Cambridge Five spies 'constantly drunk and bad at keeping secrets'

Newly released files suggest that members of “The Cambridge Five” spy ring were hopeless drunks incapable of keeping secrets.

16:30 07 July 2014

In 1930, five men including Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Kim Philby, and Anthony Blunt were recruited at Cambridge University as Soviet spies.

Based on newly released documents from the KGB's Mitrokhin Archive, Burgess was “constantly under the influence of alcohol.” Written in Russian, the report reads: "Once on his way out of a pub, he managed to drop one of the files of documents he had taken from the Foreign Office on the pavement.”

Meanwhile, Maclean was described as “not very good at keeping secrets” and a “constant drunk.” The file adds that there was evidence to suggest that he told one of his lovers and his brother that he worked as a Soviet agent.

The files also described how Burgess alone handed over 389 top secret documents to the KGB in the first six months of 1945 with a further 168 in December 1949.

The Cambridge Five passed information about the UK to the Soviet Union throughout the World War Two and into at least the 1950s.