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Agent Moliere The Life of John Cairncross The Fifth Man of The Cambridge Spy Circle Geoff Andrews 2 Download 2024 Full Chapter
Agent Moliere The Life of John Cairncross The Fifth Man of The Cambridge Spy Circle Geoff Andrews 2 Download 2024 Full Chapter
Agent Moliere The Life of John Cairncross The Fifth Man of The Cambridge Spy Circle Geoff Andrews 2 Download 2024 Full Chapter
Geoff Andrews
I.B. TAURIS
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First published in Great Britain 2020
Copyright © Geoff Andrews, 2020
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Note on sources x
1 A Scottish education 7
3 A political awakening 31
4 Cambridge 51
6 Agent Molière 81
7 Appeasement 93
Notes 273
Select Bibliography 290
Index 294
Acknowledgements
discoveries had finally taken them to Italy, though they had agreed to
keep their destination ‘secret’ from the readers.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, their first visit to John Cairncross’s fourth floor
apartment at 1.00 am was unanswered: he was a heavy sleeper and
deaf in one ear. Their return at 7.30 am was more successful in rousing
‘The Spy Who Lives Alone’. ‘This time’, they revealed to the Sunday
Times readers, ‘an elderly man, wearing sandals, grey flannels and an old
cardigan, answered the door.’ Cairncross had just finished breakfast and
invited the two men into his small home, where they were impressed by
his books and his intellect, while at the same time noting his frugality and
‘almost hermitic’ life, later embellished by Penrose’s own photographs.
The scoop with which they now proposed to allure their readers was
Cairncross’s admission that in the late 1930s he had discussed FO
views on appeasement with notorious Soviet spy Guy Burgess. Other
admissions by Cairncross that he had been a member of the student
communist group at Cambridge and had known members of the spy
circle were also misleadingly repackaged in the following day’s headlines.
In ‘I Was Spy for Soviets’, Leitch and Penrose reported that
Cairncross admitted passing to Burgess ‘an up-to-the-minute account
of Britain’s diplomatic strategy and “inside” top level political options
during the volatile spring of 1939 and he continued to do so at least
until the outbreak of the Second World War in September’. In fact,
Cairncross was unaware at the time that Burgess or any of the other
four were Soviet agents (membership of a ‘ring’ has always been
an unhelpful description of Cairncross’s role). The ‘diplomatic and
political material’ he admitted to passing were handwritten summaries
of lunch conversations with FO colleagues at the Travellers Club. His
two interrogators now shifted to a more empathetic style, eliciting
(they claimed) not only a ‘confession’ but also ‘a sense of relief’ and
even ‘relaxation’, as he sought refuge in a ‘secluded’ and ‘scholarly’
existence.1
‘I am so glad that you have survived events!’ Graham Greene,
Cairncross’s friend, wrote from Antibes shortly after seeing the
newspaper article. ‘I was a bit puzzled because none of the photographs
looked in the least like you and only the address tallied.’2 Greene also
wondered, in the same letter, how the front page scoop had managed
to miss the fact that he and Cairncross were both MI6 colleagues of
Kim Philby, the most prominent and damaging Cambridge spy.
PROLOGUE 3
Leitch would later claim that his Sunday Times story had ‘ended
[Cairncross’s] life in Rome’.3 In fact, Cairncross would stay in the Eternal
City for another ten years, during which time he published his third book
on the seventeenth-century French playwright Molière, completed
a translation of La Fontaine’s Fables, contributed to Italy’s arts TV
channel, translated several Racine plays for dramatization in London
and Edinburgh theatres and carried on working as a consultant for the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
Shortly after Penrose’s and Leitch’s early morning interview, another
Sunday Times journalist, Marjorie Wallace, attempted to get a little closer
to an understanding of Cairncross the man. She contacted Cairncross,
who had still not read the original Sunday Times article, and after he
reluctantly agreed to discuss ‘his side’ of the story, she encountered
a ‘down at heel don’, whose surroundings were suggestive of ‘an air
of impermanence: a suitable place for a man on the run, without the
paraphernalia of relationships, comfort or security’. Initially cautious
over the purpose of the interview, Cairncross opened up and impressed
her with his collections of rare books and ornaments, and charmed
her by showing his renowned translations of French drama and poetry.
That evening he took her out to a local trattoria and over dinner told her
about his life and his writing ambitions.
The next day, the ‘unworldly poet’, as Wallace described him,
took her on a bus tour of Rome, stopping off at the Vatican and other
sights. They continued to argue over the purpose of the interview, with
Cairncross worried that earlier ‘misrepresentations’ of his espionage
role would be repeated. Wallace herself became exasperated as she
tried to cajole Cairncross to divulge his secrets: ‘Are you or are you not
the “Fifth Man”’, she shouted to him above the traffic and the noise of
the city. ‘Because if you are not I am really wasting my time.’4
A decade later, in October 1990, by which time John Cairncross
had now retired to the village of St Antonin du Var in Provence, with his
new partner Gayle Brinkerhoff, he received another visitor. Christopher
Andrew was a rising academic in the field of intelligence studies and,
in collaboration with the former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky, was
about to expose Cairncross as the ‘Fifth Man’ in their new book.5 After
keeping him under surveillance, Andrew confronted him at the entrance
to his home as he returned from a shopping visit. A TV crew, which
had accompanied Andrew, was filming from the nearby vineyards.
4 AGENT MOLIÈRE
(3) But I manna forget the Weavers’ (4) There was Tam McCartney an’
hooses, Leezie Steele,
Where the Auld Baillie wove the waft Tailor Brown an’ Sanny McKie;
to tartan; Morris Harrison an’ Geordie Scott,
Dan Haddow, his twa dochters, an Doctor Slimon an’ Jock o’ the eye.
