Donald Maclean

Donald Maclean born 25 May 1913 (d. 1983)

Donald Duart Maclean was a career British diplomat turned Soviet intelligence agent. Maclean was one of the Cambridge Five, members of MI5, MI6 or the diplomatic service who acted as spies for the Soviet Union during WWII and in the early-Cold War era. His actions are widely thought to have contributed to the 1948 Soviet blockade of Berlin and the onset of the Korean War. As a reward for his espionage activities, Maclean was brevetted a colonel in the Soviet KGB.

Educated at Gresham's School and Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he was the son of the Liberal politician Sir Donald Maclean, who was Leader of the parliamentary Opposition in the years following WWI.

From Gresham's, Maclean won a place at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, arriving in 1931 to study modern languages. While there, he joined the Communist Party. In his second year at Cambridge, his father died, and in his last year he was recruited into Soviet intelligence by Anthony Blunt, ultimately becoming one of the Cambridge Five.

All of the Cambridge Five came from privileged backgrounds, and two of the others, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt, were known to be homosexuals. It is sometimes stated that Maclean was, too, and Guy Burgess claimed to have seduced him, but it seems more likely that he was bisexual.

In 1934, Maclean passed the Civil Service examination and started work at the Foreign Office in London. While there, he was under the operational control of the Russian secret service.

Maclean was later posted to the British Embassy in Paris, where he was when the Second World War broke out. In 1940 he married the American-born Melinda Marling in Paris shortly before the Germans captured the city. They escaped to the coast and got back to England on board a Royal Navy warship.

Maclean continued to report to Moscow from London and signalled in 1941 that a uranium bomb might be constructed within two years through the efforts of Imperial Chemical Industries with the support of the British government. Maclean sent Moscow a sixty-page report with the official minutes of the British Cabinet Committee on the Uranium Bomb Project.

He was transferred to Washington, where he served from 1944 to 1948, as Secretary at the British Embassy and, later, Secretary of the Combined Policy Committee on Atomic Development. For the Soviets, this was his most fruitful period, and he was Stalin's main source of information about communications and policy development between Churchill and Roosevelt, and then between Churchill or Clement Attlee and Harry S. Truman.

Although Maclean did not transmit technical data on the atom bomb, he reported on its development and progress, particularly the amount of uranium available to the United States. As the British representative on the American-British-Canadian council on the sharing of atomic secrets, he was able to provide the Soviet Union with minutes of Cabinet meetings. This knowledge alone gave the Soviet scientists the ability to predict the number of bombs that could be built by the Americans. Coupled with the efforts of Alan Nunn May and Klaus Fuchs, who provided scientific information, Maclean's reports to his KGB controller helped the Soviets not only to build their own atomic bomb, but also to estimate their nuclear arsenal's relative strength against that of the United States.

Armed with this information, Stalin was able to conclude that the United States did not possess a sufficiently large stock of atomic weapons or bomb production capacity to attack the Soviet Union or its allies in either Europe or the Pacific in the near future. This knowledge played a central role in Stalin's decision to institute a blockade of Berlin in 1948, as well as his decision to extensively arm and train Kim Il Sung's North Korean army for an offensive war (a conflict that would later claim the lives of over 30,000 U.S. and Allied troops).

In 1941 Maclean was tentatively identified by Walter Krivitsky, a Soviet defector, who is rumoured to have been assassinated by Soviet agents in the Bellevue Hotel in Washington D.C.. It was said that Krivitsky had claimed there was a mole in British intelligence who was "a Scotsman of good family, educated at Eton and Oxford (sic), and an idealist who worked for the Russians without payment."

Maclean's continual monitoring of secret messages between Truman and Churchill allowed Stalin to know how the Americans and the British proposed to occupy Germany and carve up the borders of Eastern European countries.

