The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB

28. This claim appears in Orlov’s file; vol. 5, ch. 7. In reality, Orlov did not meet Philby until Deutsch introduced him in Paris in 1937, a few months before Orlov’s defection; West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, p. 110.

29. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, ch. 15. Though containing valuable material from KGB archives on the recruitment of British agents in the 1930s, this SVR-sponsored volume not merely inflates Orlov’s importance but is also misleading in some other respects. It omits James Klugmann (agent MER) from the list of early Cambridge recruits, and even implies that he was not recruited because of his open Party membership. It also wrongly identifies the agent who provided the first intelligence on the plan to build an atomic bomb in 1941 as Maclean rather than Cairncross. (Since Cairncross, alone of the Five, was still alive at the time of publication in 1993, the intention may have been to limit the material on him to aspects of his career already admitted by him. The SVR now acknowledges that the atomic intelligence supplied by the London residency in 1941 came from Cairncross, not Maclean.) Among other examples of misleading mystification is the claim that agent ABO was a Cambridge contemporary of the “Magnificent Five,” who had never been identified as a Soviet spy. In reality, ABO was Peter Smollett, who graduated from Vienna, not Cambridge, University; his career as a Soviet agent had already been discussed in Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 334-9.

30. This is acknowledged, though somewhat lost sight of, in Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions. In a number of respects the detailed evidence advanced by this volume is at odds with its overstatement of Orlov’s importance by comparison with Deutsch. The 1997 SVR official history upgrades Deutsch’s role to that of “the man who started the ‘Cambridge Five’”; Primakov et al., Ocherki Istorii Rossiyskoi Vneshnei Razvedki, vol. 3, ch. 1. Cf. West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, pp. 103ff.

31. West and Tsarev (The Crown Jewels, pp. 103ff) give greater emphasis to Deutsch’s role by companion with Orlov’s than Costello and Tsarev, Dangerous Illusions. Their analysis, however, does not take account of the published material on Deutsch derived from the Vienna University Archives, the Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes, the work of Wilhelm Reich published by Deutsch and the information obtained by Oleg Gordievsky during his career in the KGB (see Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, ch. 5).

There is a considerable overlap between the KGB documents on Deutsch noted by Mitrokhin and those cited in West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels. Each set of documents, however, contains material missing from the other. West and Tsarev do not, for example, appear to have seen Deutsch’s important memorandum on the recruitment of student Communists. However, Mitrokhin did not note the interesting documents on Deutsch following his recall to Moscow late in 1937 which are cited by West and Tsarev.

32. vol. 7, ch. 10, para. 8.

33. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 223-6.

34. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, pp. 186-8.

35. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 206-8.

36. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, p. 224.

37. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, p. 225.

38. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 216-19.

39. In this, as in other instances in this chapter, Mitrokhin’s notes confirm the codename given by Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions.

40. vol. 7, ch. 10.

41. Boyle, The Climate of Treason, p. 114.

42. Rees, A Chapter of Accidents, pp. 122-3; Straight, After Long Silence, pp. 94-5, 142.

43. Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, pp. 144-5, 159.

44. vol. 7, ch. 10, paras. 8, 9.

45. Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, pp. 24-6. The only foreigners to achieve officer rank were some central European interwar illegals, such as Deutsch, who were used as agent controllers and recruiters.

46. Philby, My Silent War, p. 13. Emphasis added.

47. vol. 7, ch. 10, para. 24.

48. vol. 7, ch. 10, app., para. 2. On the misleading references to Klugmann in Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions, see above, note 29.

49. Blunt, “From Bloomsbury to Marxism.”

50. Boyle, The Climate of Treason, p. 72.

51. vol. 7, ch. 10, app., para. 2.

52. The first reference to Klugmann’s recruitment based on material made available by the SVR is in West and Tsarev, The Crown Jewels, pp. 206, 294.

53. See below, chapter 17.

54. Deutsch, who was a decade younger than both Orlov and Maly and had joined the OGPU only in 1932, was evidently considered too junior for the post of resident.