Spies and the fight against Nazism

Sir — I read with interest David Blake-Knox’s review (Living, Sunday Independent, August 14) of a new book, Stalin’s Englishman, by Andrew Lownie, on the life and career of Cambridge spy, Guy Burgess. Two things irked me.

Your reviewer remarks that Burgess was able to “move effortlessly into the key institutions of the British Establishment . . .” which, he maintains, included ‘Oxbridge.’ Oxbridge is not of itself an institution, the word is a portmanteau word used to amalgamate Oxford and Cambridge universities.

Less trifling is Mr BlakeKnox’s reference to Anthony Blunt at Bletchley Park, giving away secrets ‘of the Nazi codes’. One may infer that the Enigma/ Ultra project is referred to here. But Blunt was never at Bletchley, to my knowledge. John Cairncross, revealed many years later as the alleged ‘fifth man,’ was, and is surely the man BlakeKnox means. Cairncross worked on the Enigma/Ultra project and allegedly passed decrypted German secrets to the Russians.

But Russia was an ally against Nazi Germany at the time, and it is held that Cairncross’s efforts enabled the Soviets to win the battle of Kursk. Was he, in these circumstances, a ‘spy?’

That’s a question to be decoded on another day. Fred Johnston Circular Road,

Galway David Blake-Knox writes: Fred Johnston is too literal-minded if he really thinks that anyone needs to be told that the term ‘Oxbridge’ refers to both Oxford and Cambridge. It is true that Cairncross provided information from Bletchley Park to Stalin’s Russia — but so did Blunt.