Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
"He still feels himself to be very British."
On 11 February 1963, British racing driver Whitney Straight was interviewed about his recent meeting in Moscow with Soviet spy Guy Burgess, whose defection to the Russian capital some 12 years earlier had shocked the British establishment. Burgess was one of the Cambridge Five – a ring of British‑educated officials (including Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross) who, for years, passed classified material to the Soviet Union from inside Whitehall and the intelligence world.
Burgess’s sudden flight in 1951, alongside fellow diplomat Maclean, became a defining Cold War scandal: it exposed deep security failures and triggered acute mistrust that strained US–UK intelligence relations at a time of deepening Cold War anxieties.
Straight’s remarks about Burgess’s sense of Britishness align with what is known of his life in the Soviet Union: despite decades of service to Moscow, Burgess struggled with exile, drank heavily, and maintained a strong attachment to Britain, its culture and the social world he had left behind. Recorded barely six months before his death in August 1963, the interview offers a rare insight into his conflicted final years.
#Burgess #GuyBurgess #BurgessMacleanAffair #CambridgeFive #Soviet #SovietUnion #Spies #Spy #Spying #Espionage #ColdWar #Communist #Communists #Secrets #Russia #Moscow
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"He still feels himself to be very British."
On 11 February 1963, British racing driver Whitney Straight was interviewed about his recent meeting in Moscow with Soviet spy Guy Burgess, whose defection to the Russian capital some 12 years earlier had shocked the British establishment. Burgess was one of the Cambridge Five – a ring of British‑educated officials (including Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross) who, for years, passed classified material to the Soviet Union from inside Whitehall and the intelligence world.
Burgess’s sudden flight in 1951, alongside fellow diplomat Maclean, became a defining Cold War scandal: it exposed deep security failures and triggered acute mistrust that strained US–UK intelligence relations at a time of deepening Cold War anxieties.
Straight’s remarks about Burgess’s sense of Britishness align with what is known of his life in the Soviet Union: despite decades of service to Moscow, Burgess struggled with exile, drank heavily, and maintained a strong attachment to Britain, its culture and the social world he had left behind. Recorded barely six months before his death in August 1963, the interview offers a rare insight into his conflicted final years.
#Burgess #GuyBurgess #BurgessMacleanAffair #CambridgeFive #Soviet #SovietUnion #Spies #Spy #Spying #Espionage #ColdWar #Communist #Communists #Secrets #Russia #Moscow
To license the footage featured in this clip, follow the link below:
gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/whitney-straight-interview-about-meeting-guy-burgess-news-footage/1362097630?adppopup=true
To search the ITN Archive collection on Getty Images, follow the link below:
gettyimages.co.uk/footage/itn
🎥 Subscribe to our YouTube channel (tap the bell icon and stay up to date with all the latest ITN Archive videos!) - youtube.com/@FrontlinebyITN
🎥 Follow us on Twitter - twitter.com/ITNArchive
🎥 Like us on Facebook - facebook.com/ITNArchiveITNP
🎥 Check out our TikTok - tiktok.com/@itnarchive1955
