Guy Burgess

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 and resume illegal drug narcotics
• 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