5. Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess was a British-born intelligence officer and double agent, who worked for the Soviet Union. He was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring that betrayed Western secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War. Burgess and Anthony Blunt contributed to the Soviet cause with the transmission of secret Foreign Office and MI5 documents that described NATO military strategy.
Guy Francis de Moncy Burgess was born the elder son of Commander Malcolm Kingsford de Moncy Burgess RN and his wife, Evelyn Mary, daughter of William Gillman. He attended Lockers Park Prep School in Hertfordshire and for a period Eton College. Burgess spent two years at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, but poor eyesight ended his naval prospects and he returned to Eton. He won an open scholarship to read modern history at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1930, gained a first in part one of the history tripos and an aegrotat in part two, and held a two-year postgraduate teaching fellowship. Whilst at Cambridge, he was recruited into the Cambridge Apostles, a secret, elitist debating society, whose members at the time included Anthony Blunt. Like Blunt, Burgess was homosexual. In London Burgess resided at Chester Square and later 5, Bentinck Street, for sometime with Anthony Blunt. Kim Philby and Donald Maclean would often visit him there for consultations or socialising. The house belonged to Lord Rothschild.