Anthony Blunt (26 September 1907 – 26 March 1983) was a British art historian, Queen Elizabeth II's art advisor, and a Soviet spy who was affiliated with the Cambridge Five spy cell.
Biography[]
Anthony Blunt was born in Bournemouth, Hampshire, England on 26 September 1907, and he was a third cousin of Elizabeth the Queen Mother and the fourth cousin once removed of Oswald Mosley. He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1930, and he taught French at Cambridge and became a fellow of Trinity College in 1932. During his time at Cambridge, he joined the underground Conservazione Society, a group of 12 LGBT and Marxist intellectuals, and, in 1933, he visited the USSR while a don at Cambridge. He was recruited by the NKVD through Guy Burgess in 1934, and he recruited Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, John Cairncross, and Michael Straight as Soviet spies. In 1939, he joined the British Army at the start of World War II, and he was recruited to MI5 after the Battle of Dunkirk in 1940. He secretly sent information on German spy rings and decoded Ultra messages to the Soviets, and he attained the rank of Major by the war's end. In 1951, Blunt fell under suspicion after Burgess and Maclean defected to Moscow, but he was able to become the art advisor to Queen Elizabeth II, who valued him due to his patience with her art skills. In 1963, Michael Straight informed MI5 of Blunt's espionage activities, and, on 23 April 1964, Queen Elizabeth was informed of Blunt's spying by MI5 director Martin Furnival Jones. His confession was kept confidential, and he was barely affected by his confession; he continued to be a renowned art historian. In November 1979, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher outed Blunt as a former Soviet spy, and he was hunted by the press. Queen Elizabeth stripped Blunt of his knighthood, and he broke down in tears during his BBC Television confession. He died of a heart attack in 1983 at the age of 75.