Maclean reported to Moscow that the goal of the Americans was to ensure American economic domination in Europe - the so-called Marshall Plan. The new international economic organisation to restore European productivity would be under the control of American financial capital. At that time the Soviet Union had no export earnings, war reparations were the sole source of foreign capital to rebuild the war-torn Soviet economy. Yalta and Potsdam agreements allowed German reparations in the form of equipment, manufacturing machinery, cars, trucks, and building supplies to be sent to Russia for five years. The flow of goods was unregulated by international control, and could be used for whatever purposes the Soviets chose. Six months after the Marshall Plan was rejected by the Soviet Union, multiparty rule in Eastern Europe ended.

In 1948, Maclean was transferred to the British Embassy in Cairo. Undoubtedly, Maclean's information was significant in assisting Stalin in his strategy for the Cold War.

The story of the Burgess and Maclean defection, and the subsequent implication of Philby, is a fascinating one of code-breaking, detection, and discovery. In 1949, Robert Lamphere, FBI agent in charge of Russian espionage, along with cryptanalysts, discovered that between 1944 and 1946 a member of the British Embassy was sending messages to the KGB. The code name of this official was 'Homer'. By a process of elimination, a short list of three or four men were identified as possible Homers. One was Maclean.

Shortly after Lamphere's investigation began, Kim Philby was assigned to Washington, serving as Britain's CIA-FBI-NSA liaison. As such, he was privy to the decoding of the Russian material, and recognised that Maclean was very probably Homer. He confirmed this through his British KGB control. He was also aware that Lamphere and his colleagues had found that the encoded messages to the KGB had been sent from New York. Maclean had visited New York on a regular basis, ostensibly to visit his wife and children, who were living there with his in-laws.

The pressure on Philby now began to grow. If Maclean was unmasked as a Soviet agent, then, were he to confess, the trail might lead to the other Cambridge spies. Philby, now in a very important position in his ability to provide information to the Soviets, might be implicated, if for no other reason than his association with Maclean at Cambridge. Concerned that Maclean would be positively identified, interrogated, and confess to MI5, Philby and Burgess concocted a scheme in which Guy Burgess would return to London (where Maclean was now the Foreign Service officer in charge of American affairs). Burgess would then warn Maclean of the impending unmasking.

Before Burgess left, Philby was explicit in his instructions to Burgess. He was not to defect with Maclean.

The Philby-Burgess plan was for Burgess to visit Maclean in his Foreign Office quarters, give him a note identifying a place where the two could meet - it was assumed that Maclean, now under suspicion and denied sensitive documents, had a bugged office - and Burgess would explain the situation. They met clandestinely to discuss Maclean's imminent exposure and necessary defection to Russia. Yuri Modin, the controller at the time, made arrangements for Maclean's defection. Maclean was in an extremely nervous state, and reluctant to leave alone. Modin was willing to serve as his guide, but KGB Central demanded that Burgess escort Maclean behind the Iron Curtain.

In the meantime, MI5 had insisted that Maclean be questioned. They had decided that he would be confronted with the FBI and MI5 evidence on Monday, 28 May 1951.

On Maclean's 38th birthday, the Friday before the Monday when he was to be interrogated, Burgess and Maclean fled to the coast, boarded a ship to France, and disappeared. Had Blunt learned of the impending questioning of Maclean, and warned Burgess that the time had come? Blunt never admitted to that, and it is possible that Burgess and Maclean had selected Friday to flee whatever the current circumstances. Both Modin and Philby assumed that Burgess would deliver Maclean to a handler, and that he would return. For some reason, the Russians insisted that Burgess accompany Maclean the entire way. Perhaps Burgess was no longer useful to the KGB as a spy, but too valuable to fall into the hands of MI5.

Maclean, unlike the self-indulgent Burgess, assimilated into the Soviet Union and became a respected citizen, learning Russian and serving as a specialist on the economic policy of the West and British foreign affairs. He worked for the Soviet Foreign Ministry and the Institute of World Economic and International Relations. Maclean was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour and the Order of Combat.

