Guy Burgess - Definition and Overview

Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess (1911-1963) was a flamboyant, homosexual, British-born intelligence officer and double agent who worked for the Soviet Union, was part of the Cambridge Five spy-ring within MI5.

Chronology

• 1911 Born in Devonport, England
• Studied at Eton College
• Studied at Dartmouth Royal Naval College
• Studied at Trinity College, Cambridge. Meets the rest of the spy-ring and becomes a supporter of the Communist party. Inducted into the Cambridge Apostles, a secret society that was strongly Marxist at that point
• 1934 To hide his sympathies, renounces communism and joins the Anglo-German Fellowship, a pro-Nazi group. Philby is also a member
• 1936 until 1944 worked for the BBC. Produced the programme The Week in Westminster
• (Note: 1939 to 1941 Seconded to MI5 to work on war propaganda)
• 1944 Joins the Foreign Office news department
• 1947 Sent to Washington, DC as a second secretary of the British Embassy
• 1951 Kim Philby warns Burgess and Donald Maclean that Maclean is under suspicion and will most likely be unmasked. They both flee and go into hiding
• 1956 They appear in Moscow
• 1963 Died in Moscow, Russia

Works based on his life

• Another Country, a play subsequently made into a movie
• An Englishman Abroad, the first act of Single Spies a play by Alan Bennett subsequently made into a TV movie
• Cambridge Spies, a four-part BBC TV series