:42 > 0:13:45who'd arrived in England in 1933.

0:13:46 > 0:13:51His cover story was studying psychology at London University.

0:13:53 > 0:13:55Outside, I met Alexander Vassiliev,

0:13:55 > 0:13:58who once worked for the KGB in Moscow.

0:14:00 > 0:14:02With the benefit of hindsight,

0:14:02 > 0:14:06he thinks the fact that Deutsch wasn't a typical Russian agent

0:14:06 > 0:14:08was the key to his success.

0:14:08 > 0:14:11He was an Austrian Jew,

0:14:11 > 0:14:14and it's very important that after

0:14:14 > 0:14:20the university in Vienna, he worked for a while for Wilhelm Reich,

0:14:20 > 0:14:24who was a famous sexologist -

0:14:24 > 0:14:28whose idea was that if you are sexually repressed,

0:14:28 > 0:14:29you are a fascist.

0:14:29 > 0:14:33Something like that, you know - better orgasms for a better world.

0:14:40 > 0:14:44At the time the world seemed badly in need of Reich's treatment.

0:14:50 > 0:14:54In this atmosphere Deutsch's brilliance was guessing that

0:14:54 > 0:14:58in England it would be privileged people who would make good traitors.

0:15:02 > 0:15:08Kim Philby, a friend of Guy's from Trinity was the first one he chose

0:15:08 > 0:15:10on a bench in Regents Park.

0:15:10 > 0:15:14Philby suggested others from Cambridge, including Donald Maclean,

0:15:14 > 0:15:16son of a Liberal MP.

0:15:17 > 0:15:21Philby created this list of seven people,

0:15:21 > 0:15:25of which Maclean was at the top and Burgess, I think, was number seven.

0:15:25 > 0:15:28In fact, Burgess was almost an afterthought.

0:15:28 > 0:15:31Philby actually says that what happened was that

0:15:31 > 0:15:34Burgess discovered, worked out, rather,

0:15:34 > 0:15:37that Philby and Maclean had done something.

0:15:37 > 0:15:40And in Philby's words, it was something esoteric and exciting

0:15:40 > 0:15:42and they weren't involving Burgess.

0:15:42 > 0:15:46So Philby says that he wasn't so much recruited, as he, kind of,

0:15:46 > 0:15:47forced them to bring him inside

0:15:47 > 0:15:50because he was more dangerous for them outside.

0:15:52 > 0:15:56From the point of view of an average Soviet operative,

0:15:56 > 0:15:59recruiting Guy Burgess was a huge mistake.

0:15:59 > 0:16:03I would never recruit someone like that, just never.

0:16:03 > 0:16:05He was difficult to control.

0:16:05 > 0:16:08He talked too much, and he was homosexual.

0:16:09 > 0:16:13But Deutsch, the sophisticated European, knew much better

0:16:13 > 0:16:17than anyone in Moscow the society his agents had to penetrate.

0:16:17 > 0:16:21Of course he knew the British society better than people at Lubyanka.

0:16:21 > 0:16:27But, on that, I mostly blame his, you know, free spirit

0:16:27 > 0:16:28in terms of sex. You know.

0:16:32 > 0:16:35Burgess was recruited at the beginning of 1935.

0:16:35 > 0:16:39He left Cambridge and went down to London, where he supported himself

0:16:39 > 0:16:43partly from freelance journalism, partly from money from his mother...

0:16:43 > 0:16:46..and partly by living among people who could help him.

0:16:46 > 0:16:49That's Burgess's flat, over there.

0:16:49 > 0:16:52Nice place to live, for a man without a proper job.

0:16:52 > 0:16:56Burgess became, sort of, a right-wing fanatic.

0:16:56 > 0:16:58His friends were completely amazed by this.

0:16:58 > 0:17:02He gave them some really, kind of, feeble explanations of how

0:17:02 > 0:17:06having convinced them that actually Communism was the only route,

0:17:06 > 0:17:09suddenly, he wanted to go in the opposite direction.

0:17:10 > 0:17:13Forget about overthrowing capitalism.

0:17:13 > 0:17:16The intelligence service doesn't want to overthrow capitalism.

0:17:16 > 0:17:18They want London to be against Berlin.

0:17:18 > 0:17:24And in the case of the war, to support the seventh union against Hitler.

0:17:24 > 0:17:26That's the only thing they wanted.

0:17:31 > 0:17:37To consolidate his cover story Burgess wanted to get a job here,

0:17:37 > 0:17:39then the newly opened headquarters of the BBC.

0:17:41 > 0:17:44This is the place where the BBC store all their records.

0:17:46 > 0:17:49I was intrigued to find out how Burgess persuaded them

0:17:49 > 0:17:51that he'd put his Marxist youth behind him.

0:17:52 > 0:17:56Andrew Lownie knows these files inside out.

0:17:56 > 0:18:01The personal file will have the letters of recommendation and his application.

0:18:01 > 0:18:04He showed me several letters backing Burgess,

0:18:04 > 0:18:07including one from a real Cambridge heavyweight.

0:18:07 > 0:18:09George Trevelyan, who is a professor of history at Cambridge,

0:18:09 > 0:18:11who has written support of Burgess.

0:18:11 > 0:18:14This is the end of 1935.

0:18:14 > 0:18:16"I believe a young friend of mine, Guy Burgess,

0:18:16 > 0:18:19"later scholar of Trinity, is applying for a post in the BBC.

0:18:19 > 0:18:24"He is a first-rate man, and I advise you, if you can, to try him.

0:18:24 > 0:18:26"He's passed through the communist measles that

0:18:26 > 0:18:29"so many of our clever young men go through, and is well out of it."

0:18:31 > 0:18:36With reassuring references like that, Burgess finally got what he wanted.

0:18:36 > 0:18:40The BBC seemed pleased with his work, and the Russians were happy too.

0:18:41 > 0:18:45His value to both was his bulging contact book.

0:18:48 > 0:18:51One of his acquaintances was Churchill's niece,

0:18:51 > 0:18:54Clarissa Spencer Churchill.

0:18:54 > 0:18:57Her uncle Winston was fulminating on the backbenches,

0:18:57 > 0:19:04at the British government's handling of the growing threat from Hitler.

0:19:04 > 0:19:05It was rather depressing.

0:19:05 > 0:19:08Rather shaming, in a way.

0:19:10 > 0:19:15We knew we were in a jam. I knew because of my uncle,

0:19:15 > 0:19:19who always said there was going to be a war, you know.

0:19:19 > 0:19:22Keen to get non-appeasement voices onto the airwaves,

0:19:22 > 0:19:25Burgess had approached Churchill...

0:19:25 > 0:19:27Spoke to Mr Churchill's secretary.

0:19:27 > 0:19:31..to introduce a major new radio series.

0:19:31 > 0:19:33But Churchill declined.

0:19:33 > 0:19:35And he says, look, I'm muzzled by the BBC.

0:19:35 > 0:19:36I'm not going to do that,

0:19:36 > 0:19:39because I know the BBC is under the control of the government.

0:19:41 > 0:19:44Burgess asked Churchill if he could come down to his country house,

0:19:44 > 0:19:46Chartwell, to discuss it.

0:19:46 > 0:19:50They had this conversation and the best record of it is an audio tape

0:19:50 > 0:19:53which Burgess made himself in which I'd describe it as

0:19:53 > 0:19:57a short radio play, in which Burgess plays all the parts.

0:19:57 > 0:20:02The visit to Chartwell became Burgess's favourite after-dinner story.

0:20:02 > 0:20:08A recording of him telling it was eventually located in the FBI archive in America.

0:20:08 > 0:20:12Burgess says that when he arrived, he started straight out

0:20:12 > 0:20:16on the political crisis surrounding appeasement.

0:20:16 > 0:20:24Personally, I said, I am in some despair and Mr Churchill said,

0:20:24 > 0:20:29"My best answer will be to show you a letter."

0:20:29 > 0:20:32The letter came from Mr Bennett of Czechoslovakia,

0:20:32 > 0:20:35pleading for help against the Nazis.

0:20:38 > 0:20:43"Here am I," said Mr Churchill, "an old man,

0:20:43 > 0:20:46"without power

0:20:46 > 0:20:48"and without party.

0:20:51 > 0:20:55"What help shall I give?"

0:20:56 > 0:21:02And I felt I said the right thing that moment and said, "Oh, Mr Churchill,

0:21:02 > 0:21:04"don't be so downhearted.

0:21:04 > 0:21:06"Offer him your eloquence."

0:21:07 > 0:21:10This is Burgess's kind of finest hour, that, you know,

0:21:10 > 0:21:15the man who saved Britain turned to Burgess at his hour of need

0:21:15 > 0:21:17and Burgess gave him the answer.

0:21:20 > 0:21:23I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler.

0:21:24 > 0:21:25And here is the paper...

0:21:27 > 0:21:28..which bears

0:21:28 > 0:21:31his name upon it as well as mine.

0:21:33 > 0:21:38Whether dismayed by Neville Chamberlain's wretched piece of paper,

0:21:38 > 0:21:42inspired by Churchill, or nudged into action by the Russians,

0:21:42 > 0:21:45Burgess decided it was time to move on.

0:21:46 > 0:21:50He resigned from the BBC in December, 1938,

0:21:50 > 0:21:53his job there had already served its purpose.

0:21:53 > 0:21:58Someone he'd met through broadcasting actually worked in MI6,

0:21:58 > 0:22:02then housed in these nondescript buildings near Parliament.

0:22:02 > 0:22:07The officer concerned took a shine to Burgess and secured him a job.

0:22:07 > 0:22:09Perfect outcome.

0:22:09 > 0:22:12If you're a Soviet spy and you can either work in the BBC

0:22:12 > 0:22:15or can work in MI6, it's not a difficult choice, is it?

0:22:17 > 0:22:20But not for the last time, Moscow was suspicious.

0:22:21 > 0:22:24Why had it been so easy?

0:22:24 > 0:22:27And they said, "Do you think he suspects you," and he said,

0:22:27 > 0:22:29"No, he doesn't suspect me,"

0:22:29 > 0:22:32and he says, "Class blinkers, class blinkers."

0:22:33 > 0:22:39Eton, my family and intellectual - people like me are beyond suspicion.

0:22:42 > 0:22:45EXPLOSION

0:22:49 > 0:22:53When war finally broke out, it was class blinkers all round.

