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The Shadow Dossier — The Talent Spotter Who Built the Cambridge Ring · The Shadow Dossier

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  The Shadow Dossier. Act I. The Professor Who
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  Wasn't. In the early 1930s, an Austrian -born
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  intellectual named Arnold Deutsch arrived in
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  London, ostensibly to pursue academic work, holding
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  a doctorate in chemistry from the University
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  of Vienna. In reality, Deutsch was an experienced
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  Soviet intelligence officer for the NKVD. operating
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  under the cover name Otto, and his assignment
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  was one of the most consequential in the history
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  of Soviet espionage, to identify and recruit
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  talented young people at Britain's elite universities,
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  long before they held any position worth spying
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  for, and cultivate them over years into ideologically
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  committed agents. This approach, recruiting for
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  the long game, rather than for immediate access,
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  was a deliberate strategic innovation. Deutsch
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  and his Moscow superiors believed that a generation
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  of bright, idealistic students radicalized by
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  the Depression and the rise of fascism could
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  be guided into influential careers in government,
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  intelligence, and diplomacy, becoming immensely
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  valuable sources decades later. the recruits.
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  At Cambridge University, Deutsch identified and
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  personally recruited a small group of students
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  who would become known decades later as the Cambridge
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  Five. Kim Philby, Donald McLean, Guy Burgess,
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  Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. Each was
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  drawn in individually through careful, patient
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  conversation rather than any single dramatic
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  pitch. appealing to genuine anti -fascist conviction
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  and a belief that Soviet communism represented
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  the only serious opposition to the fascism spreading
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  across Europe. Deutsch's method emphasized psychological
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  understanding over ideology alone. He was known
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  among Soviet intelligence colleagues for spending
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  unusual amounts of time simply getting to know
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  his prospective recruits as people before ever
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  raising the subject of actual intelligence work,
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  building trust that in several cases lasted for
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  decades, well after Deutsch himself was gone
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  from Britain. Deutsch's own time running the
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  operation in Britain was relatively brief. By
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  the late 1930s, Stalin's purges had reached deep
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  into Soviet intelligence itself, and many of
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  the officers who had built networks like the
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  Cambridge Ring were recalled to Moscow, some
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  to be reassigned, others to be executed as the
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  purges consumed even the services that had proven
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  most successful abroad. Deutsch was recalled
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  to Moscow in 1937. He survived the purges, but
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  his later career took him away from the network
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  he'd built. He was reportedly involved in other
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  operations before dying in 1942, killed when
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  a ship he was traveling on was sunk, some accounts
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  say by a German U -boat, while he was en route
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  on a wartime intelligence assignment. He never
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  lived to see the full extent of what his recruits
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  would go on to achieve for Soviet intelligence
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  over the following decades. The five men Deutsch
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  recruited went on to occupy positions of genuine
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  significance. Philby rose high within British
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  intelligence itself. McLean and Cairncross held
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  sensitive government posts. Burgess moved through
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  diplomatic and intelligence circles. Blunt became
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  a respected art historian with access to the
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  royal household while secretly continuing to
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  pass information. Their combined betrayal Unraveling
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  gradually from the early 1950s through Blunt's
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  eventual public unmasking in 1979 is still considered
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  one of the most damaging intelligence penetrations
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  any Western power has suffered. None of it would
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  have existed in the form it took without Deutsch's
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  original patient work. Not a single dramatic
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  recruitment, but five long... Quiet conversations
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  with idealistic young men who wouldn't matter
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  to Soviet intelligence for another decade, and
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  who mattered enormously once they finally did.
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  This concludes declassified file number 058 of
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  the Shadow Dossier, the talent spotter who built
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  the Cambridge Ring. What dangerous secrets await
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  in our next file? Subscribe on Apple Podcasts,
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  Spotify, RSS .com, and YouTube so you never miss
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  an official declassification. This is the Shadow
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  Dossier. Thank you for listening.