Stalin’s Englishman review: the louche master of the spying game (original) (raw)

The double lives of the Cambridge spies – five upper-crust students recruited in the 1930s to infiltrate the establishment on behalf of Stalin’s Russia – cast a long shadow.

In this meticulous biography of the most colourful of the quintet, espionage expert Lownie argues convincingly that Burgess – often seen as a clownish buffoon – was the key member of the ring, and his treachery the most damaging.

Despite, or because of, being drunken, dirty, promiscuously gay, louche and incorrigibly gabby, Burgess charmed everyone from Churchill downwards. This enabled him to penetrate the commanding heights of society from the BBC to the Foreign Office, via the intelligence agencies, in plain sight, and pass suitcases full of secrets to his Soviet controllers before his dramatic defection to Moscow.

Burgess has been the inspiration for plays, films and spy novels, but Lownie’s sober account proves that the cold truth about Guy was stranger than any fiction.

Stalin’s Englishman is published by Hodder & Stoughton (£25). Click here to buy it for £20