0:22:56 > 0:23:00Britain was staring defeat in the face and the intelligence services

0:23:00 > 0:23:01needed to recruit people quickly.

0:23:03 > 0:23:07Anthony Blunt, whom Burgess had recruited for the Russians,

0:23:07 > 0:23:10was now recruited by MI5, too.

0:23:10 > 0:23:14So was the very straight Kemball Johnston.

0:23:14 > 0:23:16How did he come to join military intelligence?

0:23:16 > 0:23:20Well, he was meant to be in the British Expeditionary Force

0:23:20 > 0:23:22that ended up at Dunkirk.

0:23:22 > 0:23:24But he missed Dunkirk, because he was invalided out.

0:23:24 > 0:23:28He got pneumonia just about as they were about to be shipped off.

0:23:28 > 0:23:31I think they lost his file after that and then he was sort of

0:23:31 > 0:23:34hanging around waiting to be told what to do.

0:23:34 > 0:23:36He was walking down the Strand, somewhere like that,

0:23:36 > 0:23:39and he bumped into Kenneth Younger,

0:23:39 > 0:23:42who was a very important person, I mean, high up and,

0:23:42 > 0:23:45"Oh, Kemball, what are you doing?"

0:23:45 > 0:23:48And he said, "Nothing much" and Kenneth Younger said,

0:23:48 > 0:23:51"Why don't you come and join us in MI5?"

0:23:51 > 0:23:53It was a bit like Our Man In Havana.

0:23:55 > 0:24:00With equal ease, Burgess had slipped into what was called Section D of MI6.

0:24:00 > 0:24:04He is the ideas man. He comes up with a lot of ideas. One of which

0:24:04 > 0:24:08is a training college for agents to be sent into occupied Europe.

0:24:08 > 0:24:12And this is where it was set up, in the Hertfordshire countryside,

0:24:12 > 0:24:14an hour or so from London.

0:24:14 > 0:24:17Guy nicknamed it Guy Fawkes College,

0:24:17 > 0:24:20because of all the explosives they handled.

0:24:22 > 0:24:26Hundreds of lectures about how to avoid being followed,

0:24:26 > 0:24:27how to follow people,

0:24:27 > 0:24:30how to send secret messages with several pages

0:24:30 > 0:24:33of different recipes for secret ink,

0:24:33 > 0:24:38how to make sure that you can get into places that you ought not

0:24:38 > 0:24:40to be able to get into.

0:24:40 > 0:24:44And the private delight of knowing his teachers were meant to be on the

0:24:44 > 0:24:47same side as the people trying to catch him.

0:24:48 > 0:24:51One side didn't talk to the other side.

0:24:51 > 0:24:56Those responsible for implementing security when speaking to those that

0:24:56 > 0:25:01were responsible for training people how to circumvent security.

0:25:02 > 0:25:07His other master stroke was to bring onto the team a journalist with

0:25:07 > 0:25:09experience of working in Europe

0:25:09 > 0:25:13who just happened to be a Soviet spy as well.

0:25:13 > 0:25:14After the fall of France,

0:25:14 > 0:25:18he brought an old friend of his from Cambridge as a fellow lecturer,

0:25:18 > 0:25:22Kim Philby, so he's the man who got Philby into MI6.

0:25:22 > 0:25:25But... There was always a but with Burgess.

0:25:26 > 0:25:30He, I'm afraid, lasts not quite as long in MI6 as Philby.

0:25:30 > 0:25:33After a few weeks, he's kicked out for mucking about with a corporal.

0:26:03 > 0:26:06By now, London was feeling the effects of war.

0:26:09 > 0:26:15To avoid the call-up for active service, Burgess went back to the BBC.

0:26:15 > 0:26:17The BBC are only too happy to have him back.

0:26:17 > 0:26:21They're clearly short-staffed. They haven't got experienced people.

0:26:21 > 0:26:2220th January, 1941,

0:26:22 > 0:26:25"Mr Burgess since he left the Corporation has been

0:26:25 > 0:26:28"in constant touch with government departments, in particular with

0:26:28 > 0:26:31"the Service Departments and the contacts he has made and the

0:26:31 > 0:26:34"relations he has established should be extremely useful to us now."

0:26:34 > 0:26:36- RADIO:- 'This is the BBC Home Service.

0:26:36 > 0:26:38'and here is the news.'

0:26:38 > 0:26:41Just what the Russians thought, too.

0:26:41 > 0:26:44Even more so when he was made producer of

0:26:44 > 0:26:48a prestigious radio programme, The Week In Westminster.

0:26:48 > 0:26:53He found somewhere to live about five minutes' walk away from the BBC,

0:26:53 > 0:26:57though, to their fury, he still charged for late-night taxis home.

0:26:58 > 0:27:02Number five belonged to another friend of his from Cambridge,

0:27:02 > 0:27:05Victor Rothschild, but he'd gone to live in the country,

0:27:05 > 0:27:08leaving an open house for his friends.

0:27:09 > 0:27:11For Burgess and Anthony Blunt,

0:27:11 > 0:27:15it became somewhere between a love nest and a nest of spies.

0:27:15 > 0:27:18He and Blunt, took rooms in Bentinck Street and they brought in

0:27:18 > 0:27:21a whole series of their own chums.

0:27:21 > 0:27:23Including the hard-drinking Kim Philby,

0:27:23 > 0:27:25now on the rise at MI6.

0:27:25 > 0:27:27And it became a sort of party house.

0:27:27 > 0:27:29People were always popping in.

0:27:29 > 0:27:32It had a basement which allowed people to shelter during air raids.

0:27:32 > 0:27:34It was just off Oxford Street,

0:27:34 > 0:27:35it was very central.

0:27:35 > 0:27:39Mary Hardy, sister-in-law of one of his other great friends,

0:27:39 > 0:27:43first met him around this time and didn't like him at all.

0:27:43 > 0:27:48Did you get the feeling that he was seen nonetheless as the life and soul of the party?

0:27:48 > 0:27:51Well, he clearly was. Everybody told me he was.

0:27:51 > 0:27:56"Guy's coming", "Guy's coming into the room", and he came in with this great...

0:27:56 > 0:28:00Taking up all the space and always with some sort of joke and then

0:28:00 > 0:28:04everybody laughed and I thought, "This man is not funny,

0:28:04 > 0:28:06"He isn't attractive."

0:28:06 > 0:28:10I always felt he was thinking very carefully about what he said

0:28:10 > 0:28:13before he said it. That's the sort of impression.

0:28:13 > 0:28:15He was an actor man.

0:28:17 > 0:28:19But whatever facade he presented,

0:28:19 > 0:28:22the visitor who was the object of his abiding

0:28:22 > 0:28:27and increasingly unrequited passion was this man, Peter Pollock.

0:28:29 > 0:28:34I found this photo rooting around in Pollock's villa in Tangier,

0:28:34 > 0:28:35several years after he died.

0:28:37 > 0:28:41And it was there that the writer Miranda Carter had once

0:28:41 > 0:28:44talked to Pollock about the spy who adored him.

0:28:45 > 0:28:48- MIRANDA:- What did you think of him? - PETER:- Of Guy?

0:28:48 > 0:28:50I was fascinated by his brain.

0:28:50 > 0:28:53And what he knew, he knew so much.

0:28:53 > 0:28:56You, too, adored Guy?

0:28:56 > 0:28:57No, I didn't adore Guy at all.

0:28:57 > 0:29:01I adored what he could pour into my lap.

0:29:01 > 0:29:02He knew everybody.

0:29:02 > 0:29:05- He really did.- Everybody knew him. - Yeah.

0:29:05 > 0:29:09Miranda Carter was researching her biography of Blunt.

0:29:09 > 0:29:13From being Guy's mentor, he was now almost a disciple.

0:29:13 > 0:29:17And Anthony was sort of hovering around on the fringes of it all, all the time.

0:29:17 > 0:29:20I mean, he was obviously Guy's great friend and

0:29:20 > 0:29:23Guy was the boss of everything.

0:29:25 > 0:29:30What Peter Pollock also kept were the letters Guy had sent him over the years.

0:29:30 > 0:29:33Take this letter, for instance.

0:29:33 > 0:29:35"Oh, my, I love you still.

0:29:35 > 0:29:36"Guy."

0:29:38 > 0:29:42From early passion... "I miss you and send my love."

0:29:43 > 0:29:46..to coping with Pollock's absence,

0:29:46 > 0:29:48first as a prisoner of war

0:29:48 > 0:29:52and then with the distance he put between them.

0:29:52 > 0:29:54"I don't know why I haven't written for so long."

0:29:54 > 0:29:55There's a sort of mournful,

0:29:55 > 0:30:00plangent tone in a lot of these letters, as he realises they aren't

0:30:00 > 0:30:02the lovers they once were.

0:30:03 > 0:30:05"This letter doesn't seem to overflow with love,

0:30:05 > 0:30:09"he says at the end, but I send all of it.

0:30:09 > 0:30:12"Thanks for being so sweet, Guy."

0:30:15 > 0:30:18Sex with Guy was never anything I particularly wanted

0:30:18 > 0:30:21and it was part of the deal if you could call it a deal.

0:30:21 > 0:30:24I got so angry with him once,

0:30:24 > 0:30:29I went to bed with Anthony just to annoy Guy.

0:30:29 > 0:30:31And there was a terrible scene.

0:30:35 > 0:30:38Adding to the complexity of Bentinck Street life

0:30:38 > 0:30:42was a brilliant young writer called James Pope Hennessy.

0:30:42 > 0:30:47He'd enlisted with an anti-aircraft battery when war broke out but often called by.

0:30:47 > 0:30:51James Pope Hennessy was absolutely besotted with Guy.

0:30:51 > 0:30:54- Yeah.- Of course, Guy was rather pleased.

0:30:54 > 0:30:59- Yeah.- Yes, this brilliant young literary star rising.

0:30:59 > 0:31:03But that was making life tricky for another person in their circle,

0:31:03 > 0:31:06Clarissa Spencer Churchill.

0:31:06 > 0:31:10She was very fond of James but Guy was always in the way.

0:31:10 > 0:31:13Well, he was just one of those people you,

0:31:13 > 0:31:17you know, I mean, he was a bosom friend of James's.