While living in Moscow, he spoke up for Soviet dissidents, and gave money to the families of some of those imprisoned. His American-born wife, Melinda, joined him in Russia with their children, but they were soon divorced and she had a brief affair Kim Philby in 1966. Later she and the children returned to the United States.

Maclean died of a heart attack in 1983, at the age of sixty-nine. He was cremated and some of his ashes were scattered on his parents' grave in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Penn, Buckinghamshire, England.

Sir Richard Burton

Sir Richard Burton born 19 March 1821 (d. 1890)

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS was an English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. He was known for his travels and explorations within Asia and Africa as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke twenty-nine European, Asian, and African languages.

Burton's best-known achievements include travelling in disguise to Mecca, making an unexpurgated translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (the collection is more commonly called The Arabian Nights in English) and the Kama Sutra and journeying with John Hanning Speke to discover the Great Lakes of Africa in search of the source of the Nile. He was a prolific author and wrote numerous books and scholarly articles about subjects including travel, fencing and ethnography.

He was a captain in the army of the East India Company serving in India (and later, briefly, in the Crimean War). Following this he was engaged by the Royal Geographical Society to explore the east coast of Africa and led an expedition which discovered Lake Tanganyika. In later life he served as British consul in Fernando Po, Damascus and, finally, Trieste. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and was awarded a knighthood (KCMG) in 1886. Burton was considered a controversial figure in his day and, while some considered him a hero, others considered him a scoundrel.

Firstly, in a society where sexual repression was the norm, Burton's writing was unusually open and frank about his interest in sex and sexuality. His travel writing is often full of details about the sexual lives of the inhabitants of areas he travelled through and many of these details would have been shocking to the average Victorian. Burton's interest in sexuality led him to make measurements of the penis lengths of the inhabitants of various regions, which he includes in his travel books. He also describes sexual techniques common in the regions he visited, often hinting that he had participated, hence breaking both sexual and racial taboos of his day.

Allegations of homosexuality 'dogged' Burton throughout most of his life, a particularly serious accusation as it was a criminal offence in Victorian England. Biographers disagree on whether or not Burton ever experienced homosexual sex (he never directly admits to it in his writing but he would hardly be expected to). These allegations began in his army days when General Sir Charles James Napier requested that Burton go undercover to investigate a male brothel reputed to be frequented by British soldiers. It has been suggested that Burton's detailed report on the workings of the brothel may have led some to believe he had been a customer. His later writings on the subject of pederasty and the fact that he and his wife, Isabel, remained childless gave further ground for speculation.

Burton was a heavy drinker at various times in his life and also admitted to taking both hemp and opium. Friends of the poet Algernon Swinburne blamed Burton for leading him astray, holding Burton responsible for Swinburne's alcoholism and interest in the works of the Marquis de Sade.

He died after suffering a heart attack in Trieste in 1890. His wife ordered a marble monument for him shaped like a tent, in which he had spent so much of his life.

Sir Richard F Burton - glbtq encyclopedia

Prince Philip of Eulenburg

Prince Philip of Eulenburg born 12 February 1847 (d. 1921)

Philip Frederick Alexander, Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld, Count of Sandels, was a politician and diplomat of imperial Germany in late 1800s and early 1900s.

Count Philip of Eulenburg was born at Königsberg, Prussia in 1847. He became a close friend of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was two years his junior, prior to Wilhem’s accession to the imperial throne. Eulenburg entered the diplomatic corps in 1877, becoming Prussia's ambassador to Bavaria and, subsequently, Germany's amabassador to Austria-Hungary.

Upon the accession of his friend Wilhelm to the thrones of Prussia and Germany, count Eulenburg assumed an unofficial position of immense influence, and among other things, was instrumental in the appointment of Bernhard von Bülow as head of the foreign office in 1897. Wilhelm II had long desired the appointment of 'his own Bismarck' - a powerful chancellor who would enact the Kaiser's will - and Eulenburg was the first to suggest Bülow for this role.

