The Cambridge Spies: The Untold Story of Maclean, Philby, Burgess in America by Verne W. Newton

From the Publisher

Burgess and Maclean and Philby and Blunt. Even in the post-Cold War world these names are a dark talisman, a brooding set of icons, for the darkest underside of the struggle of West against East. Their story has been told in countless books, films, and articles, and provides the real world backdrop for the novels of John Le Carre and Graham Greene.

Publishers Weekly

This is the first book to detail the U.S. activities of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess. The period covered is 1944 to 1951, when the ``Cambridge spies'' served in the British embassy in Washington, D.C., while conducting highly effective espionage for the Soviets. The dominant figure in these suspenseful pages is Donald Maclean, whom former CIA director Richard Helms described as ``the most valuable known Soviet agent ever to operate in the West.'' Freelance writer/filmmaker Newton reveals how Maclean provided Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin with a direct pipeline to important Western strategy conferences; at the same time he was exhibiting flagrantly self-abasing behavior in Washington social circles. Newton also describes Maclean's sensational escape with Burgess in 1951 as they defected to Moscow. (Philby joined them later.) Newton expertly guages the damage done to the West by this treacherous trio and attempts without much success to answer the nagging question of why they did it. (June)

Library Journal

Burgess and Maclean and Philby and Blunt. Even in the post-Cold War world these names are a dark talisman, a brooding set of icons, for the darkest underside of the struggle of West against East. Their story has been told in countless books, films, and articles, and provides the real world backdrop for the novels of John Le Carre and Graham Greene. Newton's book is a first-class and well-researched addition to a generally good literature. It proposes new psychological ideas and facts, and most importantly casts bright new light on what these Establishment guys did in the United States. Recommended for spy and history collections.-- Henry Steck, SUNY Coll. at Cortland

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