0:31:17 > 0:31:20One had to put up with him, so to speak.

0:31:20 > 0:31:22Just get on and get to know him.

0:31:22 > 0:31:27It was a sort of menage a trois, because Pope Hennessy was involved with Burgess.

0:31:27 > 0:31:30Burgess had been tasked to get close to Clarissa.

0:31:30 > 0:31:31The Russians had this bizarre idea

0:31:31 > 0:31:33that as a niece of the Prime Minister,

0:31:33 > 0:31:36she was privy to all sorts of secrets.

0:31:37 > 0:31:40And that what Burgess should do is marry her.

0:31:40 > 0:31:42After the war,

0:31:42 > 0:31:47Churchill did attend his niece's wedding to his Foreign Secretary,

0:31:47 > 0:31:51Anthony Eden. But according to Andrew Lownie's sources,

0:31:51 > 0:31:55Burgess had planned many years earlier to be the one at her side.

0:31:55 > 0:31:58That's new. Never heard that one.

0:31:58 > 0:32:01Very, very unlike Guy, I should have thought.

0:32:01 > 0:32:04He never gave me any indications

0:32:04 > 0:32:09of wanting to know me better or anything, no. Never.

0:32:09 > 0:32:15He never said or did anything that made me think that might be a plan.

0:32:15 > 0:32:17Never flirted with you?

0:32:17 > 0:32:21No, never. Absolutely never.

0:32:21 > 0:32:23I mean, absolutely not, no.

0:32:34 > 0:32:37London celebrates the end of the global war

0:32:37 > 0:32:40as proclaimed by Prime Minister Attlee.

0:32:40 > 0:32:43Peace has once again come to the world.

0:32:43 > 0:32:48Peace had returned, yes, but nothing was quite the same.

0:32:49 > 0:32:51Hitler was dead,

0:32:51 > 0:32:54Churchill had been voted out,

0:32:54 > 0:32:56and Stalin was now the great enemy.

0:33:03 > 0:33:07It might have been the moment that Burgess gave up his secret life.

0:33:07 > 0:33:09But it wasn't.

0:33:09 > 0:33:13In fact, for the first time, he had access to real secrets,

0:33:13 > 0:33:16thanks to a man whose own career had been advanced

0:33:16 > 0:33:19by taking part in Burgess's programmes.

0:33:19 > 0:33:22A man called Hector McNeil, a former journalist and Labour MP.

0:33:25 > 0:33:29And it's through Hector McNeil that he gets his next most important job.

0:33:29 > 0:33:30Which is... ?

0:33:30 > 0:33:33Which is to work as a special adviser to Hector McNeil in the

0:33:33 > 0:33:38Foreign Office, when Hector McNeil was made Minister of State in 1946.

0:33:40 > 0:33:43Burgess was as pleased as punch.

0:33:43 > 0:33:47He wrote this handwritten letter to the KGB and in it,

0:33:47 > 0:33:48it's quite a long one, but he says,

0:33:48 > 0:33:53the following: "This offer has been made officially and for that reason

0:33:53 > 0:33:56"and since it is I think not only an important promotion,

0:33:56 > 0:33:58"but one that can be put to good use."

0:33:58 > 0:34:00That means good use for us.

0:34:00 > 0:34:01"I shall accept it."

0:34:01 > 0:34:03And then he goes on further down -

0:34:03 > 0:34:08"My personal record and file was necessarily examined.

0:34:08 > 0:34:14"We are now justified in saying that there can be no suspicion of any kind against me."

0:34:16 > 0:34:20So Burgess was in and with the high Tories out,

0:34:20 > 0:34:23it was quite a change of style at the Foreign Office.

0:34:23 > 0:34:26Attlee's Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had been

0:34:26 > 0:34:31a trade union leader and McNeil wasn't an establishment type either.

0:34:31 > 0:34:34McNeil was a bit of an outsider himself. He was effectively

0:34:34 > 0:34:37a Glasgow newspaperman who had somehow ended up as a deputy

0:34:37 > 0:34:41Foreign Secretary, so he was kind of looking for friendly spirits.

0:34:41 > 0:34:44So suddenly, Burgess finds himself right at the heart

0:34:44 > 0:34:47of the Foreign Office in the inner sanctums.

0:34:47 > 0:34:50Burgess had access to all the papers that McNeil saw,

0:34:50 > 0:34:53including Cabinet minutes, Cabinet agendas,

0:34:53 > 0:34:58which not even senior diplomats in the Foreign Office had access to.

0:34:58 > 0:35:00Burgess is very conscientious.

0:35:00 > 0:35:04He offers to work late and to take documents home.

0:35:04 > 0:35:05And, you know, there was no security.

0:35:05 > 0:35:09No-one would have dared to challenge him as he left the building.

0:35:09 > 0:35:10So it was industrial-scale espionage.

0:35:14 > 0:35:17After years on the fringes of the big time,

0:35:17 > 0:35:20Burgess the master spy had arrived.

0:35:21 > 0:35:26The person through whom he'd pass information to Moscow changed from time to time.

0:35:26 > 0:35:29The last of them was a man called Yuri Modin.

0:35:37 > 0:35:39Modin is dead now, but in Moscow

0:35:39 > 0:35:43we unearthed an interview which has never been broadcast before.

0:35:43 > 0:35:46He recorded it with Russian Foreign Intelligence,

0:35:46 > 0:35:49that place over there. In it,

0:35:49 > 0:35:52he told a story of what happened back in England when

0:35:52 > 0:35:56another officer went to collect Burgess's latest batch of secrets.

0:36:27 > 0:36:30Whether that's a tall story or not,

0:36:30 > 0:36:34what has now become clear from recently declassified documents

0:36:34 > 0:36:37is that colleagues in the Foreign Office suspected nothing.

0:36:37 > 0:36:41There's one conference in Paris where you see

0:36:41 > 0:36:44Sir Alexander Cadogan of the Foreign Office sitting next to

0:36:44 > 0:36:47the Russian delegate, and we know that Burgess was giving

0:36:47 > 0:36:50Cadogan's papers to the Russian before they went into the room.

0:36:50 > 0:36:54His Majesty's government have been compelled to draw from all this

0:36:54 > 0:36:58that these restrictive measures were not introduced with the genuine

0:36:58 > 0:37:02intention of defending the economy of the Soviet zone.

0:37:02 > 0:37:09Burgess was giving an insight into thinking within the Foreign Office.

0:37:09 > 0:37:15Not only about relations with America, but also,

0:37:15 > 0:37:21US and UK thinking about what they were going to do with post-war Germany.

0:37:28 > 0:37:32One of the people in the British delegation was a young diplomat

0:37:32 > 0:37:34called Brian Urquhart. In his autobiography, he tells

0:37:34 > 0:37:39how Burgess offended some important foreign diplomats by turning up

0:37:39 > 0:37:44to a meeting drunk and heavily painted and powdered for a night

0:37:44 > 0:37:48on the town. Urquhart reported this to Cadogan,

0:37:48 > 0:37:51but he replied icily, that the Foreign Office

0:37:51 > 0:37:54traditionally tolerated innocent eccentricity.

0:37:55 > 0:37:58Burgess, Urquhart notes dryly,

0:37:58 > 0:38:02was notorious long before he was known to be a Soviet agent.

0:38:03 > 0:38:05That was something Roger Lockyer confirmed to me.

0:38:05 > 0:38:09Among his gay friends in London Burgess was a hero.

0:38:09 > 0:38:16He was widely spoken of, as somebody who was setting a standard, in a way,

0:38:16 > 0:38:20which we ought to try and live up to.

0:38:20 > 0:38:23A standard in refusing to be browbeaten.

0:38:23 > 0:38:28And one couldn't but admire the way in which he did it.

0:38:28 > 0:38:29What was it that you heard?

0:38:29 > 0:38:34We heard that he refused to kowtow,

0:38:34 > 0:38:39that when the authorities had said, "Well, you know, you ought to,

0:38:39 > 0:38:43"sort of, be less transparently gay, homosexual, queer."

0:38:44 > 0:38:47He just refused to have any

0:38:47 > 0:38:49truck with that.

0:38:50 > 0:38:53On Valentine's Day, 1949,

0:38:53 > 0:38:57Burgess went out for the evening with a colleague in Hector McNeil's office.

0:38:57 > 0:39:01Burgess and Fred Warner had gone in to the upstairs bar,

0:39:01 > 0:39:03along a flight of steps.

0:39:03 > 0:39:08And at some point, coming out, probably very much the worse for wear.

0:39:08 > 0:39:11They had either had some

0:39:11 > 0:39:17banter or an argument, playful pushing, or aggressive pushing.

0:39:17 > 0:39:19THUDS

0:39:19 > 0:39:22Whatever happened, Burgess ended up at the bottom of the stairs,

0:39:22 > 0:39:28and of course, seems to have sustained some sort of injury around here.

0:39:30 > 0:39:33Just how serious the injury was is impossible to know.

0:39:33 > 0:39:37But what is known is that he started taking strong painkillers

0:39:37 > 0:39:39without changing his drinking habits.

0:39:39 > 0:39:44Mixing codeine and alcohol means that you become completely unpredictable,

0:39:44 > 0:39:48there is even evidence, although, again, it's anecdotal,

0:39:48 > 0:39:51that the KGB spotted this in London,

0:39:51 > 0:39:55and they became alarmed that he became someone out of control.

0:40:05 > 0:40:11At the end of 1949, Burgess decided to take a holiday with his mother,

0:40:11 > 0:40:14perhaps to recover from his injuries.

0:40:14 > 0:40:16It turned into a sort of bedroom farce,

0:40:16 > 0:40:19with spies playing all the main parts.

0:40:21 > 0:40:23Scene one, Gibraltar.

0:40:23 > 0:40:25Then, as now, a chip of old England,

0:40:25 > 0:40:27on the fringe of Europe.

0:40:29 > 0:40:32These are photographs that I've dug up in searching for things.

0:40:32 > 0:40:36There's a photograph of my father meeting Franco.

0:40:36 > 0:40:39The cast list included Desmond Bristow,

0:40:39 > 0:40:44a wartime friend of Kim Philby's, who ran the Iberian section of MI6.

0:40:44 > 0:40:47This is his licence to bear arms.

0:40:47 > 0:40:52Which he was given so he was allowed to carry a gun around in Madrid and in Spain.

