Blunt changes line on dates

Press, 26 November 1979, Page 9

Blunt changes line on dates

NZPA-Reuter London Anthony Blunt, the royal art adviser unmasked as a former spy for a the Soviet Union, admitted yesterday that he had been quite certainly in error when he said that his last contact with the Soviets had been in 1951. He said the Prime Minister (Mrs Margaret Thatcher) had been right when she told the House of Commons on Wednesday that on one occasion between 1951 and 1956, Mr Blunt had helped ..another spy. Kim Philby, to contact Soviet intelligence. In a statement issued through his lawyer, Mr Michael Rubinstein, to the Sunday newspaper, the “Observer,” Mr Blunt, aged 72, said: .“I am glad to have this opportunity to correct my error. I regret that anyone may have been misled by my answer. “What I told the press in the interview last week was quite certainly erroneous. I was flustered at the time by the questioning. “Mrs Thatcher was right, and I was wrong.” The “Observer” said that I the Soviets had used Mr Blunt in 1955 to pass a crucial message to Philby to reassure him that they had not deserted him. Mr Blunt said last Tues-

day at a news conference; given to selected reporters; that after 1951 in no circumstances would he have cooperated with the Soviets. The Blunt scandal began on November 15. In response to questions by Opposition Labour Party members of Parliament after disclosures in a new book on British spies, Mrs Thatcher named Mr Blunt as the fourth man in the spy ring consisting of Philby, GuyBurgess, and Donald Macllean.