Stalin's Englishman

August 22, 2016
Biographer and literary agent Lownie (John Buchan: The Presbyterian Cavalier) add his two cents to the oft-discussed subject of Britain’s infamous Cold War spy circle, portraying Guy Burgess as the mastermind and a more important figure than Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, or Anthony Blunt. Burgess supplied his Soviet handlers with insight into key British foreign policy decisions, and he nurtured the group’s naïve idealism and guided its infiltration of British foreign intelligence. Previous historians have posited how these gentlemen became traitors; Lownie suggests that Burgess—given his predilections for whiskey, young boys, and scandal—was especially easy prey for Soviet handlers who manipulated his insatiable need for acceptance. Lownie shows the withered Englishman in Moscow, confined to his flat and supplied with care packages and visits from “friends” in the British upper echelons worried that he would rat on them. Unfortunately, few Russian sources inform this biography and too little information comes first hand. The conclusion that Burgess began spying because he needed a “moral” purpose is not well substantiated. Lownie has added a couple of new twists to this already well known spy tale, but for the most part this is an old story.