0:40:52 > 0:40:55HE SPEAKS SPANISH

0:40:58 > 0:41:04Another player in this piece was Ken Mills, head of MI5 in Gibraltar.

0:41:05 > 0:41:07The Mills family lived over there,

0:41:07 > 0:41:09in that house covered in scaffolding.

0:41:13 > 0:41:17It was opposite the governor's house, in Governor's Lane.

0:41:17 > 0:41:21So, we used to look out of the window and see sentries,

0:41:21 > 0:41:25keeping guard, which is all, for children, very exciting.

0:41:27 > 0:41:31Burgess and his mum checked into the Rock Hotel where all the best people

0:41:31 > 0:41:37stayed. His immediate problem was the £50 limit on holiday money then

0:41:37 > 0:41:39enforced by the British government.

0:41:41 > 0:41:44And so he was put in touch with my father,

0:41:44 > 0:41:47in the hope that he would be able to change his travellers cheques,

0:41:47 > 0:41:48or give him some cash.

0:41:48 > 0:41:51And so my father rang Desmond Bristow in London...

0:41:51 > 0:41:55Pa's response was, "Oh, yes, I do know that little poof."

0:41:55 > 0:41:57Don't touch him with a barge pole.

0:41:57 > 0:42:00HE LAUGHS

0:42:00 > 0:42:02But the Mills ignored that advice,

0:42:02 > 0:42:06and asked Burgess around to Governor's Lane for a drink.

0:42:06 > 0:42:08Several drinks, in fact.

0:42:08 > 0:42:12I think I was both fascinated and repelled by this person at the

0:42:12 > 0:42:15same time. There was something about the atmosphere about the man.

0:42:15 > 0:42:20There was something edgy, and out of control about him, which as a child,

0:42:20 > 0:42:21I sort of, picked up on.

0:42:23 > 0:42:26If the holiday had ended there, no harm would have been done.

0:42:27 > 0:42:32But Burgess couldn't resist the lure of Tangier, a short way by sea,

0:42:32 > 0:42:35but a million miles from respectable Gibraltar.

0:42:41 > 0:42:45Tangier was utterly thrilling, it was so different from Europe.

0:42:47 > 0:42:50Tangier itself was a teeming city,

0:42:50 > 0:42:53it was full of people selling things,

0:42:53 > 0:42:55squatting on the ground,

0:42:55 > 0:42:57carpets laid out.

0:42:57 > 0:43:01Wonderful brass pots hanging from walls.

0:43:01 > 0:43:03It was utterly exciting.

0:43:07 > 0:43:12This, when Burgess was here, was the home of the head of MI6.

0:43:12 > 0:43:16I haven't been here a long time.

0:43:16 > 0:43:18Now there is a new owner.

0:43:18 > 0:43:23His redoubtable predecessor was a woman called Teddy Dunlop.

0:43:25 > 0:43:28Desiree Buckingham, known as Dizzy, knew her well.

0:43:30 > 0:43:36She lived here, her husband was a doctor, who delivered me into the world.

0:43:36 > 0:43:40And they were wonderful gardeners.

0:43:40 > 0:43:42Did people know that she worked for MI6?

0:43:42 > 0:43:46I think so, yes. Yeah.

0:43:46 > 0:43:48Well, my parents certainly knew.

0:43:50 > 0:43:53Guy Burgess did not hit it off with Teddy Dunlop.

0:43:54 > 0:43:58As soon as he arrived he installed his mother in an elegant hotel,

0:43:58 > 0:44:00and set off into town.

0:44:03 > 0:44:06That bleak doorway was the place he headed for.

0:44:06 > 0:44:10In those days, a bar, owned by a man called Harry Dean.

0:44:10 > 0:44:12That's where the sign used to be.

0:44:12 > 0:44:14That's where the bar used to be.

0:44:14 > 0:44:18Everyone used to go there, and he used to serve alcohol,

0:44:18 > 0:44:24so either they nodded and winked, and agreed with the authorities,

0:44:24 > 0:44:25or it was completely illegal.

0:44:25 > 0:44:27I have no idea.

0:44:28 > 0:44:30And not just alcohol.

0:44:30 > 0:44:32There'd been these terrible complaints about Burgess,

0:44:32 > 0:44:36because he'd been going around Tangier in all the gay places, and of course,

0:44:36 > 0:44:41you know, there was a fairly large homosexual community in Tangier,

0:44:41 > 0:44:44but it was all very quiet and very hush-hush.

0:44:44 > 0:44:48And he had gone around nicking what they called "bum boys",

0:44:48 > 0:44:51from fairly important characters

0:44:51 > 0:44:53and had run out of money.

0:44:56 > 0:45:00A worried Teddy Dunlop rang Ken Mills for advice.

0:45:00 > 0:45:05My father went over there, and they met up with Burgess again,

0:45:05 > 0:45:09and they had an encounter where he got very drunk and revealed

0:45:09 > 0:45:13the existence of a Swiss person who used to bring information

0:45:13 > 0:45:16to Teddy Dunlop, and my father as far as I know.

0:45:21 > 0:45:25Let's go up higher and see if we can find a Dunlop.

0:45:25 > 0:45:27The person showing me around is Jonathan Dawson.

0:45:29 > 0:45:31I guess he's like many of those stylish,

0:45:31 > 0:45:35exuberant characters who lived here in the '50s.

0:45:39 > 0:45:42We're searching for Teddy Dunlop's grave.

0:45:43 > 0:45:50Born in Darjeeling, 1906, died in Tangier, 1969.

0:45:50 > 0:45:53Margaret Isobel, Teddy Dunlop, that's her. That's Teddy.

0:45:53 > 0:45:55Teddy Dunlop was a woman of the world,

0:45:55 > 0:45:58but even she was appalled by Burgess.

0:45:58 > 0:46:00Once Guy Burgess had left,

0:46:00 > 0:46:06my father and Teddy decided to make a formal complaint about him,

0:46:06 > 0:46:10because they felt he was a risk to security.

0:46:13 > 0:46:16What they thought in Tangier was one thing,

0:46:16 > 0:46:18what they thought in London, another.

0:46:20 > 0:46:23The deputy head of MI5 was Guy Liddle,

0:46:23 > 0:46:26who belonged to the same club as Burgess.

0:46:26 > 0:46:34Not only was Guy Liddle very relaxed about the nature of the complaints that were made,

0:46:34 > 0:46:41he came close to advising Guy Burgess on how to handle it.

0:46:41 > 0:46:46Guy Burgess knew Guy Liddle well enough to be able to ring him up

0:46:46 > 0:46:50on his private line, get straight through to

0:46:50 > 0:46:55the Deputy Director General of the security service, and chat to him

0:46:55 > 0:46:59in very friendly terms about this indiscretion.

0:46:59 > 0:47:03They really seemed to take it in their stride.

0:47:03 > 0:47:06It seemed to be that Guy Burgess constantly behaved like this,

0:47:06 > 0:47:09and that it was a perfectly forgivable way of behaving

0:47:09 > 0:47:13and that they weren't going to do anything about it.

0:47:13 > 0:47:17Instead of Burgess being sacked, it was his accuser, Ken Mills,

0:47:17 > 0:47:19who found himself in trouble.

0:47:19 > 0:47:23Ken then went to London and got fairly seriously reprimanded for

0:47:23 > 0:47:24basically, what he called,

0:47:24 > 0:47:28I think it was almost like he had sneaked on a friend of his,

0:47:28 > 0:47:30who was a fellow Brit.

0:47:32 > 0:47:36Bill Bristow's insights come from the book he co-wrote with his father.

0:47:36 > 0:47:41A book they had to publish abroad to get around the MI6 censor.

0:47:41 > 0:47:44Had his father thought Guy was being protected?

0:47:44 > 0:47:45Yes, absolutely.

0:47:45 > 0:47:48He certainly had protection from Hector McNeil.

0:47:48 > 0:47:50He was a powerful figure.

0:47:50 > 0:47:53But I think there must have been other people who were prepared to

0:47:53 > 0:47:56turn a blind eye to what Burgess was doing, or perhaps, protecting him.

0:47:58 > 0:48:02In Moscow they now understood what made Burgess special

0:48:02 > 0:48:05as Modin had been telling them all along.

0:48:38 > 0:48:39It takes your breath away now.

0:48:39 > 0:48:42# I'm a gambler,

0:48:42 > 0:48:45# I keep on taking chances... #

0:48:45 > 0:48:49Instead of the sack, Burgess gets posted to America,

0:48:49 > 0:48:52despite the fact that he was openly anti-American,

0:48:52 > 0:48:54and the embassy didn't want him anyway.

0:48:54 > 0:48:59# I keep laying it down hard on the line. #

0:48:59 > 0:49:03What the Foreign Office personnel department thought it was doing

0:49:03 > 0:49:07by posting Burgess to the United States is really anybody's guess.

0:49:07 > 0:49:11I suppose they concluded that an embassy as large as Washington

0:49:11 > 0:49:13would be an environment in which

0:49:13 > 0:49:17even somebody with his eccentricities might go unnoticed.

0:49:17 > 0:49:20Pretty feeble assessment, isn't it,

0:49:20 > 0:49:22on their part, on all counts?

0:49:22 > 0:49:26Well, in retrospect, it was absolutely catastrophic.

0:49:39 > 0:49:44Stanley Weiss is one of the great American industrialists.

0:49:45 > 0:49:48Friend to famous figures of our time.

0:49:51 > 0:49:54But in 1950, he was not happy.

0:49:54 > 0:49:58I had spent a year in Paris,

0:49:58 > 0:50:01had a great love affair which ended.

0:50:01 > 0:50:05I was broken, I was really in a terrible shape.

0:50:05 > 0:50:09So he came to Southampton and boarded a liner bound for America.

0:50:10 > 0:50:12Mission unaccomplished.

0:50:13 > 0:50:15I decided I'd go somewhere and have a drink,

0:50:15 > 0:50:17and I went into the cabin class,

0:50:17 > 0:50:20which is where the English diplomats were put,

0:50:20 > 0:50:23and I saw this rather distinguished-looking guy,

0:50:23 > 0:50:26and I sat down next to him.

0:50:26 > 0:50:28And we struck up a conversation.

0:50:28 > 0:50:31He liked to drink and I liked to drink.

