…by the Beeb, natch:
When will the BBC ever tell the truth about Anthony Blunt?
Charles Moore reviews an edition of The Reunion (Radio 4) that focused on the disgraced art critic and his treachery...
The Reunion propagated the theory that spying for the Soviets in the Thirties and Forties was nothing worse than an excess of zeal. This is a shocking untruth. Hitler and Stalin were moral equivalents. Indeed, at the time when Blunt signed up for the Soviet Union, Stalin had actually killed far more people than Hitler because the Führer was only just getting into his stride. The BBC would (rightly) never dream of making a programme which sought to excuse traitors who worked for the Nazis.
In our generation, Blunt’s equivalents are the intellectual apologists for Islamist extremism. No doubt it will turn out that some of them worked secretly for countries like Iran, and no doubt, in due time, the BBC will laud them too.
The audio is here should you choose to suffer the Beebism.
My God, how mad people are for forgiving the evil of communism.
On principle, these men should have been executed for their crimes.
What’s 6 million dead Ukranians when the whitewashing of Blunt is at stake?
Somewhere, Walter Duranty is smiling and his Pullitzer, earned on an ocean of misery and blood, is still proudly on display in the New York Times building.
Don’t forget that at a time when many British communists were spying for the Soviet, Russia and Germany actually had a treaty in place, complete with plans for partitioning and spheres of influence. Russia wasn’t an ally until well into the war, and was never a friend of Britain. This whole assertion is just an attempt at rationalization, and it only works if you’re ignorant of history.
Britanistan is pretty much communist on its way to sharia anyway. Why would the BBC fret about the angels of social justice and an equal share of nothing for everyone?
Interesting,I’ve just started an old book by William Stevenson called ,”Intrepid’s Last Case”,about Sir William’s battle against the communists starting in 1945,right after WW2 concluded.
First guy mentioned is Igor Gouzenko,who defected to Canada,and was being completely mishandled by Mac and his minions.
I sometimes wonder how many of the Lefties around today secretly wish the other side had won the cold war.
Hey, I haven’t listened yet, but I have a politically incorrect question: If sexual orientation is entirely hardwired, how come almost all the Harrow/Eton – Cambridge spies were gay? Could it be something to do with the way those schools were run? Am I allowed to wonder?
“Somewhere, Walter Duranty is smiling…”
I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with you slightly, Fred. You can’t smile in hell.
What the hell did these bastards have to give back aside from basic loyalty to civilization – given their immense priviledges? I’m not class-obsessed, but Blunt should have been shot, or worse, sentenced to life, in a real prison. That would have been salutary.
The world is not a playground for these brats.
(p.s. XXOO Maggie!!!)
English media cannot sink much lower…a nation of cowards has replaced the brave men and women who kept the light of freedom burning though the dark days of WWII. People who refused the ‘lure’ of the looting Bolsheviks because they valued their guns and Bibles and Independence more than the idea of getting a slice of their wealthier neighbours’ property
Just exactly what Fred said, and to ‘Walter’ in Hell, I’d add other traitors in the west and the devil, himself.
Black Meamba: Philby seems to have been pretty straight; the Fifth Man, John Cairncross, certainly was and did not attend an English public school–though his Scottish school seems somewhat similar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamilton_Academy#Notable_alumni
Mark
Ottawa
A book titled “Spy Catchers” written by Peter Wright is an excellent source of information about the spy ring. I believe it was written in the 70’s or early 80s. Wright was a high official in MI 5. Wikapedia has a good summary of the book and of Peter Wright. I’ve read the book several times and each time found some new realization. Wright did the original interrogations of Blount.
The moral hypocrisy is due to the fact that during a very brief period in history — 1939-1945 — anyone who opposed Communism was considered pro-Nazi, and anyone who opposed Nazism was considered pro-Communist. That ideological paradigm was defined by the reality of WWII.
But it’s totally misleading to apply the paradigm post-WWII, and only serves the delusions of hangers-on who still believe that either Communism or Nazism had anything worthwhile to offer the world. The permutations in both ideologies evident in the contemporary political reality completely defy the former paradigm; for example, neo-Nazis are more than happy to support anything that reeks of anti-Semitism such as the Palestian Hamas, the latter of which is likewise supported by the Commie Left (Palestinian militants also recieved support, training, and ideological orientation from the former Soviets). Nazism and Communism (and Islamo-fascism) are moral equivalents.
They are also members of a “mutual admiration club” — once I was having a political discussion with a Latin American Communist and when the topic turned to Nazism he surprisingly expressed admiration for Hitler. My Commie friend also happened to be a Black man, so I said to him: “How could you possibly admire Hitler?; Hitler was a racist and hated Blacks!” His reply was: “I’ve read Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ and I admire the Nazis for their apprehension of power. As a Communist I admire Hitler for his sheer raw power.”
