Donald MacLean: The First of the Cambridge Five

some of the most iconic cold war-era movies like James Bond seventeen moments of spring or The Manchurian Candidate leave us a collective memory of a conflict defined by espionage and spy craft and with on-the-ground warfare sequestered to proxy conflicts much of the actual conflict of the Cold War outside geopolitics was a war of information information gathered by sophisticated spy networks so today we're going to start to look at some of the most famous Soviet spies of the entire war the Cambridge five they were so successful and so prolific they've inspired dozens of documentaries and books like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy who were these people and how were they so successful that one spy even made his way to Buckingham Palace we're going to cover all of this over a few videos we'll explore the wild lives of some of these legendary spies oh hey that rhymes I'm your host David and this is the story of the Cambridge five begins in the 1930s in well Cambridge the British University I know this might be a shock but the details of how the ring was able to recruit its members is still to this day unclear Russia doesn't seem to be forthcoming and mi5 and mi6 don't seem too keen on explaining how a spy ring operated under their noses for decades without their notice either in fact papers unearthed in 2015 show that li5 and mi6 went to quite a frantic effort to cover up how they were so incapable of catching them for so long either way that people who would become the Cambridge five had turned into communists in the 1930s they weren't alone and to understand why we need to look at the period they were living in the 30s was a time of great economic turmoil to put it mildly they don't call it the Great Depression for nothing many people saw the crash as a sign of capitalism failing and the relative success of the USSR in the 1930s seemed too many a positive example to emulate going forward in the UK specifically the Liberal government of Neville Chamberlain drew a lot of frustration by appeasing the growing ambitions of fascist Germany and it was in this context that the Cambridge five were recruited by the NKVD the precursor to the KGB the USSR spying and espionage organisation each of the five and possibly more men recruited into this firing attended Cambridge and would go off into various important segments of British society I suppose there's not much more to do except to go into each member and their stories for this video we're going to look at one particular member of the Cambridge five Donald MacLean no not the folk singer no not the basketball player yes a spy this Donald MacLean became a communist in spinal years of Cambridge the timeline we have is somewhere in the period of 1933 to 1934 based on a book review he wrote in the journal Cambridge left a prominent leftist publication he became a radical involved in university politics in his senior year he was recruited to become a spy through a Hungarian priest turned Soviet agent his instructions were clear to back down from radical politics and get into the Diplomatic Service where he'd relay information to the Kremlin after graduation he did just that and joined the Foreign Office quickly he started working in the Foreign Office focused on matters to deal with Western Europe and the League of Nations there he kept watch on the response of League committees to the Spanish Civil War as well as fleece many high-level officials for confidential secrets and it appears he was pretty good at it but then an interruption his handler the former priest who recruited him and activates his point of contact with the USSR of man he only knew as Theo returned to Moscow where Stalin's government had him arrested and executed on dubious charges he was replaced by the wife of Communist Party USA s leader Kitty Harris they've meet after work and exchanged documents over two years he smuggled more than 40 boxes of confidential papers to relate to the Soviet Union in 1938 McLain received a big promotion and an assignment to Paris there he worked with in the British Embassy trying without much success to work his way into diplomatic high society he was however privy to the top secret negotiations between France in the UK about checking the power of the Germany MacLean was able to give the Soviets documents on what the British knew about Nazi Germany as well as what was going on between Britain and France even informing them of plans to intervene in the Soviet Union's war in Finland during the Warriors he'd married American debutante Melinda Marlin they literally had their wedding as the Germans approached Paris and escaped Britain on a merchant boat they returned to London where MacLean continued his work at the Foreign Office becoming an expert on the management of the British war economy during this time he still sent information and reports to Moscow Melinda MacLean became a ticket for him into the high seas he previously coveted as she came from a wealthy family their social life helped him receive a promotion as second secretary for the British Embassy in the United States so in 1944 the couple moved to Washington DC for four years McClane worked in Washington eventually receiving another promotion to first secretary he