0:50:32 > 0:50:35So we became friends.

0:50:35 > 0:50:37It was Guy Burgess.

0:50:38 > 0:50:42The crossing took several days, and the two men met frequently.

0:50:42 > 0:50:45After we'd had I don't know how many gins and tonics,

0:50:45 > 0:50:48which he introduced me to, I had to go and pee.

0:50:49 > 0:50:51He went too.

0:50:51 > 0:50:56And he's the only person, man, who ever made a pass at me.

0:50:56 > 0:51:01And he... He tried to kiss me, and I said, "You know, you scratch!"

0:51:02 > 0:51:08And then I said, "Look, I'm not a homophobe, but that's not for me."

0:51:08 > 0:51:10He didn't seem to mind it at all.

0:51:12 > 0:51:16Already in America was his fellow Soviet agent, Kim Philby,

0:51:16 > 0:51:19who'd been sent there nearly a year before by MI6.

0:51:24 > 0:51:27You might call this Embassy Road.

0:51:27 > 0:51:29In fact, I think they do.

0:51:29 > 0:51:34Because most of the grand houses along here are all embassies.

0:51:34 > 0:51:38You'd have thought that normal spycraft might mean steering

0:51:38 > 0:51:40well clear of Philby in public.

0:51:40 > 0:51:41But Burgess...

0:51:42 > 0:51:46Well, Burgess took a room in Philby's house.

0:51:46 > 0:51:48Well, it was obviously quite a large house.

0:51:48 > 0:51:50It was stood in some grounds,

0:51:50 > 0:51:53and we had wonderful pavements where I used to roller-skate.

0:51:54 > 0:51:56He had a room in the basement.

0:51:58 > 0:52:00I don't think he catered for himself downstairs.

0:52:00 > 0:52:03I don't think there was any catering facilities.

0:52:03 > 0:52:05There might have been a washing machine,

0:52:05 > 0:52:07but he probably didn't use that either.

0:52:10 > 0:52:12Everything's changed a bit now.

0:52:12 > 0:52:15But this, actually,

0:52:15 > 0:52:19was the room that Burgess would have then lived in.

0:52:19 > 0:52:21It was the spare bedroom.

0:52:22 > 0:52:26Somewhere under there you can see the bed.

0:52:27 > 0:52:30The British Embassy, about a mile away,

0:52:30 > 0:52:32was the grandest of the grand.

0:52:35 > 0:52:40His new job meant he worked up there, near Philby on the first floor.

0:52:42 > 0:52:46It's open plan now, but in those days this was a corridor,

0:52:46 > 0:52:48known as the Rogue's Gallery,

0:52:48 > 0:52:53with several small offices off it. Philby had one of them, Burgess,

0:52:53 > 0:52:55though far junior, another.

0:52:55 > 0:52:59Burgess gets to Washington. No-one actually really wants him there.

0:52:59 > 0:53:03He's ostensibly meant to be working in the Far Eastern department.

0:53:03 > 0:53:06Quite quickly, he is kicked out and put in the leasing department.

0:53:06 > 0:53:08And they kick him out pretty quickly, and so, really,

0:53:08 > 0:53:11by the end of the year, only a few months after he's arrived,

0:53:11 > 0:53:15he's got this rather nebulous job reporting on American public opinion.

0:53:15 > 0:53:18Which requires him to sit in bars all day and drink,

0:53:18 > 0:53:22which is what suits him perfectly, down to the ground.

0:53:22 > 0:53:26Philby, by contrast, was handling top-secret material.

0:53:26 > 0:53:29Messages the Americans had been intercepting between Moscow

0:53:29 > 0:53:31and their agents in the field.

0:53:32 > 0:53:36The eavesdropping project was being run by the FBI.

0:53:36 > 0:53:40One thing they'd already worked out was that a few years before,

0:53:40 > 0:53:43a Soviet spy codenamed Homer had been operating

0:53:43 > 0:53:46from the British Embassy in Washington.

0:53:47 > 0:53:52Philby knew it was only a matter of time before MI5 back in London

0:53:52 > 0:53:55worked out what he already knew.

0:53:55 > 0:54:01That Homer was their Cambridge friend, Donald Maclean.

0:54:01 > 0:54:03It's hard to imagine what was going through his mind.

0:54:03 > 0:54:09He must have been aghast at having to deal with Burgess,

0:54:09 > 0:54:14having Burgess live in the same house as him, at that very critical time.

0:54:14 > 0:54:18MUSIC: Worried Man Blues by Woody Guthrie

0:54:22 > 0:54:25Maclean was now back in England.

0:54:26 > 0:54:32And Philby's problem was how to warn him without incriminating himself.

0:54:34 > 0:54:39Intentionally or not, Burgess provided the answer.

0:54:39 > 0:54:43Almost the only thing he liked about America was its cars.

0:54:43 > 0:54:48He bought himself a white Lincoln Continental convertible.

0:54:48 > 0:54:50And at the end of February, 1951,

0:54:50 > 0:54:54he'd got in it to drive to South Carolina.

0:54:54 > 0:54:59The embassy had been asked to provide a speaker at a military college in Charleston.

0:54:59 > 0:55:01The trip was not a great success.

0:55:01 > 0:55:05First of all, he's caught speeding three times in the same day,

0:55:05 > 0:55:06in the same state.

0:55:06 > 0:55:09And then he turns up at this conference, and is drunk,

0:55:09 > 0:55:14gives a rambling speech, and various reports come in to the embassy.

0:55:14 > 0:55:17And they've been looking for a reason to get rid of him

0:55:17 > 0:55:19and this is their opportunity.

0:55:19 > 0:55:23The ambassador told Burgess to pack his bags.

0:55:23 > 0:55:26He started his farewells by suggesting an outing

0:55:26 > 0:55:29with Stanley Weiss that had parallels with his own life.

0:55:29 > 0:55:33We went to see a film called The Mudlark.

0:55:34 > 0:55:38About an outsider like himself, who'd lost his father when he was young.

0:55:38 > 0:55:39I ain't got no mother.

0:55:39 > 0:55:41Who looks after you, your dad?

0:55:41 > 0:55:43No, I ain't got no dad either.

0:55:43 > 0:55:47I remembered especially because he always carried a bottle of bourbon

0:55:47 > 0:55:48or something with him.

0:55:48 > 0:55:51And in the middle of the thing he dropped the bottle,

0:55:51 > 0:55:55and it broke open, and the whole place emptied out.

0:55:56 > 0:56:01And that's when he said, well, why don't you come back to my pub,

0:56:02 > 0:56:06I'd like to read you The Sheltering Sky.

0:56:07 > 0:56:11A new book, set in the world where Burgess had caused mayhem,

0:56:11 > 0:56:13just a year earlier.

0:56:14 > 0:56:17I said, "No monkey business. No monkey business."

0:56:17 > 0:56:21So we went back there, and that's when I met Kim Philby.

0:56:23 > 0:56:28Burgess's pub, as he called it, turned out to be Philby's home.

0:56:28 > 0:56:32At the time, when Philby was there, he kept saying, you know, he's a spy.

0:56:33 > 0:56:36And, well, I didn't take it seriously.

0:56:37 > 0:56:39I mean, Kim Philby, a spy?

0:56:39 > 0:56:40I mean, you must be kidding.

0:56:46 > 0:56:49In fact, a deadly serious game was now in play.

0:56:50 > 0:56:54Philby now had a safe way of warning Maclean.

0:56:54 > 0:56:57But he knew that if anything went wrong, they were all sunk.

0:56:59 > 0:57:02So the consummate schemer had an insurance plan.

0:57:09 > 0:57:12I went down to see Nigel West,

0:57:12 > 0:57:16he's been roaming for years through this hall of mirrors.

0:57:16 > 0:57:20He promised to show me a private memo Philby had written to MI6

0:57:20 > 0:57:22just before Burgess sailed for England.

0:57:22 > 0:57:27I have it here. It is really one of the most extraordinary documents

0:57:27 > 0:57:31of the Cold War. Dated 2nd April, 1951.

0:57:34 > 0:57:41This was the final brick in the wall, that nailed Maclean.

0:57:41 > 0:57:44What Philby points out is that although Homer,

0:57:44 > 0:57:47or Gomer as it appears in Russian,

0:57:47 > 0:57:50had been operating out of the embassy in Washington,

0:57:50 > 0:57:55all the messages they'd intercepted had been sent from New York.

0:57:55 > 0:57:59So all that MI5 had to do was to try and find somebody

0:57:59 > 0:58:03at the Washington embassy who'd been travelling

0:58:03 > 0:58:05on a regular basis up to New York.

0:58:05 > 0:58:11And the only person that the shoe fitted, was Maclean.

0:58:11 > 0:58:15And Maclean was meant to be his friend.

0:58:15 > 0:58:19Really, the only explanation is self-preservation.

0:58:21 > 0:58:26Burgess's part in the Philby plan was just to warn Maclean, nothing else.

0:58:26 > 0:58:31He took the boat train to London, to find Blunt waiting to meet him.

0:58:54 > 0:58:58That should have been the end of the matter as far as he was concerned.

0:58:59 > 0:59:03But Burgess was addicted to starring in his own life story.

0:59:05 > 0:59:09PHONE RINGS

0:59:09 > 0:59:13A day or two later, the phone rang at a house by the River Thames.

0:59:13 > 0:59:18It was the home of a long-standing friend, called Goronwy Rees.

0:59:18 > 0:59:21He rang up and said he'd come back from America,

0:59:21 > 0:59:22and could he come and see them.

0:59:22 > 0:59:27And my sister, who didn't like him, she said, he's always bad for Rees.

0:59:27 > 0:59:29Rees is absolutely in thrall to him.

0:59:29 > 0:59:31He's got some sort of a hold over him.

0:59:31 > 0:59:33I don't know what it is.

0:59:33 > 0:59:36In fact, they had a hold over each other.

0:59:36 > 0:59:41Before the war Burgess had recruited Rees to work for the Soviet Union too.

0:59:43 > 0:59:47Initially Rees had agreed, but then changed his mind,

0:59:47 > 0:59:51leaving each acutely vulnerable to the other's discretion.

0:59:51 > 0:59:54The first I saw him was coming through the door at Falcon House,

0:59:54 > 0:59:58and my sister said, don't leave them alone for a minute.

