British spy confessions and Queen's 'inkling' revealed in MI5 exhibition
Top secret MI5 files detailing first-hand accounts of confessions of three of Britain's most notorious double agents including Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt who spied for the Soviet Union were released for the first time on Tuesday.
Some of the files will form part of a special exhibition at the National Archives titled "MI5: Official Secrets,” featuring case files, photographs, papers and equipment used by spies in the agency's 115-year history.
Declassified documents from Britain's domestic secret intelligence agency and made public by the National Archives detail investigations into the group whose shadowy activities have fascinated the public and were the inspiration for countless spy films and novels.
Among the papers is an incomplete six-page confession from 1963 of Philby, seen as the Cambridge Five's ringleader and who became a senior figure in Britain's foreign spy agency MI6, in which he finally admits his deception after years of suspicion.
REUTERS VIDEO
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Top secret MI5 files detailing first-hand accounts of confessions of three of Britain's most notorious double agents including Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt who spied for the Soviet Union were released for the first time on Tuesday.
Some of the files will form part of a special exhibition at the National Archives titled "MI5: Official Secrets,” featuring case files, photographs, papers and equipment used by spies in the agency's 115-year history.
Declassified documents from Britain's domestic secret intelligence agency and made public by the National Archives detail investigations into the group whose shadowy activities have fascinated the public and were the inspiration for countless spy films and novels.
Among the papers is an incomplete six-page confession from 1963 of Philby, seen as the Cambridge Five's ringleader and who became a senior figure in Britain's foreign spy agency MI6, in which he finally admits his deception after years of suspicion.
REUTERS VIDEO
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Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic
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NewsTranscript
00:00I think the extra details given in these files don't make, you know, a really good transfer.
00:17Yeah, I can't remember.
00:19No.
00:21Yeah.
00:30MI5, just saying MI5 has a certain allure, perhaps a feeling of James Bond.
00:39But actually MI5 is a serious organisation with a serious purpose to protect British citizens from home threats.
00:49And our exhibition will show how MI5 has carried out that duty from its inception to modern times in a whole array of fascinating documents.
01:19Kim Philby was one of the most notorious of the Cambridge spy ring.
01:31He had worked for MI6 since around, I think it's 1940.
01:40And he had passed so many secrets over to the Soviet Union.
01:46Who was known as Otto, who was really, we know it was Arnold Deutsch.
01:51Included in this release is the confession file for Kim Philby.
01:56Now, he handed over a confession statement to an officer of the Secret Intelligence Service.
02:06And it is an incomplete statement.
02:10But he does talk about when he's first recruited by somebody known as Otto, who is really Arnold Deutsch in 1934.
02:20He's recruited for the Soviet Union.
02:24Britain was covered in snow at home.
02:27The Beatles were.
02:36I said to Peach that I found his statement very interesting and that personally, I believed it in so far as it went.
02:44This ogre of a man who kind of came along to certain of the meetings.
02:50It is a momentous encounter.
02:54And it shows Philby's, how can I put it?
02:58Philby's sheer sort of front, really, you know, that he's able to be so brazen in what he says.
03:05I mean, he says he will tell the whole truth, but within the dictates of his conscience.
03:10One of one of the most amazing stories concerning the Cambridge spies is that of Anthony Blunt, who worked for MI5 during the Second World War and passed many, many secrets over to the Russians.
03:31And then in 1945, he became a surveyor of the King's pictures.
03:38And this means that he was like the monarch's art advisor.
03:42And then he became surveyor of the Queen's pictures when Queen Elizabeth became the queen in 1952.
03:51The same release and yeah, you know, it's kind of interesting.
04:06We now have, for the first time, documentary evidence to show that the Queen was indeed told about the Blunt case.
04:15And this comes in, again, in one of the files where it said that the Queen's private secretary had spoken to her, told her about the Blunt case.
04:25This is in 1973.
04:28And the file shows that the Queen reacted calmly and without surprise.
04:34She said that she'd had some inkling of it.
04:45When you see the details that are revealed in the files, they are so fascinating.
05:09You know, it really is like, I don't know, they do give you major insights and fresh perspectives on these notorious characters.
05:39Yeah.
06:10Yeah.
06:11Yeah.
06:12Yeah.
06:13Yeah.
06:14Yeah.
06:15Yeah.
06:16Yeah.
06:17Yeah.
06:18Yeah.
06:19Yeah.
06:20Yeah.
06:21Yeah.
06:22Yeah.
06:23Yeah.
06:24Yeah.
06:25Yeah.
06:26Yeah.
06:27Yeah.
06:28Yeah.
06:29Yeah.
06:30Yeah.
06:31Yeah.
06:32Yeah.
06:33Yeah.
06:34Yeah.
06:35Yeah.
06:36Yeah.
06:37Yeah.