Tyrannies admire and respect other tyrannies.
“When will the BBC ever tell the truth about Anthony Blunt?” The answer is never, as the BBC is one of the groups that secretly wishes the Soviet Union had won. You can include the CBC in that category also. Both organizations are still acting as fifth columnists to make Britain and Canada soviet states. Although the Islamists are going to contest this.
If I recall correctly Robert Service’s and Robert Conquest’s fathers were among that group of British communists at Cambridge, but saw the error of their ways and their sons wrote about the evils of Communism. I believe Martin Amis may also be in that group.
Walter Duranty aided and abetted the murder of tens of millions. He knew what was happening but because of his friendship with Stalin ignored the genocide. So typical of lefties.
“Harvest of Sorrows”, by Robert Conquest, plus thirteen other books on the topic including “Where Marx Went Wrong”.
“Comrades”, by Robert Service
Mark – Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting gay = spy. However: There was a serious homosexual undercurrent with these Cambridge spy brats (which is all they were – brats).
It’s not about disliking gays (which I don’t); but there is a question as to why the upper-class schools in Britain produced gay spy rings.
Blunt was gay. Burgess too. The rest – I can do “probably” or “possibly” or “probably not”, but I won’t, because short of real research I’d have to just google stuff and that’s no proof. But yes, there is a homosexual undercurrent which traces back to British “public” (i.e. private) schools of a certain generation.
It always seemed to me that top British schools were almost designed to cultivate homosexual tendencies in schoolboys. Christopher Hitchens (happily married, twice) has talked about this. So did Evelyn Waugh. That’s just off the top of my head. I won’t apologize – and I’ll do the research if I have to – for suggesting that limey public schools’ weirdo attitude to sexuaity might have been a factor in the Cambridge spy ring’s attitude to treason. I have no axe to grind at all, but there is at least an overlap. Or at the very least, a statistical anomoay.
…anomaly.
BM, one of the reasons so many spies for the Russians were gay is that the Russkies targetted homosexuals at the universities,set them up in compromising positions,and blackmailed them into cooperation.
The NKVD/KGB files are probably full of photos of useful idiots buggering one another.
Black Mamba
“But yes, there is a homosexual undercurrent which traces back to British “public” (i.e. private) schools of a certain generation”
From what I have heard that is consistant..
Public schools….actually private schools such as Eaton….not sure why private schools were called public schools…..english….
Black Mamba, Niall Ferguson in his book “Empire” also talks about the number of late 1800s and early 1900s gay military and political leaders produced in the British public schools.
In Harvest of Sorrow, Robert Conquest mentions the pro-Soviet New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty on page 265. On other pages, Conquest goes on to say that after Chamberlain (Joe?), Eugene Lyons, Malcolm Muggeridge and in particular Gareth Jones, a former secretary of Lloyd George made public their findings of Stalin’s genocide, Duranty and other correspondents libeled them. Then later when the evidence became overwhelming public, Duranty characterized the reports as gross exaggerations.
At the time of the recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States, Duranty at a banquet at the Waldorf Astoria, was given prolonged loud applause. The New York Times in their 1983 Annual Report mentions the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Duranty for ‘marked by scholarship,profundity, impartiality, sound judgement and exceptional clarity’.
“not sure why private schools were called public schools”
Simple.
Because they could be attended by the children of any member of the public who paid the necessary school fees.
They still are.
And it’s “Eton”, not “Eaton”.
Quoting from Chapman Pincher’s book; Trachery.
He summarizes the importance of Blunt’s treason:
“Recently his KGB record has shown he had given the Russians 1771 MI5 documents, some of them entire files”. “He made a deliberate choice to undermine his own country’s security at a time when Britain was in danger of invasion by Stalin’s ally Hitler”.
Unlike McLean, Burgess and Philby, Blunt never had to escape to the pleasures of the Soviet worker’ paradise. Because of gross incompetence by MI5 he was allowed to retain his position and privliges, untill outed by journalists. He was never charged with anything. He was a deadly traitor to Britain and its allies.
Another reason is Blunt is a remote relative of the Queen, through her mother (third cousin?).
Being a science fiction nerd, I’ve often tried to imagine what aliens bent on destroying Humanity would do. Easiest way is to get us to destroy each other. Easiest way to do that is a weapon that can be transmitted in a message, kind of like a mind-reprogramming virus that spreads itself.
Communism qualifies as a first-cut at a weapon like that. True Believers like Blunt are perfectly happy to see MILLIONS of people killed to establish a regime that will starve most of those that didn’t die already. That’s not an ideology, that’s a WMD.
Blunt himself, useful idiot to the very end, has his just reward waiting for him. Gonna leave a mark, I bet.
Anthony Blunt: an appalling man, but a great guy to share a smoke with…