0:59:59 > 1:00:02If they get up and go for a walk in the garden, go with them.

1:00:02 > 1:00:05That kind of thing. Listen to everything that's said.

1:00:07 > 1:00:10Everything about him was just up to the eyebrows.

1:00:10 > 1:00:14Dropping his voice to a whisper with these, "Desperate secrets of state

1:00:14 > 1:00:17"I'm telling you that nobody else must know about, Rees."

1:00:17 > 1:00:21At around six, Rees and Burgess went down to the pub.

1:00:24 > 1:00:28Mary, true to her sister's instructions, went along to listen in.

1:00:28 > 1:00:30She said, "What did they talk about?

1:00:30 > 1:00:33"What's happening? What does he want Rees to do now?"

1:00:33 > 1:00:37And when they'd gone, Rees said, I heard him say to Margy,

1:00:37 > 1:00:41"I think he's a spy." I think something terrible is going on.

1:00:41 > 1:00:44Rees says, I think Guy is a spy?

1:00:44 > 1:00:47Yes, he did. They sat up half the night thinking, God, what do we do?

1:00:47 > 1:00:50I'm in trouble, and I should be sent somewhere

1:00:50 > 1:00:51and I don't want that.

1:00:53 > 1:00:54Over the next few days,

1:00:54 > 1:00:58Burgess took himself off to Cambridge for an Apostle's dinner.

1:01:00 > 1:01:04He then went drinking with old friends.

1:01:04 > 1:01:07The Russians, meanwhile, were puzzling over how to get Maclean out.

1:01:08 > 1:01:11They assumed that the ports and airports would all be

1:01:11 > 1:01:14on the lookout for him, and there was no time to forge papers.

1:01:15 > 1:01:18It was Blunt who came up with the answer.

1:02:03 > 1:02:05The interview was going to take place on Monday morning.

1:02:05 > 1:02:10When Maclean came into work, he was going to be approached,

1:02:10 > 1:02:14escorted to Leconfield House, and then he would be cross-examined.

1:02:17 > 1:02:19But Maclean was losing his nerve,

1:02:19 > 1:02:23and said he'd rather face interrogation then try escaping.

1:02:33 > 1:02:36The Russians turned to Burgess for help. They knew

1:02:36 > 1:02:40it was dangerous to involve him, but time was running out.

1:03:01 > 1:03:04On Thursday, 24th May,

1:03:04 > 1:03:07Burgess and Maclean had lunch at The Reform Club.

1:03:07 > 1:03:10The fact was reported back to MI5,

1:03:10 > 1:03:14but nothing was made of Burgess's presence.

1:03:14 > 1:03:19During April/May 1951, Burgess was not an espionage suspect.

1:03:19 > 1:03:23He was friendly with the Deputy Director General

1:03:23 > 1:03:27of the security service, so he was, in a sense, above suspicion.

1:03:29 > 1:03:31The following day, 25th May,

1:03:31 > 1:03:36Maclean left work early to celebrate his 38th birthday.

1:03:36 > 1:03:38Unnoticed by anyone,

1:03:38 > 1:03:42Burgess was hurrying around London buying cruise tickets,

1:03:42 > 1:03:44and hiring a car.

1:03:45 > 1:03:47In their headquarters in Curzon Street,

1:03:47 > 1:03:50the MI5 case officers were sitting around a table,

1:03:50 > 1:03:53planning Maclean's interrogation,

1:03:53 > 1:03:56sublimely unaware of what was actually happening.

1:03:56 > 1:04:02No reason to suppose that he was about to defect.

1:04:02 > 1:04:06His wife was pregnant, and one of his two children was ill.

1:04:08 > 1:04:09That was a miscalculation.

1:04:09 > 1:04:12His wife, Melinda, was a tough-minded American.

1:04:23 > 1:04:26Maclean and his family lived in a large house south of London.

1:04:28 > 1:04:33Burgess arrived in his hired car, guessing the place was bugged.

1:04:33 > 1:04:36Burgess introduces himself for the benefit of the listeners as

1:04:36 > 1:04:40Roger Styles, he takes the name from two Agatha Christie novels.

1:04:40 > 1:04:43The two men have dinner with Melinda.

1:04:43 > 1:04:46Maclean says good night to his two young sons,

1:04:46 > 1:04:49and then the two of them drive down the 100 miles to Southampton

1:04:49 > 1:04:51to catch the midnight crossing.

1:04:52 > 1:04:55Whether Burgess had already made up his mind to defect,

1:04:55 > 1:04:59rather than just leave Maclean in France, is anybody's guess.

1:04:59 > 1:05:03As it was, they only just made the boat in time.

1:05:20 > 1:05:21Back in London, the phone rang.

1:05:23 > 1:05:24They were stood in the office.

1:05:25 > 1:05:28They continued working until about midnight,

1:05:28 > 1:05:31when they received a fateful message.

1:05:31 > 1:05:35An immigration officer in Southampton had spotted a man

1:05:35 > 1:05:39answering Maclean's description boarding the SS Falaise.

1:05:39 > 1:05:44MI5's instructions had been to look out for him, not to stop him.

1:05:45 > 1:05:49So he was now sailing to France, and Burgess was with him.

1:05:49 > 1:05:54The meeting had been breaking up, people were going to go home,

1:05:54 > 1:05:59but they sit down again, and they decide on what to do.

1:06:00 > 1:06:03Which was to send one of their best men, Dick White,

1:06:03 > 1:06:05to meet the ship in Saint-Malo.

1:06:05 > 1:06:12White goes home, grabs his passport, goes to the airport,

1:06:12 > 1:06:14but when he gets to the airport,

1:06:14 > 1:06:17he realises that his passport is out of date.

1:06:17 > 1:06:18So now what?

1:06:18 > 1:06:22There was no MI5 officer in Paris,

1:06:22 > 1:06:26the secret intelligence service station was closed for the weekend.

1:06:27 > 1:06:30No-one outside the room knew what had happened.

1:06:30 > 1:06:34No-one inside could think what to do.

1:06:34 > 1:06:36So they went home for the weekend themselves.

1:06:36 > 1:06:39It's not quite like in the movies, is it?

1:06:39 > 1:06:41Well...

1:06:41 > 1:06:44This is a very bureaucratic organisation.

1:06:44 > 1:06:48There are limits on what these intelligence officers can accomplish.

1:07:04 > 1:07:07- RADIO:- 'This is the BBC Home Service, and here is the news.

1:07:07 > 1:07:11'The Foreign Secretary made his expected statement

1:07:11 > 1:07:14'in Parliament today, about the disappearance of the two

1:07:14 > 1:07:17'Foreign Office officials, Mr Maclean, and Mr Burgess.'

1:07:20 > 1:07:22By the time the British public got to know,

1:07:22 > 1:07:25Burgess and Maclean were a long way away.

1:07:30 > 1:07:33According to the Russians, they had got a taxi to Rennes,

1:07:34 > 1:07:39a train from there to Paris, and then on to Switzerland.

1:07:40 > 1:07:43In Zurich, Russian officials gave them false papers,

1:07:43 > 1:07:46and put them on a plane going to Stockholm, via Prague.

1:08:12 > 1:08:16Back in London, there were several shades of panic in high places.

1:08:16 > 1:08:21The security service, they had bungled, but they couldn't

1:08:21 > 1:08:25bring themselves to admit the full-scale of the bungle.

1:08:27 > 1:08:30No-one really knew what to make of it.

1:08:30 > 1:08:36Burgess was known to be left wing in his sympathies,

1:08:36 > 1:08:40but not believed to be bright enough to be a communist agent.

1:08:40 > 1:08:45It was only within the first week that they started asking themselves,

1:08:45 > 1:08:50whether Burgess might actually have been something that could shock them all.

1:08:50 > 1:08:54MI5 contacted Blunt. They knew he was friendly with Burgess.

1:08:54 > 1:08:57He, of course, had been the right-hand man to

1:08:57 > 1:08:59the head of counterespionage, Guy Liddle.

1:08:59 > 1:09:03When he fled, Guy Burgess had been living in a flat just off Piccadilly

1:09:03 > 1:09:05with a man called Jack Hewitt.

1:09:05 > 1:09:09Blunt said that he would very kindly get the key off Jack Hewitt,

1:09:09 > 1:09:14and he would open up for MI5, who wanted to get in.

1:09:14 > 1:09:18Blunt turned up with the key and found two MI5 men waiting.

1:09:18 > 1:09:23The two officers sort of, turned, very casually to Blunt, and say,

1:09:23 > 1:09:25"Perhaps you'd like to give us a hand?"

1:09:25 > 1:09:27And all three of them go up to the flat.

1:09:29 > 1:09:31Blunt, of course, used the opportunity to dry clean the flat,

1:09:31 > 1:09:35and make sure there were no incriminating papers left behind.

1:09:35 > 1:09:37Unfortunately, he didn't do enough dry-cleaning,

1:09:37 > 1:09:38and they did find some material.

1:09:40 > 1:09:43Including an astonishingly personal letter

1:09:43 > 1:09:46from a woman called Esther Whitfield,

1:09:46 > 1:09:50which she had specifically asked Guy Burgess to destroy.

1:09:52 > 1:09:56The significance of this letter is that this was a letter which nobody

1:09:56 > 1:09:59was ever meant to see, other than Guy Burgess.

1:10:00 > 1:10:04The agent's report stated that Burgess was actually engaged to be

1:10:04 > 1:10:08married to Esther Whitfield, and what made that doubly significant

1:10:08 > 1:10:12was that she was Philby's personal secretary in Washington.

1:10:12 > 1:10:14Esther worked in the Rogue's Gallery.

1:10:14 > 1:10:17This was a highly secure part of the embassy, where, basically,

1:10:17 > 1:10:20the MI6 and MI5 people were based.

1:10:20 > 1:10:23And given that Philby was a big person inside MI6,

1:10:23 > 1:10:27she would have been seeing all sorts of fascinating documents.

1:10:27 > 1:10:28And she was the one who, of course,

1:10:28 > 1:10:34got the message late at night saying that Burgess had flown.

1:10:36 > 1:10:41A badly shaken MI5 thought they detected the whiff of a conspiracy.

1:10:41 > 1:10:43You actually see, in some of the documents,

1:10:43 > 1:10:47where they are linking Maclean, Burgess, Philby and Whitfield

1:10:47 > 1:10:51as if there are potentially, a kind of, foursome of spies.

