So what's new about gay spi? | The Inpennt | The Inpennt

Contents:

• SO WHAT'S NEW ABOUT GAY SPI?
• THE ERA WHEN GAY SPI WERE FEARED
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY
• SEND HUNTER BIN IRS WHISTLEBLOWER INTIFIED AS GAY DEMOCRAT

SO WHAT'S NEW ABOUT GAY SPI?

"So the news last week that the secret servic have relaxed their ban on gays to attract recs om a broar sectn of the populatn - "MI5 brgs homosexuals back om the ld", as one headle put - is a ltle all spywatchers know, they have never been out there. Right om their formatn 1909, Bra's secret servic have been thick wh homosexual officers, as has the opposn. At the peak of the Cold War we had been so perated by gay agents workg for the Comtern that they privately referred to their spy rg as "the Homtern" Burgs, of Burgs and Maclean notoriety, was a proment Homtern member and such a dited homosexual that even the Rsians, pdish about such matters, had to provi him wh a boyiend after he fected to Mosw Anthony Blunt, an MI5 officer wh a fe war rerd, Keeper of the Queen's Pictur, a distant relative of hers, and an art historian of ternatnal renown, also had a secret gay life.

Alex Kellar, director of MI5's F Branch (Communist subversn) the mid-1960s, was homosexual, and there are doubts about the sexual orientatn of Sir Mrice Oldfield, who retired as chief of MI6 1978.

THE ERA WHEN GAY SPI WERE FEARED

)The Rsians may have been pdish but that did not stop them employg homosexual agents to promise Wtern gays and then blackmail them. So, stead of gettg himself off the hook, he found himself trapped by both sis - a ntributg factor his subsequent nervo breakdown and early terted the relatnship between spyg and gays sometim wonr if the very nature of the secret world attracts gays, who, until recently, had to lead secret liv themselv?

The Irish wrer John Banville, a novel about Anthony Blunt (The Untouchable, published by Pidor) offers the theory that the i of the spy and the homosexual are almost intil. 46 Vlette Morris(French Athlete and Nazi Collaborator)Birthdate: April 18, 1893Sun Sign: AriBirthplace: Paris, FranceDied: April 26, 1944 47 John Vassall(Brish Civil Servant Who Spied for the Soviets)Birthdate: September 20, 1924Sun Sign: VirgoBirthplace: EnglandDied: November 18, 1996Brish civil servant John Vassall beme a Soviet spy after facg blackmail om the KGB, which threatened to reveal his homosexualy.

Bt Gay Scene: Murray Bartlett, Las Gage 'The Whe Lot'. Bt Sp-Roastg a Gay Married Couple: Jake Weary 'Animal Kgdom'. 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.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT COACH KEV MAXEN MAK HISTORY AFTER COMG OUT AS GAY

"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. "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.

SEND HUNTER BIN IRS WHISTLEBLOWER INTIFIED AS GAY DEMOCRAT

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.

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". 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.