MR. Anthony Blunt

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 5:07 pm on 21 November 1979.

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Photo of Mr Robert Rhodes James Mr Robert Rhodes James , Cambridge 5:07, 21 November 1979

One of the first major debates that I attended in this House was on 7 November 1955, when, in an atmosphere of embarrassment and unease, the whole question of the defections of Maclean and Burgess was debated. It was a very strange experience for me recently to re-read that debate and to be reminded of the atmosphere of that occasion, which many of my right hon. and hon. Friends will remember. There was a very profound willingness in the House on that occasion, almost exactly 24 years ago, to believe that this was the end of an episode that had done very great harm to our national reputation, to that of the Foreign Service and the secret service and to our relations with our allies, particularly the United States. Alas, it was not the end of that episode.

The House, 24 years ago, was also obsessed by the problem of balancing the duties of the State, in a dangerous world, against a menacing and powerful enemy, with the rights of the individual in a free society. That dilemma also remains with the House today.

I remind the House of some of the words said by the then Foreign Secretary, Mr. Harold Macmillan, in that debate: Action against employees, whether of the State or anybody else, arising from suspicion and not from proof may begin with good motives, and it may avert serious inconveniences or even disasters, but, judging from what has happened in some other countries, such a practice soon degenerates into the satisfaction of personal vendettas or a general system of tyranny, all in the name of public safety."—[Official Report, 7 November 1955; Vol. 545, c. 1487.] That same dilemma, as I have said and as the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) emphasised, remains.

Let me say at once that I fully recognise why it was that members of that generation in the 1930s, and not only in Cambridge, repelled as they were by the menace of Facism, by the pusillanimity of the then National Government and the irrelevance of the then Labour Party, should see in the Soviet Union and Communism a force against that Facism, and a force sanctified, or apparently sanctified, by a form of intellectual respectability. I understand that.

However, there are differences between those and others, who, having taken that view and joined the Communist Party, saw the realities, first, in the cynicism of the Soviet intervention in the Spanish Civil War and, secondly, the events of September 1939—the pact with Nazi Germany, the invasion of East Poland, Finland and the Baltic States. At that moment most of those involved recognised the reality of what they had been flirting with. But there were, alas, those who not only retained their idealistic faith in this evil creed—as evil and undistinguishable in its evil from that of Nazi Germany against which we were fighting—but maintained it and furthermore, remained as agents for that nation.

The House hardly needs to be reminded of the fact that for nearly two years, between September 1939 and June 1941, the Soviet Union was the warm ally and assistant of Nazi Germany, against which we were fighting for our very survival.

For different reasons these men remained—during the war and afterwards—in the service of an enemy nation that was only temporarily, and very reluctantly, our ally. Maclean, Burgess, Philby and Blunt were among their number.