Blunt defends work as Soviet spy: ‘lt was best way to fight facism’

Press, 21 November 1979, Page 1

Blunt defends work as Soviet spy: ‘lt was best way to fight facism’

frZPA-Reuter London The Queen s former art adviser, Anthony Blunt, yesterday defended his work as a Soviet agent for which he was last week stripped of his knighthood 15 years after confessing to security authorities.

In a press statement, he said that the diplomat spy, Guy Burgess, persuaded him "that I could best serve the cause of antiFascism by joining him in his work for the Russians.” The disgraced art historian did not admit that he was a traitor, nor did he explicitly apologise. He said: “This was a case of political conscience against loyalty to country: I chose conscience.” Mr Blunt, as he is now known. added: “When later I realised the true facts about Russia. I was prevented from taking any action by personal loyalty:

I could not denounce my friends.” Mr Blunt’s statement gave no details of how, as the Prime Minister (Mrs Margaret Thatcher) told Parliament last week, he acted as a Soviet agent before, during and after World War 11. Mrs Thatcher said he acted as a talent spotter for the Soviet Union at Cambridge University in the 19305, passed information to the Russians when he was a military intelligence officer during the war, and helped Burgess and another spy diplomat, Donald Mac Lean, to defect

to the Soviet Union in 1951. In his statement yesterday, Mr Blunt admitted that he had been in touch with the Russians on behalf of Burgess, but he denied that he actually tipped off Mac Lean that British Intelligence was about to question him. “I was myself pressed to go to Russia,” Mr Blunt said. “1 refused.” In his apologia. Mr Blunt, who is 72, said: “In the mid-1930s it seemed to me and to many of my contemporaries that the Communist Party and Russia constituted the only firm bulwark against fascism,

since the Western democracies were taking an uncertain and compromising attitude towards Germany.” He said that he hoped to resume his work as an art historian.

Mr Blunt revealed that, when his lawyer told him that the Queen was going to strip him of his knighthood, “I immediate! wrote to the proper authority offering to resign it.” But presumably the letter did not arrive before the announcement was made, Mr Blunt said.

As the public storm over the Blunt affair gathers pace, the Prime Minister is under mounting political pressure to order a fullscale inquiry.

Members of Parliament expect Mrs Thatcher to open a Parliamentary debate today with an assurance that MIS and MI6 are now under her total control. Mrs Thatcher is also likely to announce whether the * Government believes impartial investigation is needed to allay the crisis of confidence over the accountability of both arms of the security service. And as a result of the Blunt disclosures, members of Parliament of all parties are demanding that the Government kill off the Protection of Information Bill, proposed to replace the notorious section 2 of the Official Secrets Act.