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PARTISAN REVIEW
and Tsarev published their joint study, the Soviet Union had collapsed
and Western scholars had new access to Russian files. Was this how
Goronwy's role had come to light? Was this the Secret which her par–
ents had for so long tried to conceal?
Jenny was not prepared to accept the accusation against her father
without further proof than was offered in
Deadly Illusions.
If, at the time
of the Aberystwyth scandal, Goronwy's critics suspected him of espi–
onage, they had never made the accusation. To be sure, in an interview
which Anthony Blunt had given shortly before his death in 1983, he had
named Rees as a fellow-conspirator and this statement had been publicly
reported. But it had made little public impression.
It
was the charge
brought against Rees in
Deadly Illusions
that finally impelled Jenny to
seek out the truth of her father's relation to the Cambridge spies.
In the end, her search led Jenny to Moscow and a meeting with
Tsarev himself She had already spoken to him from London by phone -
for many years Tsarev had been stationed in London and he spoke fluent
English. To her phoned inquiry about her father, he had replied
courteously that yes, Rees had briefly been a Soviet agent. It had been
his task to supply political hearsay - he was assigned to listen to
conversations at dinner at All Souls, a frequent dining place for persons
high in government service, and to pass on any information he picked up
which might be of use to the Soviet Union. Her father had been
recruited in 1938, Tsarev further told Jenny, but he had terminated his
service the following year when he had broken with Communism in
consequence of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, and after the Pact he had not
again been heard from by Soviet Intelligence. All in all, the involvement
had been modest and short-lived. There was no file for him in Moscow.
What information existed was to be found only in the file of Guy
Burgess. As Rees's daughter, Jenny was at liberty to see it.
A less urgent investigator than Jenny Rees would no doubt have
been content to close the book with this exchange. Jenny, however, was
unsatisfied; she was determined to learn exactly what Tsarev had meant in
saying that Rees had been "recruited" in 1938. What did the word im–
ply? Did it mean that her father had been a fully-fledged agent of the
USSR?
In search of answers with which she could rest, Jenny decided to go
to Russia for a direct interview with the Soviet historian. Tsarev's
Moscow headquarters were in a building adjacent to the old Lubyanka
prison. In his office Jenny came at once to the point of her visit. What
did Tsarev have in mind when he used the word "recruited" of Rees's
engagement in spying for the Soviet Union? Had her father been a fully-
