[…] they depend on a predictable British reaction, the cover-up, to self-inflict longer term political damage? Some sections of the British right seemed to believe so. Burgess and Maclean defected in 1951 after Maclean was pinpointed by a Venona decryption as agent Homer. Burgess didn’t have to go with him, he wasn’t suspected. Burgess’s defection […]
[PDF file]: Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America Nancy MacLean Michigan (USA): Scribe Publishing, 2017, £10.99 Bartholomew Steer This book ticks a lot of boxes. First, it does not shrink from acknowledging the existence of a conspiracy working against the interests of the ordinary folk. That it centres […]
[…] the left-wing Yemeni regime and its Egyptian backers. ‘I can find you a Scotsman’, replied Young, and over a lunch in the City introduced Colonel Neil (‘Billy’) Maclean to Brigadier Dan Hiram, the Israeli Defence Attache. The Israelis promised to supply weapons, funds and instructors who could pass themselves off as Arabs, and the […]
the first book from the KGB archives John Costello and Oleg Tsarev Century, London, 1993 Yet another reheat of the interminable stew of Philby, Burgess, Blunt, Maclean et al, this time spiced up with material from the KGB archives. Yes, the KGB archives. Five years ago, unimaginable. Today… today it certainly makes a striking […]
[…] who recruited him for the Soviets?’ ‘I’m sure he was looked over by ‘Milord’. And I’m sure that it was ‘Milord’ who had already spotted Burgess and Maclean. At that stage I should think that Burgess was the man who mattered. I’d say too that Philby got his Soviet funds through Burgess.’ ‘What was […]
[…] A. R. ‘Kim’ Philby, that perfect spy, was quite possibly within a few months of becoming head of MI6, when the British diplomat and Soviet spy Donald Maclean a rising star in his own right was fingered by the U. S. government’s code breakers. Maclean and his too loyal friend Guy Burgess […]
[…] who championed a strong state, had a life-long fascination with secret agents, assassins, revolutionaries and guerrilla fighters. From Sidney Reilly and T. E. Lawrence through to Fitzroy Maclean and Orde Wingate, Churchill enjoyed the company of such men, listening to their stories of secret operations, of murder and mayhem, and narrow escapes. Certainly this […]
[…] was imprisoned partly as a sop to the USA, who wanted the Foreign Office to make an example of someone in the aftermath of the Burgess and Maclean defection, and partly because Anthony Eden was convinced that Montagu had seduced his son whilst they were both at Eton. The book ends with Losey surveying […]
[…] persistent men of British politics, Tam Dalyell and Sir Teddy Taylor. At some length in the House of Commons in May, they raised their concerns with David Maclean, the Home Office Minister. In the presence of Fletcher’s parents the Minister denounced the programme as ‘preposterous trash’. While it was also ‘obscene’, ‘offensive’, and ‘feverish’, […]
[…] 129) ‘Must have been clear to Hollis’ (p. 140) ‘Hollis would clearly have agreed (p. 144) The next chapter, ‘The Great Mole Hunt – From Burgess and Maclean to Spycatcher‘, turgidly regurgitates what has been written by other people about this area, and introduces nothing new of any substance. After 172 pages of non-starters […]