1:10:51 > 1:10:55Esther had, in fact, said no to Guy's proposal,

1:10:55 > 1:10:58but it was enough to get the head of MI5, no less,

1:10:58 > 1:11:02scurrying out to Washington to interrogate her.

1:11:02 > 1:11:05Because, I think, they took it seriously that she might be

1:11:05 > 1:11:07a member of the ring. The telegram that was sent,

1:11:07 > 1:11:10saying that she had been engaged to Burgess, actually says,

1:11:10 > 1:11:15no documents about this should be shown to Philby or his secretary.

1:11:15 > 1:11:19It didn't help when it emerged that for a whole year,

1:11:19 > 1:11:23all three had been living under the same roof.

1:11:23 > 1:11:27I remember Esther, but I didn't know what her role was at all.

1:11:27 > 1:11:30She was just a friend of the family, as far as I knew.

1:11:36 > 1:11:37Esther was in the attic,

1:11:37 > 1:11:40with a retractable ladder going up there

1:11:40 > 1:11:42and Burgess was placed in the basement.

1:11:42 > 1:11:45I mean, I didn't even know that she worked with Dad, but then,

1:11:45 > 1:11:48as children, you don't really question what your father's doing.

1:11:50 > 1:11:54The attic's changed a bit since then, but it was probably up here

1:11:54 > 1:11:58that she wrote the letter which Burgess left in his flat when he fled.

1:11:58 > 1:12:02"Guy," it says, "there is one thing

1:12:02 > 1:12:04"I'd like to say to you about the bed."

1:12:04 > 1:12:07It had obviously not been very successful in bed.

1:12:07 > 1:12:09And then she goes on...

1:12:09 > 1:12:11She could have lived with the absence of "the bed",

1:12:11 > 1:12:14but she couldn't have lived without the attention,

1:12:14 > 1:12:18care and interest that she would have wanted from her husband.

1:12:19 > 1:12:23The evidence that she was involved in spying was flimsy,

1:12:23 > 1:12:28the evidence that Burgess, at 40, was growing tired of the wild side,

1:12:28 > 1:12:33rather stronger, but it didn't save her from the nervous mandarins.

1:12:33 > 1:12:37She was sacked from the service, and indeed, continually, I would say,

1:12:37 > 1:12:39harassed by MI5 after that.

1:12:41 > 1:12:42And she never got married?

1:12:42 > 1:12:45She never had another relationship with anyone.

1:12:50 > 1:12:53Philby was recalled to London, and also sacked.

1:12:53 > 1:12:56But he wasn't charged with anything,

1:12:56 > 1:13:01and for decades information trickled out only through nods and winks.

1:13:03 > 1:13:07Almost nothing reached the National Archives here.

1:13:07 > 1:13:10But in the last two years that has begun to change,

1:13:10 > 1:13:13and although the picture is still incomplete,

1:13:13 > 1:13:16for historians like Jeff Hulbert, it's been a gold mine.

1:13:19 > 1:13:20What much of it shows,

1:13:20 > 1:13:24is that their immediate headache was not where the missing diplomats

1:13:24 > 1:13:28might be, but what to tell the Americans about their blunder.

1:13:28 > 1:13:31A top secret committee of enquiry was set up,

1:13:31 > 1:13:34under Sir Alexander Cadogan, remember him?

1:13:34 > 1:13:38The Foreign Office boss who, three years before,

1:13:38 > 1:13:42had called Burgess's behaviour "innocent eccentricity".

1:13:42 > 1:13:46One of the pieces of evidence they considered was a report by

1:13:46 > 1:13:50Robin Hooper, then head of personnel at the Foreign Office.

1:13:50 > 1:13:52He went to the nub of the matter -

1:13:52 > 1:13:57could being homosexual have anything to do with becoming a traitor?

1:14:00 > 1:14:06It's called, "The problem of homosexuality in relation to employment in the Foreign Service."

1:14:06 > 1:14:10Nearly 70 years after it was written,

1:14:10 > 1:14:14it seems surprisingly liberal in its treatment.

1:14:14 > 1:14:18It reports a balance of medical opinion that

1:14:18 > 1:14:22essentially says it's in the genes, and so therefore it is natural.

1:14:22 > 1:14:29It is not something that either can be treated, or ought to be treated.

1:14:29 > 1:14:31But he did list some of the risks.

1:14:31 > 1:14:32It's very interesting,

1:14:32 > 1:14:35he's saying that they are under psychological stress,

1:14:35 > 1:14:36of one sort or another.

1:14:36 > 1:14:40Then he makes the point that there is a solidarity between homosexuals,

1:14:40 > 1:14:45which may, in certain cases, override other loyalties.

1:14:47 > 1:14:49The report was buried.

1:14:49 > 1:14:53It was Robin Hooper's son, Martin, who tipped me off about its existence.

1:14:53 > 1:14:56When was the last time you were in this building?

1:14:56 > 1:15:00My goodness, that was the Coronation, 1953!

1:15:00 > 1:15:04My father's office was up on the first floor,

1:15:04 > 1:15:09with the finest view of The Mall that you could ever hope for.

1:15:09 > 1:15:13It was known in those friendly circles as Hooper On Buggery.

1:15:13 > 1:15:19Cadogan's own report is an exercise in damage limitation.

1:15:20 > 1:15:25Burgess had been severely admonished after the Tangier business, it said.

1:15:25 > 1:15:30Yes, there was talk of him being a homosexual, but no hard evidence.

1:15:30 > 1:15:33And anyway, no need to tell the public.

1:15:34 > 1:15:37The report goes to the Permanent Secretary,

1:15:37 > 1:15:40the boss of the Foreign Office.

1:15:40 > 1:15:46It goes to the Foreign Secretary, it goes to the Prime Minister,

1:15:46 > 1:15:49and it goes to the Cabinet Secretary.

1:15:49 > 1:15:52And that's where it stops.

1:15:53 > 1:15:57And their recommendations after this fiasco?

1:15:57 > 1:16:00Well, maybe some positive vetting would be a good idea.

1:16:00 > 1:16:03But the three wise men concluded,

1:16:03 > 1:16:08nothing was radically wrong inside the Foreign Office.

1:16:08 > 1:16:12There is a telling phrase in the report, which is,

1:16:12 > 1:16:15it refers to, "In public school parlance."

1:16:15 > 1:16:19"It would be distasteful to encourage the notion that it is

1:16:19 > 1:16:23"a duty of every member of the service to watch the behaviour of

1:16:23 > 1:16:27"his colleagues, in school parlance, to blab about them to the head."

1:16:27 > 1:16:31So, in other words, don't tell on your colleagues

1:16:31 > 1:16:35if they are doing something that you disapprove of,

1:16:35 > 1:16:40because that's not the way British people do things.

1:16:42 > 1:16:46But not every British citizen got off so lightly.

1:16:47 > 1:16:50The Conservatives returned to power in October,

1:16:50 > 1:16:54and the new Home Secretary, took a quite different line

1:16:54 > 1:16:57on what sort of lifestyle was beyond the pale.

1:16:57 > 1:17:03He made no secret of the fact that he was going to lead a crusade

1:17:03 > 1:17:07to get rid of this appalling vice, and so...

1:17:07 > 1:17:10I mean, we regarded him as the enemy incarnate.

1:17:10 > 1:17:13One really felt persecuted.

1:17:36 > 1:17:40By then, Burgess had his own peculiar punishment to endure.

1:17:40 > 1:17:45Living with Donald Maclean in the closed city of Kuybyshev,

1:17:45 > 1:17:46now known as Samara.

1:17:53 > 1:17:57And this is the building where they lived, then a new block,

1:17:57 > 1:18:01just completed by German prisoners of war.

1:18:01 > 1:18:07The two strangers were known to locals as Jim Elliott and Mark Fraser.

1:18:07 > 1:18:11They each had an apartment upstairs, and amazingly,

1:18:11 > 1:18:15we found a woman living there who'd met them then

1:18:15 > 1:18:18and now had one of the flats they'd occupied.

1:18:30 > 1:18:33They didn't go out much, she said.

1:18:33 > 1:18:38Maclean set about learning Russian, but Burgess never bothered.

1:18:38 > 1:18:39And when they left,

1:18:39 > 1:18:43Genrietta discovered that both of them had been under surveillance

1:18:43 > 1:18:44all the time they were here.

1:19:19 > 1:19:20Five years later,

1:19:20 > 1:19:25two men walked from this hotel in Moscow across the square,

1:19:25 > 1:19:28and into the rather more ornate National Hotel.

1:19:31 > 1:19:37They were then escorted up to the first floor, and into room 101.

1:19:38 > 1:19:42Waiting inside were two Western journalists, and two Russians,

1:19:42 > 1:19:45about to be given a world scoop.

1:19:45 > 1:19:50The first encounter with Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess since they'd disappeared.

1:19:57 > 1:20:00This was the Sunday Times headline the next day.

1:20:00 > 1:20:02Burgess and Maclean had handed out a statement,

1:20:02 > 1:20:05insisting they'd been working for peace.

1:20:05 > 1:20:09They hadn't been spying, and they weren't answering any questions.

1:20:11 > 1:20:14But somehow, Burgess had contrived to earn this headline.

1:20:14 > 1:20:18And now he'd broken cover, there was no stopping him.

1:20:21 > 1:20:23Tom Driberg, a Labour MP

1:20:23 > 1:20:28with a comparably edgy sex life came out to Moscow to see him.

1:20:28 > 1:20:33Soon afterwards, Burgess's account appeared in print.

1:20:33 > 1:20:36Sticking to his story that he was not a spy,

1:20:36 > 1:20:39but a sympathetic tourist.

1:20:39 > 1:20:43In Moscow last week, Close Up met Guy Burgess,

1:20:43 > 1:20:46and interviewed him in the shadow of the Kremlin.

1:20:46 > 1:20:49And finally, an appearance on television.

1:20:49 > 1:20:51It's no use me saying I'm not a traitor.

1:20:51 > 1:20:54That means nothing. Of course I'm not.

1:20:54 > 1:20:59But it's only I who know that.

1:20:59 > 1:21:01I went abroad, I was a tourist.

1:21:01 > 1:21:05There are still a lot of people who leave England to live abroad,

1:21:05 > 1:21:08for various reasons, nobody thinks it's odd.

