A Spectacular Failure with the Cambridge Five

Dear Readers, please, please accept my apologies. I know it's been some time since I posted a new review, but I do have a good excuse. I've been in Washington at the special request of the President helping him select the new Director of National Intelligence. Now those of you who know me well know I am not one to over-state my importance, so I must clarify that I was not performing a major role in Mr. Negroponte's selection. In fact, my duty was little more than helping George read the applications. Which for George is not an easy task, what with having to sound out each word and all.

Of course, this isn't the first time the US has involved me in intelligence operations on their own turf. The first mission I can remember undertaking back in Washington was in late 1950, when J Edgar Hoover contacted me to assist him with a little undertaking. Now for those of you familiar with J Edgar's personal interests, this request was enough to make one shudder. Being a true patriot, however, I swallowed my pride and went to see him, hoping pride would be all I'd be made to swallow.

Fortunately, J Edgar was in the mood for business. He'd just finished meeting with Kim Philby, the recently appointed British Secret Service liason to the CIA. J Edgar told me Philby seemed a likeable enough character, but he just didn't trust the British. His view was that their role in Washington was nothing to do with liason; rather it was about spying on American interests. He had men watching Philby, but needed someone to get close to another British diplomatic corp officer he suspected of spying. My mission was to get close to the First Secretary at the British Embassy, one Guy Burgess. I had never heard of this Burgess, but nevertheless accepted the task.

My cover was a State Department liason to the British Embassy. I made a call to Burgess, introduced myself and my new role, and requested a meeting. Burgess suggested the best place to meet would be at a local bar. I didn't think anything of this, knowing the British fondness for a good ale. Regardless, I still arrived early and cased the place. It was a dingy, British style pub, but quite good so far as discrete conversation went because it was smoky and noisy. I grabbed a pint of Guiness and settled into a booth which afforded me some privacy at the same time as giving me a good view of the room.

Some time later a somewhat dishelved man entered, wearing an Eaton tie and a pin-striped suit. I knew my mark from the dossier J Edgar had given me, so walked over and introduced myself. "Thoroughly charmed", Burgess announced, grabbing a Scotch and returning with me to the booth. I offered him a Don Leo Perfecto Robusto - the short black of cigars - and we chatted and smoked. One of the things I'll always remember about Burgess' appearance is that his suits were always the finest Saville Row cloth, yet they were always stained. It seemed to be a combination of cigar ash, scotch, and what I could only make out as semen.

After five minutes with Burgess I found him a thoroughly entertaining drunk, and a roving great homosexual. He said of one of the fatter embassy staffers, also gay, "I could never have sex with him. All that white flesh; it would be like sleeping with Dame Nellie Melba". He told me how he never travels by train: "I'm scared I'd seduce the driver and we'd crash". Despite the fact we'd met at noon, Burgess had no plans on returning to his office and kept drinking with me until well after sunset. He never attempted any seduction of me, fortunately, no doubt guessing from my masculine appearance that I was into the feminine form. I walked him to his car around 10pm, a garish pink Lincoln parked on the footpath outside the bar. He pulled the parking ticket from the windscreen, threw it on the floor, and drunkenly drove off yelling "Diplomatic immunity".

I continued to meet with Burgess throughout the winter, and attempted all I could to find out how much of a spy he was. He didn't seem to hide much; quite often, I would meet him for a drink and he'd bring along some young man who had become attached to him. Sometimes, these sex toys of his even wore dresses. It just wasn't the behaviour you'd except of a spy, and no matter how drunk he got he never once let slip. He was like a reverse James Bond and we all know James Bond could never have really existed as a spy because he stands out like dogs balls. And the modus operandi for a spy is to blend in.

