The Crown: These Were the Real-Life Spies Who Made Up the Cambridge Five

Donald Duart MacLean was a British diplomat who was recruited during his studies at Cambridge by the Soviet intelligence service due to his known communist/Marxist sympathies. Prior to World War II, he worked at the British embassy in Paris, where he was privy to information about British diplomacy with France and Germany; he passed that information on to his Soviet handlers. In the latter half of the 1940s, he was transferred to Washington DC, where his spying provided the Soviets with key information about American thermonuclear policy and capabilities.

He was eventually appointed head of the American department in the Foreign Office, but by then, he was widely suspected of being a spy. His Soviet handlers ordered him to defect in 1951, and he fled to Moscow, where he quickly assimilated and spent the next few decades working as an expert on Soviet-NATO relations and British policy.

Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess crossed paths with MacLean at Cambridge, as both espoused anticapitalist and pro-Marxist views. Unlike MacLean, however, Burgess had a more interesting route to the intelligence world, first working as a TV producer at the BBC before joining MI6 and, eventually, the British Foreign Office. He was recruited by Kim Philby and publicly renounced his communist views while actually beginning to work directly for the Soviets.

Despite his more volatile personality, Burgess was entrusted with important documents and information. He used his BBC position during the war to help produce pro-Soviet messageing, and once in the diplomatic service, he eventually followed Philby and MacLean to Washington, where he was privy to American war plans for Korea and committed several acts of misconduct. When an American investigation appeared to be coming close to unmasking MacLean, Burgess and MacLean both returned to London. Burgess fled with MacLean during his 1951 defection but struggled with personal and health afflictions. He died in 1963.

Anthony Blunt's exact entry into Soviet intelligence is disputed, but it always ties back to one thing: his relationship with Burgess. One of them recruited the other, although accounts vary as to which way it went. The two men met at Cambridge and became close friends; both were known to be gay, and they may have had a romantic relationship as well. During World War II, Blunt worked for the Security Service, MI5, and passed intelligence from decrypted German broadcasts to the Soviets. That intelligence, from Operation Ultra, was intensely secretive and sensitive.

When Burgess and MacLean defected, Blunt was distraught. His own actions were not revealed until 1963, when an American he'd recruited turned him in. He confessed in 1964 and also named other spies, including John Cairncross, the Bletchley Park operative he'd brought in for the Ultra mission. In return for this full confession, he was granted immunity, and his spying was kept secret for 15 years. In 1979, Margaret Thatcher revealed Blunt's spying; his career ended immediately, and he died in 1983.