Queen kept ignorance about palace traitor for years, MI5 diaries reveal

Queen Elizabeth II was not officially informed for almost a decade that one of her most senior courtiers had confessed to being a Soviet spy, according to newly released MI5 files.

Art historian Anthony Blunt was the Queen’s painting surveyor for decades, overseeing the official collection of royal art. He admitted in 1964 that he had been a Soviet agent since the 1930s.

Documents released by MI5 show that although Blunt admitted to them that he had spied for the Russians during the Second World War, the late Queen herself was not officially informed for almost nine years.

When briefed on the full story in the 1970s, she was unfazed, taking it all “very calmly and without surprise,” according to declassified files turned over to the National Archives.

The decision to formally inform the Queen came amid growing fears in Whitehall that the truth would inevitably be revealed following Blunt’s death from serious cancer. Journalists were already investigating the matter and were no longer bothered by concerns about defamation.

Suspicion first fell on Blunt in 1951, when fellow spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to the Soviet Union.

He was a close friend of Burgess since their time together at Cambridge in the 1930s – part of the so-called Cambridge Five spy group.

During the Second World War, Blunt had worked for MI5; after 1951 he was interrogated 11 times by the security service, but always denied any espionage activity.

Then American Michael Straight told the FBI that he had been recruited by Blunt himself as a Russian agent.

In April 1964, MI5 interrogator Arthur Martin confronted Blunt and promised him immunity from prosecution.

His full confession is included for the first time in these files. As well as acknowledging his wartime work, he admitted to being in contact with Russian intelligence after the war.

Blunt said he met a Russian named Peter before Burgess and Maclean left, but he could not remember exactly why. He said the so-called Peter also encouraged him to flee, but he refused.

The interrogator said Blunt was “uncomfortable” as he spoke and that each question “was followed by a long pause” while he “appeared to be debating with himself about how to ‘answer it’.

Despite Blunt’s important position, few people outside MI5 were informed of these confessions. The Minister of the Interior and his most senior official have been informed.

The Queen’s private secretary was only informed that Blunt had been involved and that MI5 intended to question him.

It was agreed that if Blunt became seriously ill, she would be officially informed, as this could result in media coverage of her past.

In March 1973, another note in the file indicates that the Queen’s private secretary had spoken to her about the Blunt affair. It reads: “She took all this very calmly and without surprise: she remembered that he had been suspected well after the Burgess/Maclean affair.”

Miranda Carter, Blunt’s biographer, said her “hunch” was that Elizabeth II had been informed informally sometime after 1965.

She believes those responsible “wanted to keep a curtain of plausible deniability.” The fact that the monarch took the news “calmly and without surprise” suggests to Carter that she must have known.

Blunt’s past was finally revealed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a statement to the Commons in 1979. He died in 1983 at the age of 75 after being stripped of his knighthood.

• Cambridge spy Kim Philby said he would have started all over again after finally admitting he had been a Russian agent for years.

• Blunt feared that his KGB agent would become violent if he refused to join fellow spies Burgess and Maclean and flee to Russia.

• Film star Dirk Bogarde has been warned by MI5 that he could be the target of a gay “entrapment” attempt by the KGB.

• MI5’s main interrogator was baffled by Philby, admitting he could not determine whether he was a Soviet spy.

Unlike government departments, MI5 is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. He distributes his archives as he wishes and certain files are partially redacted.

Some of the documents made public today will be the subject of an upcoming exhibition at the National Archives.

MI5 Director General Sir Ken McCallum said: “While much of our work must remain secret, this exhibition reflects our ongoing commitment to being open wherever we can. »