INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Britains National Archives on Tuesdayreleased declassified MI5 domestic counterintelligence company files including the confessions of
infamous moles referred to as the Cambridge Five who spied for the Soviet Union.The release exposes brand-new information in the cases of
the Cambridge spies Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross, including their confessions, the government company said.The Soviets
recruited Philby, Blunt and Cairncross, in addition to Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, in the 1930s at Cambridge University
Russia honored Blunt in 2010 with a plaque at the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) head office in Moscow
Burgess and Maclean werehonored in 2019 with a memorial plaque in the city of Samara, where they lived for a number of years after defecting
Philbys partial confession in 1963 exposed that he had actually spied for the Soviet Union between 1932 and 1946
It included an admission that he outed Soviet intelligence officer Konstantin Volkov, who sought to problem to the U.K
before he and his wife were drawn from Turkey to Moscow and performed in 1945
Philby said in the transcripts that the overruling inspiration was the opposite [United States S.R.] for him in spite of his sensations of
tremendous loyalty to Britains MI6 spy agency, where he served as a high-ranking officer early in the Cold War.Blunt, an art historian and
the Surveyor of the Queens Pictures overseeing the official Royal Art Collection, admitted in 1964 that he had been a Soviet agent given
Blunt was a senior MI5 officer throughout World War II and passed large quantities of secret intelligence to his handlers from the KGB
Soviet spy agency.He was questioned numerous times after Maclean and Burgess ran away to the Soviet Union in the 1950s
Without a confession, he was enabled to keep his position at the heart of the British establishment until the early 1960s
Queen Elizabeth II was not told that Blunt had actually confessed he was a Soviet spy until 1973, when ministers ended up being concerned
that the fact would become public when Blunt died.He was publicly unmasked by previous Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a parliamentary
declaration in 1979 and he passed away 4 years later.Cairncross made his confession, including on his first encounters with Maclean, Burgess
and Philby, after being faced in 1964
The formerly secret files are being launched ahead of the opening of an exhibit concentrating on the work of MI5 at the National Archives in
West London.AFP contributed reporting.
