Cambridge Spies Cambridge Spies Introduction . 2 Cambridge Spies – A Who’s Who . 5 The Intelligence organisations . 6 Cast and crew . 7 Cast interviews Toby Stephens is Kim Philby . 8 Samuel West is Anthony Blunt . 10 Tom Hollander is Guy Burgess . 12 Rupert Penry-Jones is Donald Maclean . 14 Cambridge Spies 1 Introduction Cambridge Spies The story of the most notorious double agents in the history of spying – four very British traitors As early as the late Twenties, the Soviet Intelligence Fywell. Certain events and characters have been had formed a plan for infiltrating the British created or changed for dramatic effect. Intelligence establishment.Amongst those who were cultivated and nurtured by Soviet handlers At Cambridge University in 1934, the four young were four bright young men destined for influential men are courted by Soviet agents and recruited positions in Government and the media. Later they into a world of covert intelligence and espionage. would rise in the ranks of the establishment in Fired by youthful idealism, passionately committed England, infiltrating the highest offices of power in to social justice and to fighting Fascism, they are the land, appearing to serve their country in the bonded by friendship based on shared conviction most loyal way imaginable. and shared sacrifice. They would become notorious for being the most Peter Moffat says:“This is the story of four young devastatingly successful spies in the history of but devastatingly effective double-agents who modern intelligence, whose actions would lead to knew from the start that they stood or fell the deaths of many British and American people. together. Burgess is the loudest spy in the history Their names were Kim Philby,Anthony Blunt, Guy of espionage, a gifted gob and wicked wit. Philby is Burgess and Donald Maclean. the most successful spy of the lot, becoming Head of Counter Intelligence in MI6. Blunt is cool, Cambridge Spies is a fictional drama inspired by real viciously funny and clever, while Maclean veers events and based on extensive research. It stars between being warm and friendly and drunk and Toby Stephens, Samuel West,Tom Hollander and difficult. Until Burgess and Maclean’s desperate Rupert Penry-Jones as Philby, Blunt, Burgess and flight to Moscow on June 23, 1951, they live in Maclean, and follows them from their early each other’s pockets.” university days and throughout their careers as spies in a four-part drama written by Peter Moffat, Producer Mark Shivas says:“Philby, Blunt, Burgess produced by Mark Shivas and directed by Tim and Maclean believed that what they were doing Cambridge Spies 2 Introduction was not betraying their country, but serving it. But story centred on the fact that, for about a year, the how long can you hold on to youthful idealism? KGB was convinced that the four spies were Peter Moffat’s script is about friendship, passion and double-crossing them and that theirs was an conviction – it’s about how far they were prepared elaborate British intelligence plan to feed to go to realise their ideals, and their unshakeable misinformation to the Russians.The KGB had the faith in their beliefs.” spies followed by hopeless agents in Britain who weren’t adept at being discreet. “I was intrigued by these men and how much they were despised and loathed,” says Moffat.“They are Finding the truth was a considerable challenge for just amazingly complex and incredibly awful people Moffat.“The spies were so self-serving that many who placed themselves under the most unthinkable accounts of the same events were contradictory. pressure in pursuit of idealism. I wanted to try to This made it difficult to discern the truth, because understand why they were fired so much by that theirs is a world full of liars.” idealism and what happened when their ideals became tarnished.” Director Tim Fywell concurs:“One of the most striking things I discovered when researching the However, when he started his research for the story is that it was shrouded in secrecy and half- drama, one obstacle stood in his way.The truths.And because of this subterfuge and secrecy, misinformation surrounding their activity made it we had to make a decision on certain issues, virtually impossible to find one definitive account of such as who recruited who to join the KGB what actually took place. Producer Mark Shivas at Cambridge. explains:“Peter read a large number of books and had to decide what he thought was the most likely “What Peter’s script does so well is balance history story that would make the most dramatic sense.” with the human side of these men, and the cost of their betrayal to their country and themselves. It A turning-point came when valuable KGB archive explores how they justified their treachery and material became available.