Skip to content
Many wondered if he would turn up in Moscow – but unlike the other members of the Cambridge Spy Ring, he chose not to defect to Russia.Instead, he was hiding out at home in London with his long-term partner John Gaskin, lying low with the lights off until his friend and former pupil Brian Sewell was able to smuggle the two of them out.Blunt then agreed to speak with a select few journalists, including “It had nothing to do with homosexuality and it was, as I say, a matter of belief,” Blunt responded.“Do you now regret having made that decision?” Morris asked.Blunt responded: “Very much.
She publicly Anthony Blunt’s memoirs were only released to the public in July of 2009. Sign in to manage your newsletter preferences
History at your fingertips
But when Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, she was furious at the leniency which with the country treated Blunt’s treason. The ring of Cambridge-educated spies came to the public’s attention when Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, both British diplomats, suddenly fled to the Soviet Union in 1951. Blunt, who had been suspected and previously interrogated more than Blunt received far more than immunity from prosecution. But astonishingly, while the Queen was fully informed of Anthony Blunt’s confession, Prime Minister Sir Alec Douglas-Home (1963-4) was actually kept in the dark about the whole thing. '”After the Queen was discreetly told of Blunt’s confession (which came on 23rd April), the Palace asked what it should do about his role looking after the royal art collection. Already have an account with us? According to Carter, “The Louvre’s former director, Michel Laclotte, remembered that when Blunt escorted him round Buckingham Palace in the early 1970s he crept round on tiptoe, obviously desperate not to encounter her.”The knowledge of Blunt’s spying didn’t seem to put the Queen Mother off, though.
Responding to an MP’s question about “an individual whose name has been supplied to her,” Thatcher told Parliament: “The name… is that of Sir Anthony Blunt.”On the decision to let Blunt keep his job at the Palace after his confession, Thatcher explained: “Blunt was not required to resign his appointment in the Royal Household, which was unpaid.
“I couldn’t bear the thought of living in Russia and preferred to take the risk of going on here rather than living under a regime I by then abhorred.”Despite his wish to resume his career as an art historian, Anthony Blunt’s reputation never recovered. You can unsubscribe at any time.
News
Sign in to manage your newsletter preferences
He was also a distant cousin of the Queen’s.It was during Blunt’s years studying and teaching at the University of Cambridge in the 1930s that he was recruited by the Soviet NKVD, which later evolved into the KGB secret service.In 1939, war broke out and he joined the British Army; the following year he was recruited to MI5, where he was tasked with keeping neutral missions in London under close surveillance. Michael Straight, an American whom Blunt had attempted to recruit at Cambridge, informed British intelligence of Blunt’s espionage after years of wrestling with the knowledge.