The onset of the Cold War and the spread of McCarthyism reinforced Blunt's conviction that he had made the right choice in the 1930s, and he continued to be totally loyal to those who remained in the game. In 1951 he opted to stay and brazen it out, rather than defect with Burgess and Maclean. He was pressured to defect at this time by Modin ("Peter"). He told me a life of exile in Moscow would have been intolerable for him. He had visited Russia in the 1930s. It was a fine and admirable tragic country, but the place which appealed to him most was the Hermitage, Leningrad's magnificent gallery.
After 1951 Blunt was left alone with Philby. He was much less close to him than to Burgess. Philby was a strong, dominant personality, yet he needed Blunt desperately. Blunt still had the ear of his former friends in MI5, and was able to glean scraps for Philby of how the case against him was developing. They used to meet to discuss their chances of survival. Philby seemed bereft without his career in MI6, and had little understanding of the importance of art and scholarship to Blunt, even while the net closed on them both.
"Kim and I had different outlooks on life," Blunt told me. "He only ever had one ambition in life - to be a spy. I had other things in mine..."
Blunt admired Philby, but there was a part of him that was frightened by his utter conviction, his ruthlessly one-dimensional view of life. Blunt needed love and art and, in the end, the comfort of life in the Establishment. Philby, on the other hand, lived his life from bed to bed; he had an Arabian attitude to women, needing only the thrill of espionage to sustain him. Isaiah Berlin once said to me, "Anthony's trouble is that he wants to hunt with society's hounds and run with the Communist hares!"
"Kim never wavered," he said. "He always remained loyal, right to the end."
By late 1964 I was submerged by the weight of material emanating from the Long, Cairncross, and Blunt confessions, as well as the enormous task of collating and systematically reexamining all the material which had reached MI5 since 1960 from the various defectors. It was at this point that Symonds' second report on the Mitchell case finally reached me.
One morning, about a fortnight before the October 1964 general election, Hollis' secretary handed me a thick file, and told me to report to the DG's office that afternoon to discuss it. There was precious little time to read the report, let alone study it. Symonds had followed Hollis' instructions zealously, and during the eight months it took him to prepare the document, he never discussed its contents with either Arthur or me. But its thrust was clear enough. Symonds reassessed the Mitchell case in the light of the Blunt confession, which, of course, we had not possessed at the time of the first report. According to Symonds, the case against Mitchell was not strong. Symonds was not prepared to rule out the possibility of a more recent penetration, but he felt the likelihood was considerably diminished.
Arthur also received Symonds' report that morning; he knew he was being outflanked, and that the decision to circulate the report at such a late stage was a deliberate device to prevent any counterattack. He told me that he intended at the meeting to take the line that he could not comment until he was given adequate time to study it. For the first part of the meeting he was a silent, smoldering presence at one side of the conference table.
Hollis opened briskly.
"I don't propose to waste too much time," he began. "I have read this paper, which strikes me as most convincing. I would like your views before reaching a decision. As you know, gentlemen, an election is due very soon, and I feel it is much better for the Service if we can resolve this case now, so that I do not have to brief any incoming Prime Minister."
Everyone knew what he meant. He did not want to brief Harold Wilson, the Labor leader, who looked increasingly likely to beat the Tories at the forthcoming contest. Hollis' attitude was quite simple: Blunt, Long, and Cairncross tied up some useful loose ends, the Mitchell case fell, and everything was neatly resolved. He wanted to close the case and minute the file that the question of penetration had been dismissed.
Hollis asked for opinions around the table. There was surprisingly little comment at first. The Mitchell inquiry had been so badly botched on all sides that few of us felt it a strong wicket to defend, particularly since Arthur and I both now had strong suspicions that Hollis was the culprit. I said simply that if Symonds' first report was the case for the prosecution, then this latest was the case for the defense, and that without an interrogation I could not accept a verdict of "not guilty," and wanted my views recorded in the minutes. Hollis made a small note on the pad in front of him, and turned to Cumming. Cumming delivered a lecture on the lack of discipline exhibited during the Mitchell investigation. It was clear to all of us that the decision to exclude him from the indoctrination had shattered his self-esteem. F.J. said only that the best that could be said for the Mitchell case was that it was nonproven.
"And you, Arthur...?" asked Hollis.
Arthur looked up from the report.
"Well," he said, "there is a third possibility. Someone could be running Mitchell as their stalking horse."
There was silence around the table. He and Hollis stared at each other for a brief moment. Everyone in the room knew exactly what Arthur meant.
"I should like that remark clarified," said Cumming from the other end of the table. Symonds flicked anxiously through his report, as if he were looking to see if somehow Arthur's hypothesis had crept into it undetected.
Hollis merely picked up where he left off, ignoring Arthur's comment as if he had not heard it.
"Well, we have to make a decision," he said, "and therefore I propose to close this case down, and minute the file to that effect..."
His pen paused above the file. Arthur could contain himself no longer
"Intellectually, you simply cannot do this," he burst out in his most precise manner. "You're neglecting virtually all the Golitsin allegations about penetration. There's the question of the leak about the Crabbe operation. There's the Technics Document - we don't even know yet which document Golitsin is referring to. Whatever the status of the Mitchell case, it cannot be right to ignore them."
Hollis tried to deflect the attack, but Arthur pressed forward. He knew Hollis had overreached himself. Symonds admitted he knew too little about the Golitsin material to present an authoritative opinion. F.J. was inclined to agree that further work on Golitsin would be prudent. Hollis could feel the meeting ebb away from him. He threw down his pen in exasperation and instructed Patrick Stewart to conduct a final review of all Golitsin serials outstanding. In the meantime, he ordered the Mitchell case was closed.
After the meeting I approached F.J. It was intolerable, I said, for the DG to assign a research task to an officer without consulting me, the head of Research, when I was already wrestling with the mass of material pouring in from Blunt, Long, and Cairncross, as well as from defectors in Washington.
"Things are difficult enough as it is," I said, "but if we start splitting the work up, there will be chaos!"
F.J. could see the problem. The system was approaching overload, and he agreed with me that more coordination was needed, not less. I suggested that we try to establish some kind of inter-Service working party to research the entire range of material concerning the penetrations of British Intelligence reaching us from confessions or defectors. F. J. said he would see what he could do.