36
PARTISAN REVIEW
counted in his volume, The
Climate of Treason .
According to
A Chapter of Accidents,
when Rees realized that
Burgess had defected to the Soviet Union he telephoned the information
to an official of MIS, a mutual friend of his and Burgess. The official is
unnamed. That same evening, Goronwy says, the official transmitted the
message to someone more highly placed than himself in MIS. The next
day Goronwy was visited at his home outside London by "another friend
of Guy's" who came to urge him not to share with the British security
services his conjectures about Burgess's flight. This friend, too, is un–
named and Goronwy goes on to tell us that he rejected his visitor's ap–
peal and went to the headquarters of MIS where he was interviewed by
one of its officers, again unnamed. Not only did this officer confirm
Goronwy's belief that Burgess had gone to the Soviet Union. He volun–
teered to Goronwy the further information that Burgess had been ac–
companied by Donald Maclean.
The story given by Goronwy to Boyle in 1977 has little in common
with this account in Rees's volume five years earlier. In his story to
Boyle, Goronwy again states that a mutual friend of his and Burgess
came to plead with him not to reveal anything about Burgess to the se–
curity services. But now he names this visitor: it was Anthony Blunt. The
remainder of his story to Boyle is both new and shocking. Convinced -
he tells Boyle - that he must share what he knows with his government,
after Burgess's flight he phoned David Footman, a friend in the offices of
Intelligence. Footman had relayed the information to a higher official,
Guy Liddell, who a few days later called Goronwy and arranged an in–
terview with him in his office. But Liddell had then delayed their meet–
ing and shifted it to lunch at his club . To this meeting he brought an
unexpected third party, Anthony Blunt. "Blunt and Liddell," Boyle
writes, "took up where Blunt had left off. They jointly urged Rees not
to press with his speculation about Burgess," explaining to Rees that
while they had evidence of espionage against Maclean, they had none
against Burgess. They warned Rees that things would "go hard with
him" if he persisted in his charges against Burgess. Goronwy nevertheless
persisted and eventually Liddell was forced to put him in touch with an–
other security official. This time the interview took place at Intelligence
headquarters and without the presence of Blunt. Goronwy was now lis–
tened to but in "strained silence." He was treated, he recalled to Boyle,
as if he were himself the traitor.
By Boyle's report, several days passed before Rees was again sum–
moned to MIS for further questioning. When he was at last re–
interviewed, he held back nothing - except, apparently, the fact of his