Then on February 28, 1951, I was woken at 6am by Burgess. "Garr, my good man. I'm off to South Carolina to espouse my wisdom to the young lads at the Citadel, and I'd love you to join me for the trip", he announced. I grumbled all the way down to the car, telling him he was an idiot driving there (it was a good 500 mile trip from Washington). "Garr, have you no faith. I'm adequately supplied", he replied as he opened the trunk of that damn pink Lincoln to reveal a boot full of scotch, cigars and other intoxicants. I was due for a meeting at the FBI that morning, but I decided "Fuck 'em", grabbed a Montecristo A and a bottle of Glenfiddich and jumped in the passenger seat.

I knew Burgess took certain liberties with the whole diplomatic immunity thing, but he was on fire this day. He's swigging from the scotch bottle as we drive down the freeway at 100 miles an hour. I decide the only way my nerves will hold up on this journey is to drink some more, so I start swigging away in earnest. All of a sudden, he slams on the brakes and my scotch spills all over me. "What the fuck?", I ask as Burgess rapidly backs the car up. There on the side of the road is a young hitchhiker wearing a US Air Force uniform. "Jump in", Burgess offers.

Soon, the young airman, Jimmy as I recall, is happily drinking and smoking too. Little does the poor bastard know Burgess is sizing him up for later, but I somehow suspect Jimmy might not care. We are still flying along, when not twenty miles out of Washington the wail of a police siren comes up behind us. A motorcycle cop has pulled us over for speeding. Burgess just shows his diplomatic pass and off he goes. I later found out from J Edgar that the cop informed his boss, who in turn informed the FBI, who tailed us pretty much from this point. We got pulled over again in Virginia, this time doing 90 miles an hour past a military convoy, and again Burgess used his diplomatic status to evade a fine. Not long after this Burgess started to swerve randomly across the road as he drank. Jimmy and I decided he was too pissed to keep driving, and since Jimmy had drank the least we let him take the wheel. We were almost at Charleston when Jimmy did 110 miles an hour past a police car. Sirens blazing the cops gave chase. Jimmy floored it and off we went for about three miles before we convinced him to pull over. Jimmy tried to show his drivers' license to the cop, but Burgess started yelling from the back: "I'm the British ambassador you fool, and this man is my chauffeur. If you make an issue out of this, you declare war on England itself". Not suprisingly, this seemed to only piss the cop of and he confiscated Burgess' diplomatic pass and took us all down the local station.

Luckily for all of us a now almost paralyetic Burgess passed out at the station, and in his slumber was fined fifty dollars on the spot. Jimmy helped me take him to a hotel and then decided we were nothing but trouble and left. I threw Burgess in the shower and got him into bed, then went to my room and got some sleep myself.

Next morning Burgess headed to the Citadel for his speech. Considering his behaviour the day before I was expecting some more fireworks so gladly accompanied him. To my disappoint, however, he gave his speech straight and then made me drive him home as he slept.

When we arrived back in Washington, however, the fireworks were going off. His Ambassador, who never really liked him, had heard about the drinking binge and promptly shipped Burgess back to England. He didn't seem to mind too much though; at a pub across the road from the passenger terminal he met a nice young American man who was on the same boat. "Two queens on The Queen Mary, what more could I ask for?" Burgess smiled as he left.

I dutifully informed J Edgar of all this, and he told me the FBI's view was that Burgess was nothing more than a drunk. The behaviour was just too strange, he agreed, for a spy.

Time, it transpires, shows how wrong we were. In the late 1940s some idiot at the Soviet Embassy couldn't figure out how to use a one time pad properly, and left a flaw in their secret codes. The Australians, British and Americans cracked their code and figured out their messages, and not long after Burgess' departure it came out that he was part of the spy ring now known as the Cambridge Five. The whole method of his departure had been planned as a cover as to why he was so quickly leaving the US - he defected to the Soviet Union shortly after his return to London.

I missed the whole thing, and because of that failure a spy who had sent many men to their deaths with the information he passed had escaped. I am, however, not one that likes to fail, so once I heard about the defection I got to thinking how I could hunt him down and kill him. But that's another story...