The Queen was left in the dark for almost a decade over the full scale of the treachery of one of her most senior courtiers, according to newly-released files.
In 1964, Sir Anthony Blunt, the surveyor of the Queen’s pictures and distinguished art historian, finally confessed he had been a Soviet agent since the 1930s.
When he was a young don at Cambridge he was recruited into one of the most notorious spy rings of the 20th century.
As a senior MI5 officer during the Second World War, he passed vast quantities of secret intelligence to his KGB handlers.
Read more:
The spies that betrayed Britain – the Cambridge Ring
However, he was allowed to keep his position at the heart of the British establishment amid fears of a major scandal if the truth became public.
When the Queen was finally told the full story in the 1970s, she was characteristically unflappable – taking it “all very calmly and without surprise” – according to declassified MI5 files released to the National Archives in Kew, west London.
In the same tranche of declassified files, it has been revealed that film star Dirk Bogarde was warned by MI5 that he could be the target of a gay “entrapment” attempt by the KGB.
Dirk Bogarde pictured at a launch party for his new book, A Gentle Occupation, in 1980. Pic: AP Photo/John Glanville
Bogarde, who died in 1999, never came out publicly as gay, although he maintained a long-term relationship with his manager, Anthony Forwood.
In 1971 he was interviewed in the south of France by MI5 officer FM Merifield.
When told about the report of his homosexuality, the actor responded with a mixture of anger and alarm.
“Bogarde said the report was absurd and he did not know how the KGB could have received this information. He was a man of 50 and able to behave in a responsible fashion,” Mr Merifield reported.
“Bogarde had no idea as to how the report may have reached the KGB and was clearly disturbed by it.”
Mr Merifield added: “Bogarde is a retiring, serious man who is probably dominated in his private life by Forwood.
“Although evidence about his homosexuality seems too strong to discount, there was no reason to doubt his evidence on other matters.”
