Paper names wartime ‘spy’

Press, 2 November 1981, Page 8

Paper names wartime ‘spy’

NZPA London A retired British film company executive, Leo Long, was named in a newspaper yesterday as a member of the World War II Soviet spy ring controlled by the former Royal art adviser, Anthony felunt. Mr Long was a British intelligence officer during the war. The “Sunday Times” said it had got from him a “lengthy and detailed statement” on how he passed to Mr Blunt information on German troop movements, gathered by secret agents working for Britain. In turn, it said, Mr Blunt gave the information to the Soviet Union, among Britain’s wartime allies.

The report said that in 1964, when Mr Blunt was unmasked as the “fourth man” in the Burgess-Ma-clean Philby spy ring, Mr Blunt told Mr Long and arranged for him to tell his story to British officials.

Neither man was prosecuted, a nd the Blunt case only became public in 1979. Mr Blunt was then stripped of the knighthood awarded him for advising Buckingham Palace on the Royal art collection.

Mr .Blunt and Mr ' Long were both undergraduates at Cambridge University in the 19305, as was Guy Burgess. A reporter for the English Independent Radio News who called at Mr Long’s home in a quiet North London suburb yesterday, said he was told by a young man who opened the door that Mr Long had gone away. A spokesman for the Prime Minister’s office said no statement would be issued until the allegations have been thoroughly examined.