John Cairncross

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John Cairncross

Born July 25, 1913(1913-07-25)
Lesmahagow, Scotland
Died October 8, 1995 (aged 82)
France

John Cairncross (25 July 1913 – 8 October 1995) was a British intelligence officer during World War II who passed secrets to the Soviet Union during the war. He was alleged to be the fifth member of the Cambridge Five.[1]

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[edit] Background

The brother of economist Sir Alexander Kirkland Cairncross (a.k.a. Alec Cairncross) and the uncle of journalist Frances Cairncross, Cairncross was born in Lesmahagow, Scotland, and educated at the University of Glasgow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied modern languages.

After graduating, he worked in the Foreign Office. In 1937 he joined the Communist party. In 1942 he worked on ciphers at Bletchley Park and MI6. During this time, he passed documents through secret channels to the Soviet Union.[2] While at Bletchley Park, he supplied the Soviets with advance intelligence from ULTRA about what became the critical Battle of Kursk. The information he supplied enabled the Soviets to keep their ciphers one step ahead of British Intelligence, and also helped win the war against Hitler on the Eastern Front.

[edit] As a Spy

Cairncross admitted to spying in 1951 after MI5 found incriminating papers in his possession. Some believe that the information he supplied about the Western atomic weapons programmes kick-started the Soviet nuclear programme.[3] He was never prosecuted, however, which later led to charges that the government engaged in a conspiracy to cover up his role. Indeed, the identity of the infamous "fifth man" in the Cambridge Five remained a mystery until 1990, when KGB defectors Yuri Modin and Oleg Gordievsky fingered Cairncross.[4]

Between 1941 and 1945, Cairncross supplied the Soviets with 5,832 documents, according to Russian archives.[5]

Cairncross denied passing any information harmful to Britain, including atomic secrets. He also denied that he was the "Fifth Man" in the Cambridge spy ring. In his autobiography, he claimed his motivation was to assist the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany.

[edit] Later life

After his confession, Cairncross moved to Rome, where he worked for the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. He worked as economic papers translator for Research Office of Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, Banca d'Italia and IMI. In the BNL, a young economist engaged with international scenarios analysis (Iraq - Iran War, oil's strategic routes in Middle East and Far East) revealed a strong and unusual interest by Cairncross about the Bank's role for that area. He retired to the south of France. John Cairncross died in 1995, aged 82.

[edit] Cairncross in fiction

Cairncross appears as a character in the Franco-Belgian comic India Dreams by Maryse Charles and Jean-François Charles. He was also depicted in part 3 of the 2003 BBC TV series Cambridge Spies, where he appears reluctant to continue passing Bletchley Park data to the Russians for fear that the Red Army was heavily penetrated by German intelligence; Anthony Blunt is depicted in the drama as pressuring him with threats to continue.

The search for the Fifth Man (Cairncross) is a central plot device in the Frederick Forsyth novel The Price of the Bride.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Barnes, Julian E. (Jan. 27/Feb. 3, 2003). "Spy Stories: The Third Man". U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT: 46. 
  2. ^ Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbatchev, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, note 5, p. 247.
  3. ^ Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, London, Penguin Books, 2000. note 13, p. 150
  4. ^ Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbatchev, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1990, note 5, pp. 210 and 253.
  5. ^ Richard Davenport-Hines, "Cairncross, John (1913-1995)" in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.

[edit] External links