was known as a particularly hard worker and he hustled to get into the more and more smoke-filled rooms to pass on critical information to Moscow there McClane was able to send tons of diplomatic cables between the UK and US to the USSR every week he traveled to New York City to deliver all the documents to a handler from the NKVD near the end of McLean's assignment he even got into the combined policy committee where the US Canada and the UK were developing atomic policies though he never lead to nuclear designs he did manage to sneak out information like how much of crucial materials were needed for bombs he also exposed post-war plans for NATO Berlin and Greece major early flare-ups for the Cold War there was one moment during his tenure in Washington where he was almost uncovered an article published with secret information in the newspaper led to the FBI putting the British Embassy under surveillance spotting McClane at a gay bar led them to conclude that he was a secret homosexual being blackmailed for leaks they also learned that he drank heavily and did have random sexual encounters with men but they never found out he worked for the Soviets so they dropped the investigation without finding out that he was actually a spy in 1948 McClane was reassigned to Cairo this time as the youngest councilor in the Foreign Service an important position in and of itself but it meant he had trouble regularly communicating with Moscow as well he started to get into drunken altercations eventually trashing a staffers apartment whether this decline in the state was due to his double life as a spy or Molina's pher with an Egyptian aristocrat well it's anyone's guess whether it was this or there growing suspicion by both the US and UK intelligence he found himself pushed back to a desk job in London they put him in charge of the American Department of the Foreign Office he could they're send information about the state of the anglo-american alliance in the late 1940s in 1950 he was even in attendance at an emergency summit between US President Truman and UK Prime Minister Attlee there they debated using nuclear weapons in the Korean War and McClane was there the whole time taking notes but this high point would also be a final point for him between 1945 and 1951 the US and UK began to decipher the code used by the USSR spy networks sometime during that decryption they discovered that the spy was working for the Soviets by the codename Homer McClane was one of nine possible subjects in 1945 but it wasn't until he was serving back in London that he received warning that they were on to him on May 25th 1951 he said goodnight to his family and left in a car to begin an escape to Moscow they took a boat across the channel to France and disappeared there was a massive media storm about it and it wouldn't be for five more years that the USSR acknowledged that Don MacLean was there his post spy life doesn't have a whole lot to write home about he lived as a citizen of the Soviet Union and eventually became a specialist on NATO's Soviet relations about a year after his disappearance his family reunited with him Melinda and Donald MacLean had a rocky often on marriage he was abusive and drank heavily she eventually left Donald and Moscow in 1979 all of his kids left the Soviet Union as well moving to the UK and United States McClane himself died of pneumonia in 1983 the Cold War was hardly ever actually cold we've talked a lot about one major front of proxy Cohn like breaking out across the world as it decolonized but in a very real way the Cold War was one of intelligence and international politics spies were as close to a frontline as we get for the principal belligerence big stories of spies like that of Don McClane give us glimpses into this world which we don't often see many things about spy craft are kept secret to this very day and so as you can imagine historians get very few views into this world we'll be coming back to the Cambridge five again soon as we discuss the life of Kim Philby another member of the five who also has a wild story we hope you've enjoyed today's topic and to make sure you don't miss future episodes please make sure you subscribe to our Channel and have oppressed the bell-bottom we can be reached via email at the Cold War channel at gmail.com we're also active on Facebook and Instagram at the Cold War TV if you enjoy our work consider supporting us via wwp tree ENCOM slashed the Cold War or through YouTube membership this is the cold war channel and don't forget the travel with the Cold War is that it doesn't take too long before it becomes heated

Channel: The Cold War

Views: 52,672

Rating: 4.9665146 out of 5

Keywords: Tito, Stalin, Cold War, josip broz tito, soviet union, stalin documentary, kings and generals, operation unthinkable, the cold war, soviet, world war II, USSR, US, America, capitalism, west, east, us, ussr, un, reconstruction, pows, hungary, china, vietnam, marshal plan, stalin, france, nato, united states, denazification, uk, malenkov, khrushchev, dulles, eisenhower, Miles Copeland, Egypt, Allen Dulles, Kermit Roosevelt, suez crisis, warsaw pact, east germany, maclean, cambridge five, spy, double agent

Id: 6ehpL6b8ytQ

Length: 11min 18sec (678 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 27 2020