Douglas-home kept in dark over Soviet spy
Home Secretary didn’t want to burden Tory PM with immunity deal for ‘fourth man’ in spy ring
Sir Alec Douglas-home, the former Conservative prime minister, was kept in the dark by his own home secretary about the immunity from prosecution offered to Anthony Blunt, files released from the National Archives show. Henry Brooke, home secretary from 1962-1964, wrote in a letter to Margaret Thatcher in 1979 that he did not brief Douglas-home on the Soviet spy to avoid adding to his “burdens”. Mrs Thatcher disclosed the details of Blunt’s treason after taking office.
FOR decades, historians and politicians have speculated about who knew exactly what about the Cold War spy scandal that rocked the heart of the establishment.
The truth about the Cambridge spy ring was only partially blown open when Margaret Thatcher revealed in 1979 that Anthony Blunt, the British art historian, had been the “fourth man”.
Blunt had always maintained after his confession during the Sixties that Sir Alec Douglashome, the prime minister, personally guaranteed him immunity from prosecution for admitting his treachery and naming names.
But government papers released today disclose that Douglas-home was kept in the dark by his own home secretary, because of fears it would “burden” him.
A series of letters, released by the National Archives, that were sent to Downing Street after Mrs Thatcher’s disclosures about Blunt showed the extent to which the espionage scandal was hushed up. Even she was careful not to say how much the government of the day knew about Blunt’s role.
Henry Brooke, the home secretary between 1962 and 1964, who later became Lord Brooke of Cumnoor, wrote to Mrs Thatcher to thank her for her “kind words” about him when she made Blunt’s confession public.
In 1979, the peer wrote: “I have written to Alec [Douglas-home] to explain why in April 1964 I did not bring him in on what was happening about Blunt, and to say how sorry I am if in my well-meant effort not to add to his burdens I may, with hindsight, have exercised my discretion wrongly.”
In return for Blunt’s confession, the wartime MI5 “operative” was granted immunity from prosecution and allowed to continue his academic work.
He admitted being an agent of Russian intelligence and talent-spotted for them at Cambridge in the Thirties. He also helped with the defections of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.
Mrs Thatcher’s decision to reveal Blunt’s treason was, in part, an attempt to underline how politicians, rather than the civil servants, should decide what is released into the public domain.
In her 1979 statement, Mrs Thatcher said that the security services fulfilled their obligation of telling Brooke of Blunt’s 1964 confession. However, while she said there was “no record” of the minister discussing the matter with the prime minister of the day, she stopped short of saying her predecessor was kept in the dark. However, she did say that after 1967, “successive” prime ministers and home secretaries were informed of Blunt’s confession.
A letter written by the former prime minister, then Lord Home, in 1990 to Andrew Turnbull, Mrs Thatcher’s principal private secretary, reads: “My memory is pretty faulty, but I wasn’t told about Blunt’s activities before the knowledge was public property [in 1979].”