In 1900, count Philip was created Prince of Eulenburg and Hertefeld, and to continue his wife's otherwise soon-to-be-extinguishing comital name, also Count of Sandels.

Count Philip of Eulenburg married at Stockholm on 20 November 1875 Augusta Sandels, daughter of the last Count Sandels. Sources say that he continued his 'individual' lifestyle also after the marriage. They had eight children.

Although he was married, Eulenburg was connected in homosexual liaisons with members of the Kaiser’s inner circle, including count Kuno von Moltke, the military commander of Berlin. The public exposure of these liaisons in 1907 led to the Harden-Eulenburg Affair. In 1908, Eulenburg was placed on trial for perjury due to his denial of his homosexuality; the trial was repeatedly postponed due to Eulenburg’s claim of poor health.

With many of his closest advisors discredited by accusations of homosexuality, the Kaiser came to rely more on his military leaders. Prussian militarism culminated in Germany's involvement in the disastrous First World War in which over 3 million German men were killed and an additional 4 million wounded.

Eulenburg died in 1921.

Princess Sophie, Duchess in Bavaria, the current Hereditary Princess of Liechtenstein, is one of Philip Eulenburg's descendants, as are Sophie's children, of whom one son will succeed on the throne of Liechtenstein.

Eulenburg-Hertefeld, Philipp, Prince zu (1857-1921) - lgbtq encyclopedia

Roger Casement

Roger Casement born 1 September 1864 (d. 1916)

Sir Roger David Casement was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary and nationalist by inclination. He was a British diplomat by profession and is famous for his activities against abuses of the colonial system in Africa and Peru, but more well known for his dealings with Germany prior to Ireland's Easter Rising in 1916.

Casement resigned from colonial service in 1912. The following year, he joined the Irish Volunteers. When WWI broke out in 1914, he attempted to secure German aid for Irish independence, sailing for Germany via America. He viewed himself as a self-appointed ambassador of the Irish nation. While the journey was his idea, he managed to persuade the exiled Irish nationalists in the Clan na Gael to finance the expedition. Many members of the Clan na Gael never trusted him completely, as he was not a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and held views considered by many to be too moderate.

Casement drafted a 'treaty' with Germany, which stated that country's support for an independent Ireland. Most of his time in Germany, however, was spent in an attempt to recruit an 'Irish Brigade' consisting of Irish prisoners-of-war in the prison camp of Limburg an der Lahn, who would be trained to fight against England. The effort proved unsuccessful, as all Irishmen fighting in the British army did so voluntarily, and was abandoned after much time and money was wasted. The Germans, who were sceptical of Casement but nonetheless aware of the military advantage they could gain from an uprising in Ireland, offered the Irish 20,000 guns, 10 machine guns and accompanying ammunition, a fraction of the amount of weaponry Casement had hoped for.

Casement did not learn about the Easter Rising until after the plan was fully developed. The IRB purposely kept him in the dark, and even tried to replace him. Casement may never have learned that it was not the Volunteers who were planning the rising, but IRB members such as Patrick Pearse and Tom Clarke who were pulling the strings behind the scenes.

The German weapons never reached Ireland. The ship in which they were travelling, a German cargo vessel, the Libau, was intercepted, even though it had been thoroughly disguised as a Norwegian vessel, the Aud Norge. All the crew were German sailors, but their clothes and effects, even the charts and books on the bridge, were all Norwegian. The British, however, had intercepted German communications and knew the true identity and exact destination of the Aud. After it was intercepted, the ship's captain scuttled the ship.

Casement left Germany in a submarine, the U-19, shortly after the Aud sailed. Believing that the Germans were toying with him from the start, and purposely providing inadequate aid that would doom a rising to failure, he decided he had to reach Ireland before the shipment of arms, and convince his friend Eoin MacNeill (who he believed was still in control) to cancel the rising.

In the early hours of 21 April 1916, two days before the rising was scheduled to begin, Casement was put ashore at Banna Strand in County Kerry. Too weak to travel (he was ill), he was discovered and subsequently arrested on charges of treason, sabotage and espionage against the Crown.

