Queen Elizabeth II was not informed of the presence of a Soviet spy in her palace, according to declassified MI5 files

LONDON — Queen Elizabeth II was not informed of the details of her longtime art adviser’s double life as a Soviet spy because palace officials did not want to add to her concerns, newly declassified documents reveal.

Files on royal art historian Anthony Blunt are part of a gold mine from the intelligence agency MI5 published Tuesday by the British National Archives. They shed new light on a spy ring linked to Cambridge University in the 1930s, whose members leaked secrets to the Soviet Union from the heart of Britain’s intelligence services.

Blunt, who worked at Buckingham Palace as a surveyor of the Queen’s photographs, was suspected for years before finally confessing in 1964 that, as a senior MI5 officer during the Second World War, he had passed secret information to Soviet agents.

In one of the newly released files, an MI5 officer notes that Blunt said he felt “profound relief” at having his burden offloaded. In exchange for the information he provided, Blunt was allowed to keep his job, his knighthood and his social status – and the Queen was apparently kept in the dark.

In 1972, her private secretary, Martin Charteris, told MI5 chief Michael Hanley that “the Queen did not know and he saw no advantage in telling her now; it would only add to his worries and there was nothing that could be done for him.

The government decided to tell the monarch in 1973, while Blunt was ill, fearing a media outcry once Blunt died and journalists could publish stories without fear of libel suits.

Charteris reported that “she took it all very calmly and without surprise” and “remembered that he had been suspected in the early 1950s.” Historian Christopher Andrew claims in the official history of MI5 that the Queen had already been briefed about Blunt in “general terms”.

Blunt was publicly unmasked as a spy by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons in November 1979. He was eventually stripped of his knighthood, but was never prosecuted and died in 1983 at the age of 75 years old.

Files held by British intelligence generally remain classified for several decades, but the agencies are gradually moving towards more openness. Some of the newly released documents will feature in an exhibition called ‘MI5: Official Secrets’, which will open at the National Archives in London later this year.

Two of the Cambridge spies, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, fled to Russia in 1951. A third, Kim Philbycontinued to work for MI6, the foreign intelligence agency, despite his suspicions. As evidence of his duplicity mounted, he was confronted in Beirut in January 1963 by his friend and fellow MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott.

The declassified files include Philby’s typed confession and a transcript of his discussion with Elliott.

In it, Philby admitted that he had betrayed Konstantin Volkov, a KGB officer who attempted to defect to the West in 1945, bringing with him information about moles within British intelligence – including Philby himself. Thanks to Philby’s intervention, Volkov was kidnapped from Istanbul, brought back to Moscow and executed.

Elliott reported that Philby said that if he had his life to lead again, he probably would have behaved the same way.

“I really felt an immense loyalty to MI6. I was treated very, very well there and made some really wonderful friends there,” Philby said, according to the transcript. “But the dominant inspiration was the other side.”

Philby told Elliott that the choice now that he was exposed was “between suicide and prosecution.” Instead, he fled to Moscow, where he died in 1988.

The Cambridge Spies have inspired myriad books, films and TV shows, including the 2023 series. A spy among friends“, with Guy Pearce as Philby and Damian Lewis as Elliott. Blunt was featured in a 2019 episode of “ The Crown», played by Samuel West.