Cambridge Spies [Paperback]

Verne W. Newton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 1993

As World War II ended, dancing broke out in the streets of victorious capitals. But in Washington and Moscow, menacing ultimatums soon replaced declarations of common purpose. The music stopped, the Grand Alliance crumbled, and the Soviet Union and the United States squared off against one another. The victor in this war would be determined by the outcome of a series of geo-strategic battles. Which side would capture the Persian Gulfs oilfield's, and who would seize the Congolese uranium essential for the manufacture of atomic bombs? And whose air and naval bases would dominate the globe's vital traffic lanes from the Black Sea Straits to the Pacific Islands? Three British diplomats, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, and Guy Burgess, did everything in their power to see to it that the Soviet Union prevailed in these clashes. The Cambridge Spies is the first book to detail their behind-the-scenes effort to sabotage America's national security apparatus during the crucial period between 1945 and 1951 when each, at various times, served at the British embassy in Washington. The book is the result of many years of digging through the State Department and Foreign Office records overlooked by previous scholars and undiscovered by government officials responsible for "purging" such files. For the first time in history the reader can follow the Soviet spies as they work behind enemy lines to sabotage the machinery of Western foreign policy. It is also the first book written by an American on these fabled British spies, and the first to chronicle their most effective period as allied diplomats and enemy agents. The Cambridge Spies reveals the story Washington managed to cover up for forty years. Telling it at a time the work is beginning to relive the fiftieth anniversary of many of the events described in these pages will only add to its explosive impact, and spark new historical debates on issues of abiding interest and contemporary concern.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is the first book to detail the U.S. activities of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess. The period covered is 1944 to 1951, when the "Cambridge spies" served in the British embassy in Washington, D.C., while conducting highly effective espionage for the Soviets. The dominant figure in these suspenseful pages is Donald Maclean, whom former CIA director Richard Helms described as "the most valuable known Soviet agent ever to operate in the West." Freelance writer/filmmaker Newton reveals how Maclean provided Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin with a direct pipeline to important Western strategy conferences; at the same time he was exhibiting flagrantly self-abasing behavior in Washington social circles. Newton also describes Maclean's sensational escape with Burgess in 1951 as they defected to Moscow. (Philby joined them later.) Newton expertly guages the damage done to the West by this treacherous trio and attempts without much success to answer the nagging question of why they did it.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Burgess and Maclean and Philby and Blunt. Even in the post-Cold War world these names are a dark talisman, a brooding set of icons, for the darkest underside of the struggle of West against East. Their story has been told in countless books, films, and articles, and provides the real world backdrop for the novels of John Le Carre and Graham Greene. Newton's book is a first-class and well-researched addition to a generally good literature. It proposes new psychological ideas and facts, and most importantly casts bright new light on what these Establishment guys did in the United States. Recommended for spy and history collections.
- Henry Steck, SUNY Coll. at Cortland
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 462 pages
• Publisher: Madison Books (June 4, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568330065
• ISBN-13: 978-1568330068
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,632,365 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A flawed but valuable book, July 28, 2005

By 

A Reader (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cambridge Spies: The Untold Story of McLean, Philby, and Burgess (Hardcover)

This is a valuable book and essential reading for anyone interested in the subject. Newton has very obvious biases - his mean-spirited portrayal of Philby, for example - but he conducted many interviews with the remaining principals, did much research in the US files, came up with some interesting material on the crucial role of Maclean, and takes a thought-provoking look at the murky circumstances of Burgess and Maclean's defection. Newton is inclined to hyperbole and drama and goes off on some odd tangents, but his views are a useful corrective to the hyper-romantic view of the recent BBC television series, "Cambridge Spies." Worth checking out.

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Caveat Lector: Let the Reader Beware!, March 4, 2005

By 

F. S. L'hoir (Irvine, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cambridge Spies: The Untold Story of McLean, Philby, and Burgess (Hardcover)

Verne Newton's "Cambridge Spies: The Untold Story of Maclean, Philby and Burgess in America" makes for interesting, albeit frustrating reading. An otherwise engrossing account is vitiated by the author's evident bias against the antagonists of the title. For example, Kim Philby cannot enter the narrative without a nasty adjective and a snide comment with which Mr. Newton apparently hopes to convince his seemingly obtuse readers of the man's dastardly guilt. Always accepting the reports of Philby's detractors (e.g., Michael Straight; John Le Carre) as gospel and deploring the accounts of those (e.g., Phillip Knightley; Graham Greene) who ever had anything good to say about the man, the author causes the reader to wonder about the objectivity of the study. The very subtitle of the chapter on Philby, "The Drug of Deceit," seems designed to preclude any counter-arguments. Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean come off slightly better, their chapter subtitles being "The Pathos of Treachery" and the "Politics of Self-Loathing" respectively.

The author's analysis in respect to Philby is especially problematic. For example, he follows the information that by 1943 Philby had become head of SIS's Iberian section--Spain, Portugal, and Gibraltar--with a lengthy discourse upon the events surrounding the tragic plane crash of the Polish General Sikorski [witnessed, we are told gratuitously, by "the British actor Major Anthony Quayle"]. Mr. Newton then speculates: "If Philby had a hand in arranging Sikorski's death, it would have been by far his greatest wartime coup" [p. 57]. Checking the nearest footnote, we discover that the information derives from a secondary source: author Le Carre's "suggestion" that "Philby could possibly be implicated." [p. 373] Possibility seems to constitute wishful thinking rather than solid historical evidence.

The most annoying aspect of the book, however, is the author's propensity for asking really important questions and then not answering them. For instance, he wonders "why would the Soviets ever rely on someone so erratic, unpredictable and outrageous" as Guy Burgess? (Mr. Newton neglects to mention specifically by number the 4404 documents that Burgess supplied the Soviet Union, reducing them to "some valuable information." [p. 266] He passes over an even more vital question about the case: Why, if Guy Burgess was so out of control, did the Foreign Office send him to Washington, arguably its most important posting, instead of to some minor embassy where he could do a minimum of harm? The author's suggestion [p. 269], "[t]here must have been something about Burgess that caused otherwise sane people to take leave of their senses," hardly seems a satisfactory answer.