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Stalin's Englishman Guy Burgess, the Cold War, and the Cambridge spy ring

"Guy Burgess was the most important, complex, and fascinating of The Cambridge Spies--Maclean, Philby, Blunt--brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Bu...

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Main Author: Lownie, Andrew (Author)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: New York : St. Martin's Press, 2016.
Edition:First U.S. edition.
Subjects:
Burgess, Guy, > 1911-1963.
Spies > Great Britain > Biography.
Espionage, Soviet > Great Britain > History.
Intelligence service > Great Britain > History > 20th century.
British Broadcasting Corporation > Biography.
Great Britain. > Foreign Office > Biography.
Great Britain > Relations > Soviet Union.
Soviet Union > Relations > Great Britain.
Biographies.
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Summary:"Guy Burgess was the most important, complex, and fascinating of The Cambridge Spies--Maclean, Philby, Blunt--brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed to his Russian handlers. In this first full biography, Andrew Lownie shows us how even Burgess's chaotic personal life of drunken philandering did nothing to stop his penetration and betrayal of the British Intelligence Service. Even when he was under suspicion, the fabled charm which had enabled many close personal relationships with influential establishment figures (including Winston Churchill) prevented his exposure as a spy for many years. Through interviews with more than a hundred people who knew Burgess personally, many of whom have never spoken about him before, and the discovery of hitherto secret files, Stalin's Englishman brilliantly unravels the many lives of Guy Burgess in all their intriguing, chilling, colorful, tragi-comic wonder"--
Physical Description:xiv, 433 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
Bibliography:Includes bibliographical references (pages 337-414) and index.
ISBN:9781250100993
1250100992
Author Notes:ANDREW LOWNIE first became interested in the Cambridge Spy Ring when, as President of the Cambridge Union Society in 1984, he arranged an international seminar on the subject. After graduating from Cambridge University, where he won the Dunster Prize for History, Lownie went on to take a postgraduate degree in history at Edinburgh University. He is now a successful literary agent, and has written or edited several books, including a biography of John Buchan.

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