Cambridge Five spy Guy Burgess interview unearthed by CBC — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00[Music]
2. 0:01the BBC tonight is telling a tale to all
3. 0:04of Britain about a most curious fine
4. 0:07three 2 one and Q always going to be
5. 0:12seen as one of the most intriguing
6. 0:13characters of the 20th century this is
7. 0:16the missing piece in the story of the
8. 0:18Cambridge
9. 0:20spies not its find ours
10. 0:24cbcs
11. 0:251951 a discovery of 9 Minutes of film
12. 0:29few seem to know existed and apparently
13. 0:31matters an awful lot the fuss is for a
14. 0:35figure long Dead one of the so-called
15. 0:37Cambridge 5 of London in the 1950s the
16. 0:41savil RO shopping well-educated wonders
17. 0:44supposedly The Best of British
18. 0:46establishment really though they were
19. 0:48spies working for the Soviet Union hard
20. 0:51to overstate how big this betrayal was
21. 0:53to Britain
22. 0:55then and a certain arrogant flamboyant
23. 0:58turncoat guy ous was the most mysterious
24. 1:02and frustrating of
25. 1:04all he seemingly spent the Cold War in a
26. 1:07drunken Haze arms full of stolen Secrets
27. 1:10eventually defecting to Moscow this was
28. 1:13thought to be the only moving images of
29. 1:15him at that time just a glimpse to this
30. 1:18day movies and plays keep trying to
31. 1:19figure him out he rebelled against his
32. 1:22family he outraged his friends then
33. 1:24finally he betrayed his country many
34. 1:28have portrayed him including Benedict
35. 1:29Cumberbatch as Burgess the young BBC
36. 1:32journalist talking to Winston Churchill
37. 1:34what's your poison
38. 1:36whiske well it's almost 11 why not what
39. 1:40we know is that Burgess bolted for the
40. 1:42Soviet Union in
41. 1:431951 and seemed to disappear he never
42. 1:47met Justice never explained himself
43. 1:49never answered the mountains of
44. 1:51questions the British had for him about
45. 1:53the secrets he took or why was believed
46. 1:56to have never given a television
47. 1:58interview historians thought they had
48. 2:00written the very last word on guy
49. 2:02Burgess had long ago stopped looking for
50. 2:05film of him had just declared it simply
51. 2:08didn't
52. 2:09exist it did indeed exist and it's been
53. 2:12sitting in the CBC Vault since
54. 2:161959 that's because Burgess gave just
55. 2:19one television interview after he ran
56. 2:21for Moscow and it seems he gave it to
57. 2:23CBC to a weekly show called closeup
58. 2:30problem was for decades it wasn't
59. 2:32labeled cataloged only when it was
60. 2:35transferred from film so the interview
61. 2:37just sat there unacknowledged until
62. 2:40archist Arthur schwarzel spotted it and
63. 2:43realized instantly it was a
64. 2:46f guy
65. 2:48burges and I I it meant something to me
66. 2:51right away this
67. 2:53is I think the biggest thing that I've
68. 2:56stumbled on in in the collection for
69. 2:58sure it's 1959 and he's a villain and
70. 3:02he's trying to explain himself he knew a
71. 3:05story when he saw one knew others needed
72. 3:07to see it knew the Brits probably should
73. 3:09be the
74. 3:10[Music]
75. 3:12first nowhere better to give it a
76. 3:14showing than London's reform Club Once A
77. 3:17Gentleman's Club it's where Burgess used
78. 3:19to drink tell his grandio stories it is
79. 3:22the last place he was seen before he
80. 3:24defected having one final
81. 3:27cocktail hold it hello so we gathered
82. 3:30Jill Bennett the historian for the
83. 3:32British intelligence service guy Burgess
84. 3:34researchers spy authors a journalist who
85. 3:37once knew burges and the Cambridge 5 to
86. 3:39show them the interview tell the story
87. 3:41of how it came to be so should we take
88. 3:44our seats shot by a famed and gutsy
89. 3:47cameraman named Eric dmid who captured
90. 3:50some of the 20th Century's most crucial
91. 3:52interviews and said he had a few people
92. 3:55he wanted to find in Moscow he says that
93. 3:58he went to Moscow for CBC on a hunch he
94. 4:01had a number of people he wanted to find
95. 4:03he checked into the hotel Ukraine and
96. 4:06went for lunch and met a waiter who said
97. 4:08I'd like your jeans and he said well you
98. 4:11can have my jeans if you give me guy
99. 4:14burgess's phone number so he says he
100. 4:17went away for the afternoon and came
101. 4:19back that night for dinner with a little
102. 4:21piece of paper was handed to him with a
103. 4:23phone number and he handed the man his
104. 4:24jeans and Away you go if you're all
