The Cambridge Five - Five Men, One Betrayal, Thirty Years

Send us Fan MailEpisode Title: The Cambridge Five — Five Men, One Betrayal, Thirty YearsSeason 1, Episode 7 — The Spies & Secret WarsEvery story this season has been about deception aimed outward — at Nazi Germany. This one is different.Five men. Recruited as students at Cambridge University in the early 1930s. Educated at one of the finest universities in the world. Trusted completely by the British establishments they entered — the Foreign Office, MI5, MI6, and Bletchley Park itself.For decades, they passed everything they learned to Moscow.Kim Philby rose to become head of MI6's counter-Soviet operations — the man responsible for stopping Soviet espionage, who was himself a Soviet agent. Donald Maclean gained access to the most sensitive Anglo-American atomic intelligence discussions of the war. Anthony Blunt walked through Bletchley Park and handed decoded German signals intelligence to Moscow at the same time it was shortening the war for the Allies. John Cairncross worked at Bletchley Park directly. And Guy Burgess was everywhere, passing everything.They weren't recruited for money. They were recruited in the 1930s — when fascism was rising, when the Spanish Civil War was burning, when communism looked to many intelligent young people like the only serious response to what was coming. That context doesn't excuse what followed. But it explains how it began.What followed cost real people their lives.This is the episode that changes the shape of the entire season — and sets up the finale.In this episode, Amanda and Harry unwind one of the most significant intelligence failures in the history of the Western world.Send your thoughts and story ideas to [email protected] us at www.beststorypublishing.com