Anthony Blunt

British art historian and spy
Also known as: Anthony Frederick Blunt, Sir Anthony Blunt
Quick Facts
In full:
Anthony Frederick Blunt
Also called:
(1956–79) Sir Anthony Blunt
Born:
Sept. 26, 1907, Bournemouth, Hampshire, Eng.
Died:
March 26, 1983, London (aged 75)
Subjects Of Study:
painting
Nicolas Poussin

Anthony Blunt (born Sept. 26, 1907, Bournemouth, Hampshire, Eng.—died March 26, 1983, London) was a British art historian who late in his life was revealed to have been a Soviet spy.

While a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the 1930s Blunt became a member of a circle of disaffected young men led by Guy Burgess, under whose influence he was soon involved in espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union. His public career was brilliant. From 1937 he published scores of scholarly papers and books by which he largely established art history in Great Britain. He was an authority on 17th-century painting, particularly that of Nicolas Poussin. During World War II he served in MI-5, a military intelligence organization, and was able to supply secret information to the Soviets and, more importantly, to give warning to fellow agents of counterintelligence operations that might endanger them.

In 1945 Blunt was appointed surveyor of the king’s (later the queen’s) pictures, and in 1947 he became director of the Courtauld Institute, one of the world’s leading centres of training and research in art history. His major publications in subsequent years included Art and Architecture in France 1500–1700 (1953) and Nicolas Poussin (1966–67). Although his active intelligence work had apparently ceased in 1945, he maintained contacts with Soviet agents and in 1951 was able to arrange for the escape of Burgess and Donald Maclean from Britain. In 1964, after the defection of Kim Philby, he was confronted by British authorities and secretly confessed his Soviet connections. Not until 1979, seven years after he retired from his posts, was his past made public. In the outcry that surrounded his being revealed as the long-sought “fourth man” in the spy ring, he was stripped of the knighthood that had been awarded him in 1956. In 2009 the British Library released to the public Blunt’s memoir. Although he wrote that being a Soviet spy was “the biggest mistake” of his life, Blunt failed to provide much information about his espionage work.

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MI6

British government
Also known as: SIS, Secret Intelligence Service
Quick Facts
Formally:
Secret Intelligence Service
Date:
1912 - present
Headquarters:
London
Areas Of Involvement:
intelligence
espionage

MI6, British government agency responsible for the collection, analysis, and appropriate dissemination of foreign intelligence. MI6 is also charged with the conduct of espionage activities outside British territory. It has existed in various forms since the establishment of a secret service in 1569 by Sir Francis Walsingham, who became secretary of state to Queen Elizabeth I. It was constituted in its present form in 1912 by Commander (later Sir) Mansfield Cumming as part of Britain’s attempt to coordinate intelligence activities prior to the outbreak of World War I. In the 1930s and ’40s it was considered the most effective intelligence service in the world. Following the rise to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany, MI6 conducted espionage operations in Europe, Latin America, and much of Asia. (The name “MI6” label originated during this period, when the agency was “section six” of military intelligence.)

When the United States entered World War II, MI6 helped to train personnel of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services; it has since cooperated with the OSS’s successor, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). In the mid-1950s, the British public reacted with consternation when it was revealed that MI6 had been penetrated by British double agents who had served the Soviet Union since the 1930s. Details of MI6 operations and relationships seldom appeared in the British press until the 1990s, when the previously secretive organization publicly named its head for the first time. Nevertheless, information about MI6 is still much more closely guarded than that about MI5, which carries out internal security and domestic counterintelligence activities. The agency has the power to censor news accounts of its activities through the use of “D” notices under the Official Secrets Act. MI6 reports to the Foreign Office.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica This article was most recently revised and updated by Adam Augustyn.