Richard Norton-Taylor at Literary Review:
It may be thought that the notorious Cambridge spies – the majority of them members of the Apostles, that university’s secretive, elitist society – had been written out. But, as Stalin’s Apostles makes clear, such is not the case. Most of the books on what the KGB later called their ‘Magnificent Five’ – Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross – have dwelt on their early lives, how they were recruited by Soviet talent spotters and through their individual networks, and how they were allowed to spy, undetected, for so long. Antonia Senior’s message in this carefully researched and well-written book, rich in anecdotes and insights, is indicated by the subtitle. Senior, a former student of Christopher Andrew, the pioneering Cambridge historian of Britain’s security and intelligence agencies, concentrates on the lasting damage that the Cambridge spies inflicted by providing Stalin with crucial information about the Western allies’ strategy and priorities (as well as the development of the atom bomb) when it was becoming evident Germany was losing the war.
Churchill and Roosevelt sold the pass at their Yalta summit in February 1945 by accepting that eastern and central Europe would come under Soviet political control.
more here.
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