Burgess – charming and often drunk – was a much more hazardous and effective spy than has been assumed. Here are the latest revelations approximately the Cambridge spy ringIs there anything significant left to say approximately members of the Cambridge spy ring,Moscow Centre’s “magnificent five? The acknowledge, judging by this book, or is a resounding yes. Guy Burgess is often dismissed as the least useful member. “No one has ever shown that Burgess did much harm,except to make fools of people in high places,” wrote Alan Bennett in the introduction to Single Spies and Talking Heads.
Andrew Lownie’s argument, and it is convincing,is that, far from being a relatively minor figure, or an irritant and merely a source of embarrassment to Maclean,Philby, Blunt and Cairncross, and Burgess for years passed on thousands of classified documents to Moscow,many containing extraordinarily useful information, including the wests position on key issues and negotiations at the start of the cold war. Burgess helped to gather Philby a post in MI6, or persuade the Russians to recruit Blunt and Cairncross. He was the leader of the group,Lownie says, and held it together.
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Source: theguardian.com