| |
Ukrainian-born baroness, Moura Budberg, She married her second husband,
Baron Budberg, in Estonia; later she fled to join the Russian writer Maxim
Gorky, whose mistress she became
Moving to London in the early 1930s, she quickly established an intellectual
salon frequented by her latest lover, H G Wells, the filmmaker Alexander
Korda, for whom she worked, and George Bernard Shaw. Her social circle
extended to Duff Cooper, the War Minister, through to Anthony Eden, then
Foreign Secretary
By Neil Tweedie and Peter Day
London Telegraph
November 28, 2002
MI5 was warned as early as 1951 that Anthony Blunt was a member of the
Communist Party and friend of a suspected Soviet agent.
The Security Service learned of Blunt's associations in an interview with a
Ukrainian-born baroness, Moura Budberg - who in London became a Left-wing
socialite and suspected Soviet agent - immediately after Guy Burgess and
Donald Maclean fled to Moscow.
Burgess had been a regular guest at Budberg's flat in Knightsbridge, central
London, and she became a central figure in the panic surrounding the two
spies' defection.
Jona "Klop" Ustinov, father of the entertainer Peter and an MI5 agent, was
sent to find out what she knew.
He reported: "The most startling thing Moura told me was that Anthony Blunt,
to whom Guy Burgess was most devoted, is a member of the Communist Party."
A month earlier an unidentified source had told MI5 that Blunt was even
closer to Moura than Burgess.
Only in 1963 did Blunt confess his treachery under interrogation. He was
promised immunity and his role in the Cambridge spy ring was made public
only in 1979.
The files on the baroness date back to 1918 when she was the Russian
mistress of the British diplomat Robert Bruce Lockhart, who was jailed in
Moscow for attempting to organise the overthrow of the Bolshevik regime.
She married her second husband, Baron Budberg, in Estonia, but left him
within months. After being cleared of spying, she fled to join the Russian
writer Maxim Gorky, whose mistress she became.
Moving to London in the early 1930s, she quickly established an intellectual
salon frequented by her latest lover, H G Wells, the filmmaker Alexander
Korda, for whom she worked, and George Bernard Shaw.
Valentine Vivian, deputy head of MI6, dismissed allegations that she was a
Russian agent, but by 1940 was beginning to suspect her. By then her social
circle extended to Duff Cooper, the War Minister, through to Anthony Eden,
then Foreign Secretary.
London Telegraph, UK, November 28, 2002
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F11%2F28%2Fnpro528.xml
|
|
back