105. 4:27happy and ready here we go
106. 4:35the show itself just so curious even as
107. 4:38a time
108. 4:39[Music]
109. 4:42capsule in Moscow last week closeup met
110. 4:45guy Burgess and interviewed him in the
111. 4:47shadow of the Kremlin this was Guy
112. 4:50Burgess when he disappeared in 1951 at
113. 4:53that a passport photo a lifetime later
114. 4:56Burgess speaks to the West for the first
115. 4:58time about his def ction I simply went
116. 5:01as a
117. 5:02terrorist I and my friend approached the
118. 5:05Russians said could we come in they kept
119. 5:07us waiting in Prague for some weeks then
120. 5:10agreed everybody considered you and mlan
121. 5:13to be
122. 5:14traitors what have you to say to that Mr
123. 5:17Burgess it's no use me saying that I'm
124. 5:19not a traitor that means nothing uh of
125. 5:22course I'm not that's any I who know
126. 5:26that well the Attorney General might
127. 5:29interpret your activities differently
128. 5:31but Mr Burgess you're thinking of
129. 5:33visiting England do you have any
130. 5:35immediate plans uh I no I told you
131. 5:38earlier I want to live in the Soviet
132. 5:41Union because I'm a socialist and a
133. 5:43socialist country and I enjoy doing so
134. 5:46on the other hand naturally everybody
135. 5:48likes his own country
136. 5:50best uh immediately I would rather like
137. 5:54to go back to England for a month to see
138. 5:56my uh family
139. 6:00but I will never do that unless I can be
140. 6:02quite certain that I can get out of
141. 6:04England and come back to Russia
142. 6:06burgess's tone demeanor exactly as they
143. 6:09imagined it to be absolutely wonderful I
144. 6:12would have thought that would have been
145. 6:14virtually the scoop of the 1950s for
146. 6:16television it is a a crucial missing
147. 6:19piece in in the in the Burgess jigsaw it
148. 6:23underlined the impression that Burgess
149. 6:26really is is a very unstable character
150. 6:29that he would go on television and say I
151. 6:32want to come back to Britain I don't I
152. 6:34don't think we ever knew that he he'd
153. 6:36been that key to go on Britain that he
154. 6:37would ever have actually done it almost
155. 6:39in public the only one in the room who
156. 6:41actually knew Burgess in Moscow
157. 6:43journalist Robert elf he used to turn up
158. 6:46in our parties something you found this
159. 6:48figure in his shiny dark blue suit and
160. 6:52his uh dirty Italian Italian tie gulping
161. 6:56your whiskey
162. 6:59there were enough nuggets of information
163. 7:01in those few minutes they asked to see
164. 7:03it again tell me what do the Russian
165. 7:06people think of Canada do they think of
166. 7:08us as a satellite of the United
167. 7:11States look here I'm most unwilling to
168. 7:13give any answer as to what the Russian
169. 7:15people think I'm a quot Canadian myself
170. 7:19of course he slipped that Canadian
171. 7:20reference in and didn't elaborate
172. 7:22typical Burgess apparently a short
173. 7:24interview long on
174. 7:26attitude if he has earned the title of
175. 7:29of non-party bolik guy Burgess has
176. 7:31equally earned the scorn of the Homeland
177. 7:33he deserted next week Malcolm muggeridge
178. 7:36Vis and so only the interview's second
179. 7:38showing in nearly 60 years that is a
180. 7:42detail the Spy Watchers can't seem to
181. 7:44get over I'm still amazed that
182. 7:46particularly given the cbc's close
183. 7:48contact with the BBC over many years
184. 7:50that nobody in the BBC knew this existed
185. 7:52and nobody in the BBC have arrange for
186. 7:54it to be
187. 7:55transmitted why didn't a Britain
188. 7:58obsessed with Burgess pick up that CBC
189. 8:00interview right after it aired nearly 60
190. 8:03years ago we tried to find out made
191. 8:05calls looked into records but if there
192. 8:08is an answer it seems lost for
193. 8:10good this isn't a huge concern for
194. 8:13Britain they are busy tonight
195. 8:15deconstructing the sad and desperate
196. 8:18tone and look of Burgess each word muled
197. 8:21over one of the wonderful things is that
198. 8:24in any subject however much you discover
199. 8:27there's always something left to
200. 8:30discover and this is the most
201. 8:31interesting Discovery for quite some
202. 8:34time and us well we've gone back to the
203. 8:37archives because apparently you just
204. 8:40never know what or who lurks in the
205. 8:42climate controlled bunkers of our
206. 8:45history Adrian Areno CBC News Toronto