Guy Cooper,
Auld King Carwell an’ Bauldy Martin.
The ‘Tam’ or Tom McCartney of the fourth verse had, at the time of
Thomson’s departure in 1864, owned a draper’s shop cum general
store in the village’s main street. In that same year, Andrew Cairncross,
John’s grandfather, a chief buyer at Arthur and Company in Glasgow,
came to live in Lesmahagow after marrying Tom McCartney’s daughter,
Margaret. He helped his father-in-law run the village shop which they
turned into an ironmongery. It was this shop that John Cairncross’s father
would inherit, though little else came his way from his own grandfather.
The nephew of a Chartist martyr from Strathaven hanged for leading
a demonstration, Tom McCartney had accumulated some of his own
wealth and property, though he later caused a family rift by marrying his
housekeeper in his early eighties and making her the sole beneficiary of
his estate. John Cairncross’s father, Alexander, as the eldest son, took
on the responsibility of looking after the family ironmonger business,
Cairncross and Menzies, to which he devoted his life, establishing
himself in his own generation as a notable Lesmahagow ‘worthy’.
A SCOTTISH EDUCATION 9
with their studies, it was left to his mother to supply what he later called
the ‘special feeling of harmony’ in his early life.5
By contrast, he acknowledged that he never enjoyed a close
relationship with his father, partly a consequence of the age difference
between them.
As my father married late, by the time I was born he was old enough
to be my grandfather. This, coupled with a Scots restraint, made for
a lack of intimacy between us. … My trouble was that, being the
youngest, I never got to know him well and had little knowledge of
his many virtues which I would have appreciated had I been in closer
contact with him.6
Alec joined the Lesmahagow Boys Brigade which, like the scouts,
had a religious side as well as an ethos of authority, organization and
discipline. Through the Boys Brigade he was taken to camps, went on
drilling exercises and marched with its band. Sunday school outings
were other occasions where religion played a part in fostering notions
of community and commitment.
John Cairncross, who on his own admission was in awe of his older
brother – and, to a degree, remained so throughout his life – developed
a more sceptical view of religion from an early age, notwithstanding his
keen interest in its history and contribution to language and culture.
This early scepticism suggested a wider search for greater intellectual
freedom and an escape from narrow conventions and moral constraints.
A SCOTTISH EDUCATION 13
Poika odotti ääneti ja uhmailevana vain sitä, että Aljoša nyt toki
välttämättömästi hyökkäisi hänen kimppuunsa. Kun hän näki että
tämä nytkään ei aio sitä tehdä, niin hän vimmastui kuin peto: hän
syöksyi paikaltaan ja hyökkäsi Aljošan kimppuun, eikä tämä
ennättänyt liikahtaakaan, kun ilkeä poika taivuttaen päänsä alas ja
tarttuen molemmin käsin hänen vasempaan käteensä puraisi
kipeästi hänen keskisormeaan. Poika pureutui siihen hampaineen
eikä noin kymmeneen sekuntiin päästänyt sitä irti. Aljoša huudahti
kivusta ja nyki kaikin voimin sormeaan. Poika päästi sen viimein irti
ja juoksi pois entisen välimatkan päähän. Sormea hän oli purrut
kipeästi aivan kynnen kohdalta syvälle luuhun asti, ja siitä virtasi
verta. Aljoša otti taskustaan liinan ja kääri sen tiukasti haavoitetun
käden ympäri. Käärimiseen meni melkein kokonainen minuutti. Poika
seisoi kaiken aikaa ja odotti. Viimein Aljoša kohotti häneen
rauhallisen katseensa.
— No, hyvä, — sanoi hän, — näette, kuinka kipeästi olette minua
purrut, kai se jo riittää? Sanokaa nyt, mitä minä olen teille tehnyt?
4.
Hohlakovien luona
— Sain kyllä.
Mutta heti kun Lise näki raosta Aljošan sormen, hän avasi oven
selko selälleen.
— Minä tuon heti kaikki, Lise, älä vain huuda äläkä ole levoton.
Näetkö, kuinka lujana Aleksei Fjodorovitš kantaa onnettomuutensa.
Missä te olettekaan voinut niin kamalasti haavoittua, Aleksei
Fjodorovitš?
— Se jäi sinne.
— Minkä tähden?
— Te loukkaatte minua!
— Enhän minä voinut tietää, että hän tulee tänne sormi purtuna,
muutenhan tosiaankin olisin voinut tehdä sen tahallani. Enkelini,
äitikulta, te alatte puhua tavattoman teräväjärkisesti.
— No, riittää jo, Lise, kenties minä tosiaankin olin liian kärkäs
puhumaan hullusta pojasta ja sinä teit jo omat johtopäätöksesi. Heti
kun Katerina Ivanovna sai kuulla teidän tulleen, Aleksei Fjodorovitš,
hän syöksyi luokseni, hänellä on hirveä, hirveä halu nähdä teitä.
— Ah, äiti! Menkää sinne yksin, hän ei voi nyt heti lähteä, hän
kärsii kovin.
— Ah, Lise, tuo on vain leikkiä sinun puoleltasi, vaan mitäpä, jos
tosiaankin nukkuisit! — huudahti rouva Hohlakov.
— Minä en tiedä, millä olen… Minä jään vielä noin kolmeksi tai, jos
niin tahdotte, viideksi minuutiksi, — mutisi Aljoša.
Mullerrus vierashuoneessa