1:21:08 > 1:21:13Though I think it's wrong there are people who go to live in Kenya,

1:21:13 > 1:21:16because only there can they afford to keep butlers.

1:21:16 > 1:21:19I live in the Soviet Union because I have, all my life,

1:21:19 > 1:21:22since I was a student, been a socialist.

1:21:22 > 1:21:27And the Soviet Union is the leading socialist country in the world.

1:21:27 > 1:21:30The interview was shot in the gardens near where he lived.

1:21:30 > 1:21:33Not exactly in the shadow of the Kremlin,

1:21:33 > 1:21:35but not far from the city centre.

1:21:35 > 1:21:37He lived on the third floor.

1:21:37 > 1:21:41Someone told us that Burgess's flat was the one without a number,

1:21:41 > 1:21:46but that the woman in the flat next door had been there when he was there.

1:21:51 > 1:21:56She wouldn't open the door, or talk about this hero of the Soviet Union.

1:21:59 > 1:22:03He drank a lot of cognac, she said, not much of a hero.

1:22:18 > 1:22:24These days, Helen Sommerville works occasionally in an antique shop in West London.

1:22:25 > 1:22:29But back in 1960, she was working for MI5.

1:22:31 > 1:22:35Her job was to distribute the mail that had been intercepted

1:22:35 > 1:22:37by the Post Office in central London,

1:22:37 > 1:22:41which included all the letters Guy Burgess was sending

1:22:41 > 1:22:44to England from his exile in Moscow.

1:22:44 > 1:22:47They steamed them open with a kettle. Well, I know they did,

1:22:47 > 1:22:49because I was taken down there to have a look.

1:22:49 > 1:22:52I remember, particularly, were the ones to his mother,

1:22:52 > 1:22:54which were really pathetic.

1:22:54 > 1:22:59They were so sad, and he was so, you know, pouring out his unhappiness.

1:23:00 > 1:23:02His mother, Evelyn Bassett,

1:23:02 > 1:23:05had been out to see him soon after his reappearance.

1:23:05 > 1:23:07But she was now too old to travel.

1:23:09 > 1:23:15In the past, Burgess had often taken refuge at her home in the country.

1:23:15 > 1:23:19But as hope dwindled of ever seeing that home again,

1:23:19 > 1:23:24Guy fastened greedily onto any friends who came to Russia.

1:23:24 > 1:23:27The artist, Julian Trevelyan, for instance,

1:23:27 > 1:23:30had been in the pro-Soviet set at Trinity.

1:23:30 > 1:23:34Anybody who was anybody at Cambridge was considered to be a communist.

1:23:34 > 1:23:37And, no, Julian was left wing.

1:23:37 > 1:23:42In 1960, Julian and his wife, fellow artist Mary Fedden,

1:23:42 > 1:23:45went to Russia to see an old friend called Ralph Parker.

1:23:45 > 1:23:47Family photograph album, is it?

1:23:47 > 1:23:53Yes. The story in Julian's diary is that when they arrived,

1:23:53 > 1:23:57there was Ralph Parker, there was Julian, there's Mary,

1:23:57 > 1:24:00and Ralph must have handed Mary a little note.

1:24:00 > 1:24:06And on it was said, "Come and see me the moment you reach Moscow."

1:24:06 > 1:24:08Signed Guy Burgess.

1:24:08 > 1:24:14It was like something out of a Graham Greene film or something.

1:24:14 > 1:24:16"We then had lunch with Guy Burgess,

1:24:16 > 1:24:20"who lives in a block of rather dingy flats near a monastery,

1:24:20 > 1:24:22"with kids playing all around.

1:24:22 > 1:24:24"His flat is stacked with books and records,

1:24:24 > 1:24:27"and he's looked after by an old babushka

1:24:27 > 1:24:31"who shouts at him when he tries to go out into the street in his silk

1:24:31 > 1:24:36"pyjamas. Delicious lunch, cold soup, vodka and Hock.

1:24:36 > 1:24:40"He is full, and well looked after in Moscow, he says."

1:24:40 > 1:24:42Here's Mary.

1:24:42 > 1:24:46Every day we were in Moscow we saw him.

1:24:46 > 1:24:47This is Guy, here.

1:24:47 > 1:24:54He was so eager to talk to English people, and people from home,

1:24:54 > 1:24:56and he was very homesick.

1:24:56 > 1:25:00He longed to come home, but knew that he would go to prison if he did.

1:25:02 > 1:25:06Back in London, they went on steaming open Guy's letters,

1:25:06 > 1:25:09in case he gave something, or someone, away.

1:25:10 > 1:25:12Anthony Blunt, I remember him,

1:25:12 > 1:25:16because he was another person who I knew was of interest.

1:25:17 > 1:25:20By now, Anthony Blunt was Sir Anthony Blunt,

1:25:20 > 1:25:23and Surveyor Of The Queen's Pictures.

1:25:23 > 1:25:25And what sort of things were in the letters to Blunt?

1:25:26 > 1:25:30Mainly, as far as I remember, describing his boyfriends,

1:25:30 > 1:25:32his new boyfriends, and their various attributes.

1:25:32 > 1:25:36Physical attributes, with little sketches.

1:25:37 > 1:25:39Little sketches of what?

1:25:39 > 1:25:40Their faces?

1:25:40 > 1:25:42No.

1:25:42 > 1:25:43Not their faces!

1:25:48 > 1:25:51# Someday

1:25:51 > 1:25:56# You'll be sorry... #

1:25:56 > 1:26:00But sex wasn't what he was lacking.

1:26:00 > 1:26:04The KGB had turned a blind eye to his excursions into the streets for

1:26:04 > 1:26:08company, and found a young man called Tollya to live with him.

1:26:08 > 1:26:11But since Tollya didn't speak English,

1:26:11 > 1:26:15and Burgess hardly spoke Russian, the relationship had its limits.

1:26:20 > 1:26:24Unlike Donald Maclean, who by now did speak Russian,

1:26:24 > 1:26:29and had his family with him, Burgess lived alone, tended by Tollya,

1:26:29 > 1:26:33and a long-suffering KGB housekeeper, called Auntie Nadia.

1:26:44 > 1:26:47Ira Gorbachova didn't really know Burgess himself,

1:26:47 > 1:26:51but knew all about him from her friends, the Macleans.

1:26:52 > 1:26:55One night, when she was baby-sitting for them, the phone rang.

1:27:21 > 1:27:27At the beginning of 1963, his old friend Kim Philby fled to Moscow too.

1:27:27 > 1:27:29Had it not been for Burgess

1:27:29 > 1:27:33breaking his promise to Philby not to defect with Maclean,

1:27:33 > 1:27:36this man might have ended up as head of MI6.

1:27:39 > 1:27:43But Philby's widow, Rufina, told me they never met to talk about it.

1:27:43 > 1:27:48The KGB told Philby that Burgess didn't want to see him,

1:27:48 > 1:27:51and then told Burgess that Philby didn't want to see him.

1:27:53 > 1:27:57A few months later, Burgess was dead.

1:27:57 > 1:28:01Memories of him forever defined by his treachery more than his talent.

1:28:01 > 1:28:04I always thought he was a bad lot. For God's sake,

1:28:04 > 1:28:09how could that man have been so important.

1:28:09 > 1:28:14There's his Russian name - dear Jim Andreevich Elliott.

1:28:14 > 1:28:17These are the banners that were draped on his coffin

1:28:17 > 1:28:21at his funeral in Moscow, attended by the Macleans,

1:28:21 > 1:28:25his younger brother, Nigel, and of course, the KGB.

1:28:25 > 1:28:28There were no gigantic secrets that he betrayed,

1:28:28 > 1:28:32it was really his connections and his political analysis

1:28:32 > 1:28:34that I think made him of value.

1:28:34 > 1:28:39Oh, yes, underneath "Guy Burgess", in smaller lettering.

1:28:39 > 1:28:42He was really flattered by their interest in him,

1:28:42 > 1:28:47and they were obviously very clever at keeping him warm and keeping him

1:28:47 > 1:28:50happy, although there were moments when they just wondered

1:28:50 > 1:28:52if he was a complete fake.

1:28:53 > 1:28:57The banners are now at the home of Guy's nephew, Anthony Burgess,

1:28:57 > 1:29:02along with the handwritten will - grisly document, as he called it.

1:29:05 > 1:29:09Burgess had long given up hope of ever seeing his home again

1:29:09 > 1:29:13when he wrote it, but his bequests are tinged with deeper regrets.

1:29:16 > 1:29:19Burgess wanted his possessions to be divided in four -

1:29:19 > 1:29:21one quarter to Anthony Blunt,

1:29:21 > 1:29:24the friend and lover he led towards treachery,

1:29:24 > 1:29:29one quarter to Esther Whitfield, the woman he carelessly betrayed,

1:29:29 > 1:29:31one quarter to Tollya,

1:29:31 > 1:29:35who was immediately sucked back into the KGB shadows,

1:29:35 > 1:29:37and one quarter to Philby.

1:29:39 > 1:29:40Signed by Guy Burgess.

1:29:41 > 1:29:44But not a whiff of recantation.

1:29:45 > 1:29:47I think this is the great paradox about Burgess,

1:29:47 > 1:29:50that even though he was well aware, throughout his career,

1:29:50 > 1:29:54of what the Soviet Union was like, he still believed in it.

1:29:54 > 1:29:57They have a phrase in Russia,

1:29:57 > 1:29:59which is...

1:29:59 > 1:30:02a nonparty Bolshevik.

1:30:02 > 1:30:07I would be very proud indeed if I had earned such a title.

1:30:07 > 1:30:12If you are this kind of person, who loves having this secret power,

1:30:12 > 1:30:19to know something nobody else knows, then espionage is for you.

1:30:19 > 1:30:26But if you are a professional spy, you quite quickly understand that

1:30:26 > 1:30:29you don't mean much in this world.

1:30:34 > 1:30:36# I'm a gambler

1:30:36 > 1:30:39# I keep on taking chances

1:30:39 > 1:30:40# And I'm playing with my time

1:30:44 > 1:30:45# And if I lose well

1:30:45 > 1:30:48# Now I ain't gonna wallow

1:30:48 > 1:30:53# I keep laying it down hard on the line... #