The red and the blue: Cambridge, treason, and intelligence.

The Red and the Blue: Cambridge, Treason, and Intelligence

This group of Apostles centered onthe homosexual Mafia run by Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess. These two gents, with their co-traitors Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Leo Long, are also the topic of Andrew Sinclair's The Red and the Blue: Cambridge, Treason, and Intelligence. Or, rather, they are part of Mr. Sinclair's study, which could have been called A Tale of Two Cultures, taking a cue from C. P. Snow's discussion of the two opposed cultures, the humanistic and the scientific.

In this broad, readable, and fast-pacedaccount, the author assesses the impact on Western security and world peace of these two groups. On the one hand, there is the Apostles' passion for secrecy and their elitism, the loyalty to the group (exemplified in E. M. Forster's notorious comment, "If I had to choose between betraying my country and my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country"), which made them ideal spies.

On the other hand, there is the idealismof the scientists at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory (where the atom was split in 1932), who considered the free flow of scientific information far more important than the mind-boggling potential of their nuclear experiments. Mr. Sinclair clearly sympathizes with the scientists and their brave-new-world ambitions, displaying a rather simpleminded nostalgia for a pre-Hiroshima age of innocence.

In terms of practical application,Mr. Sinclair argues, the scientists won hands down; the secrets passed on by the spies who infiltrated the British security services, MI-5 and MI-6, were negligible by comparison with the information more or less openly circulated in the scientific community. (Donald Maclean, it was said, didn't know the difference between a cyclotron and a hairdrier.) The contribution of the scientific community derives largely from the decision by Ernest Rutherford to accept the brilliant young Soviet physicist Peter Kapitsa as his protege in 1921. Rutherford's only stipulation: That Kapitsa not mix politics with the study of physics!

In the course of his 13 years atCambridge, Kapitsa gathered invaluable knowledge in the fields of fission and atom research, which made him one of the founders of Soviet nuclear physics and an advisor on the making of Soviet atomic and hydrogen bombs. When he remained in the Soviet Union in 1934, unable to continue his research, his colleagues sent him the entire contents of his laboratory, complete with chairs, desks, clocks, and research assistants--all of which were in scarce supply in the workers' paradise. Suspecting that the British state might take umbrage at this proof of scientific brother feeling, his colleagues smuggled these items out of the country. So much for not mixing politics and science.

Concerning the Apostles, in contrast,the author writes, "Rarely . . . has so much been written about so few who achieved so little." This is surely unfair. The Cambridge traitors achieved a great deal, at least if the betrayal of a lot of hapless individuals counts--thousands of White Russians, for example, who, having fled Russia in 1919, were not covered by the Yalta agreement. Still, they were forcibly repatriated after World War II, partly through the agency of anthony Blunt.

Nor were their accomplishments minorwhen one considers the damage done to the British secret services. So securely entrenched were the moles that behavior indicating obvious security risks--drunkenness, debauchery, homosexuality--only resulted in their promotion to even more sensitive positions. The intelligence establishment was closing ranks to protect what it believed to be its own. As Harold Macmillan asserted in the House of Commons about Guy Burgess, "Until the day of his disappearance, there were no grounds for suspecting that he worked against the security of the state. He had been indiscreet, but then indiscretion is not generally the characteristic of a secret agent."

Mr. Sinclair shows much good sensein not trying to make these people cute or romatic, as many other recounters of their stories--such as Alan Bennett in his play an Englishman Abroad--have done. Far too often, the viciousness of treason is forgotten and forgiven by intellectuals in the West. At Gorbachev's recent forum on nuclear disarmament in Moscow, Graham Greene was observed slipping out quietly. It was said he wanted to pay Kim Philby a visit.