“Vasili Mitrokhin was a how it impacted on their personal lives.” KGB archivist who copied thousands and thousands of documents from about 1920 But what really drove Philby, Blunt, Burgess and onwards,” explains Moffat.“He made a copy of each Maclean so readily to embrace Communism? document for himself and in 1991 smuggled the Fascism was on the rise in Europe and while Hitler entire archive out of the Soviet Union to Britain. and Mussolini had both come to power, the Revolution in Russia was young but growing in “Interestingly, there were so many young men at strength.“Very few people understood what an evil Cambridge dabbling in Communism that the KGB man Stalin was, and the centre ground between used this as a smokescreen to recruit those most those two polar extremes seemed to the four spies likely to succeed as Soviet spies,” he continues. to represent a sort of soggy middle that wasn’t prepared to do anything about Hitler. So they came To put the scale of this information into context, to believe that communism was the only way to from 1942 onwards Donald Maclean’s contribution fight Fascism.” on British Intelligence alone came to 45 volumes of the KGB archive.The archive provided Peter Moffat It was during the War between 1939 and 1945 that with much new material that was to shape the the spies made their most devastating impact. story of Cambridge Spies. The archive also yielded a Burgess and Blunt passed secret military number of revelations which Moffat subsequently documents from the Foreign Office on Allied included in the drama; chief among them that strategy. Philby informed the Russians of the Melinda Maclean clearly knew her husband was a breaking of the Nazi secret code “enigma” and Soviet spy.This information came from a KGB identified British agents inside Russia to the operative working in Britain at the time called KGB – many of whom he had taught in the art “Ada”. More importantly, the main body of the of espionage. Cambridge Spies 3 Introduction Maclean was Stalin’s main source of information establishment that inspired one to kick against it about communications and policy development and, from that point of view, I can understand why between Churchill, Roosevelt and, subsequently, in the Thirties they wanted to rebel against the Truman. Most notably, whilst working on the system.They felt Communism was the only answer Manhattan project, he reported on the to the wave of Fascism sweeping Europe. developments of the US atomic bomb programme, which resulted in the Russians testing their atomic “Making Cambridge Spies reminded me of my time bombs earlier than the Americans had expected. as a student when there was less to be motivated They all played a key role in sustaining the Cold War about than in the Thirties,” continues Fywell.“There and continued to act as high-ranking MI5, MI6 and was an apathy among students who seemed more Foreign Office officials while regularly sending concerned with the size of their credit cards than information to the Russians. But it was Philby who any political issue of the day.And now of course we was considered the most active and most impressive are entering another very crucial and scary time in of the four – and it was Philby who sent Burgess to history, when students and people want to make tip off Maclean that MI5 were about to arrest him. their voices heard.There’s a moment in the film when Maclean is being attacked by his wife, “When they were unmasked and when the extent Melinda, for being a Russian spy and how he is of their treachery became clear the shock was destroying their family life. His argument is that seismic, not just within the intelligence community, America has the Bomb and powerful weapons, and but throughout the British and American is prepared to do anything to maintain that power. Establishments.When Blunt was unmasked in 1979, I think that has some resonance in particular to the weight and scale of hatred and loathing poured what’s happening now.” upon him was enormous,” says Moffat. Tim Fywell’s directing credits include Madame “Blunt’s homosexuality and upper-class background Bovary, North Square and The Woman In White, as well was inevitably the main reason for the level of as the forthcoming feature film I Capture The Castle. hatred directed at him,” continues Moffat.“It was Producer Mark Shivas was formerly Head of Drama so disturbing for the establishment that people like and Head of Films at the BBC. His credits include Blunt could be liked, trusted and be the purveyor Talking Heads 2,The Glittering Prizes,The Six Wives Of of so much faith because of the class that he was Henry VIII and the feature film A Private Function.