The Cambridge Spi Unleashed a Gay Wchhunt

Contents:

• THE ERA WHEN GAY SPI WERE FEARED
• THE GAY LIV OF THE CAMBRIDGE 5
• ANTHONY BLUNT AND GUY BURGS, GAY SPI
• THE CAMBRIDGE SPI UNLEASHED A GAY WCHHUNT
• CAMBRIDGE SPI

THE ERA WHEN GAY SPI WERE FEARED

Image source, Getty ImagMI5 has been named the UK's most gay-iendly employer - but isn't long sce same-sex relatnships were nsired a threat to natnal secury.

"How to spot a possible homo, " ran a headle the paper.

Below this, for MI5's benef, was a list of supposed signifiers of male homosexualy ("a gay ltle wiggle", "his tie has the latt knot", "an unnaturally strong affectn for his mother") pretext for this unsoliced advice - which now seems clearly offensive - was the se of John Vassall, a gay civil servant who spied for the Soviets unr threat of blackmail. A gay man, the paper's reporter said, was a facto secury risk: "I wouldn't tst him wh my secrets.

THE GAY LIV OF THE CAMBRIDGE 5

"Fast forward 53 years and the service tops Stonewall's 2016 list of the 400 bt plac to work for lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr (LGBT) people. Acrdg to the Tim, more than 80 of s employe belong to an LGBT staff source, Eveng StandardImage ptn, Brish civil servant and Soviet spy John Vassall shortly after his release om prison 1972And yet a ban on gay men and women servg MI5, MI6 or GCHQ was force as recently as 1991.

A seri of Cold War sndals featurg gay men meant homosexualy was lked many people's mds wh pnage and betrayal. As well as Vassall, who was ught a honeytrap by the KGB, at least two of the Cambridge Five spy rg, Guy Burgs and Anthony Blunt, were gay, while a third, Donald MacLean, was bisexual. There was also Daily Telegraph Mosw rrponnt Jeremy Wolfenn - son of John Wolfenn, who chaired the missn that remend the legalisatn of male homosexual acts - who was photographed by the KGB havg sex wh a man, and whom MI6 subsequently attempted to e as a double agent.

ANTHONY BLUNT AND GUY BURGS, GAY SPI

He turned to heavy drkg and died 1965 age ptn, Alan Bat played spy Guy Burgs Alan Bent's An Englishman AbroadIn the Uned Stat, Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-munist mpaign targeted sr of gay officials, explicly lkg homosexualy wh subversn and Soviet sympathi, a procs known as the "lavenr sre".

THE CAMBRIDGE SPI UNLEASHED A GAY WCHHUNT

FBI chief J Edgar Hoover - himself wily believed to have been gay - ed the agency to target dozens of gay ernment was a perd which LGBT people risked losg their reers and their eedom if their sexualy was revealed. In 1953 Print Eisenhower signed Executive Orr 10450, which effectively led that gay people were secury risks.

Homosexual acts between men were illegal Great Bra until 1967.

CAMBRIDGE SPI

"This associatn between homosexualy and secrecy, furtivens and potential treachery ensured gay characters were a recurrg trope Cold War-era spy fictn. John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Tker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy clu gay subtexts - ma even more explic the 2011 movie adaptatn of the latter. Image source, Getty ImagSome have ma the se that the Brish telligence servic appear to have been relatively acceptg of homosexualy, if only pared wh other parts of society that monly persecuted LGBT people.

Burgs's gay affairs were wily known telligence circl. Acrdg to Christopher Andrew's thorised history of MI5, gay men and women were 1951 judged by the service when vettg public servants to be "maladjted to the social environment", potentially "of unstable character" and vulnerable to blackmail.

However, Andrew says MI5 was "relatively unncerned" about gay civil servants so long as they "remaed discreet". In 1965 MI5 risted a view om the Treasury that homosexualy should be an absolute bar to any kd of public office that required posive ptn, Jim Broadbent and Ben Whishaw BBC drama London SpyThe legalisatn of male homosexualy 1967 meant the fear of blackmail uld no longer hold. Eher theory is Apostl at the time were noted for a largely queer membership (both Blunt and Burgs were openly homosexual, spe the law), and for s Marxist leangs.