Burgess, Guy Francis de Moncy

(1910–1963)

   A Soviet agent and member of the Ring of Five, Burgess was recruited by an NKVD illegal shortly after leaving Cambridge in the early 1930s. His initial code name within the Soviet service was “Madchen” (Maiden), a cynical comment on his sexual promiscuity. A brilliant and witty raconteur, Burgess was an avowed homosexual who worked unsuccessfully for several British bureaucracies between 1938 and 1951.

   While a disaster as a member of the British governing establishment, Burgess was an asset for the NKVD both as a recruiter and an agent in place, providing detailed information about personalities and policies. Burgess brought a number of prospective agents to the attention of Soviet case officers, including Anthony Blunt.

   Burgess provided the Soviets with access to a variety of important political and intelligence policy makers. A cynical Soviet case officer noted in his report to Moscow that Burgess was a “cultural pederast who could exploit the mysterious laws of sex in this country.” Working in the Foreign Office in the years after World War II, he provided his case officers with thousands of classified documents. In 1950 he was transferred to the British embassy in Washington, where he lived with Kim Philby. In Washington, he became more and more of a diplomatic scandal.

   Facing exposure in 1951, Burgess left his post as a junior diplomat in Washington, returned to London, and warned Donald Maclean that the British and American governments had evidence of his treachery. He then defected with Maclean to Moscow. Burgess was resettled in the Soviet Union and nationalized as a Soviet citizen. Despite his desire to return to Britain, he died in exile in Moscow. Burgess has often been treated as a joke by a later generation of intelligence historians. He was, however, a good and ruthless spy. On one occasion he asked his Soviet case officer’s permission to murder another British agent he believed was preparing to turn him in.