Following a highly publicised trial, he was stripped of his knighthood. To the authorities' embarrassment it had been found difficult to find a law to prosecute Casement under since his activities against the crown had been carried out in Germany and the Treason Act seemed to imply that activities carried out away from British soil were not within its purview. However closer reading of the medieval document allowed for a more flexible interpretation leading to the accusation that Casement was 'hanged by a comma' as the court followed the letter of the unpunctuated document rather than its obvious sense. After an unsuccessful appeal against the death sentence, he was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London on 3 August 1916, at the age of 51.

Prior to his execution, pages of a diary which the Crown claimed belonged to Casement were circulated to those urging the commuting of his death sentence. These pages, supplied to King George V, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others in Britain, Ireland and the United States, suggested that Casement had engaged in homosexual activity, which was a crime in most countries at the time. The effect of what became known as the 'Black Diary' killed off much support for Casement's case.

Most Irish people believed that the diaries were forgeries, much as Charles Stewart Parnell had been the target of the Pigott forgeries implicating him in the Phoenix Park Murders. However a recent study comparing his 'White Diaries' (ordinary diaries of the time) with the 'Black Diaries', which allegedly date from the same time-span, judged, on the basis of detailed handwriting analysis, that the Black Diaries were genuine and had been written by Casement. This study remains controversial.

It has also been claimed that the Black Diaries describe an extremely active homosexual sex life which is unlikely to be genuine, but it has been argued that this does not refute the authenticity of the diaries, as they may have been sexual fantasies. Whilst there are some minor inconsistencies between the Diaries and external records of Casement's life, overall they do appear overwhelmingly congruent with his known movements.

Source: Wikipedia

Harold Nicolson

Harold Nicolson born 21 November 1886 (d. 1968)

Sir Harold Nicolson was a British diplomat, author and politician. He was born in Tehran, the son of a diplomat father. He was educated at Wellington College and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1909 he joined the diplomatic service, in which he held various posts, participating in a junior capacity in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

In 1913, he married the writer Vita Sackville-West, who encouraged his literary ambitions. In 1921, he published a biography of French poet Paul Verlaine, to be followed by studies of other literary figures. In 1933, he wrote an account of the Paris conference entitled Peacemaking, 1919.

Both Nicolson and his wife practised what today we would call an open marriage. They each had a number of same-sex affairs, and once Harold had to follow Vita to France, where she had 'eloped' with Violet Trefusis, to try to win her back. However, they remained happy together – in fact, they were famously devoted to each other, writing almost every day when they were separated, for example, because of long diplomatic postings abroad. Eventually, he gave up diplomacy, partly so they could live together in England. They had two sons, Nigel, also a politician and writer, and Ben, an art historian.

In the 1930s, he and his wife acquired and moved to Sissinghurst Castle, where they created the gardens that are now famous and run by the National Trust.

In 1931, Harold Nicolson joined Sir Oswald Mosley and his recently formed New Party. He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament in the 1931 General Election and edited the party newspaper. Nicolson ceased to support Mosley when Mosley formed the British Union of Fascists in 1932. Nicolson entered the House of Commons as National Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester West in the 1935 general election. In the latter half of the 1930s he was among a relatively small number of MPs who alerted the country to the threat of fascism. A friend (though not an intimate) of Winston Churchill, he often supported his efforts in the Commons to stiffen British resolve and support rearmament. He served briefly as a Parliamentary Private Secretary in Churchill's 1940 war time government of national unity; thereafter he was a well-respected backbencher, especially on foreign policy issues given his early and prominent diplomatic career. He lost his seat in the 1945 election. Having joined the Labour Party, he stood in the Croydon North by-election in 1948, but lost once again. He was knighted in 1953, as a reward for writing the official biography of George V.

After his last attempt to enter parliament, he continued with an extensive social schedule and his writing, which included books, a regular weekly piece for The Spectator and book reviews.