Burgess, operating from Room 201 of Broadcasting House, was now responsible for two consumer series, Signpost and Can I Help You?, which went out during 1943-4, covering such subjects as clothes rationing, changes in insurance, advice for old-age pensioners, war service grants, road safety in the blackout, war raid damage, and liaising with organisations such as the National Council of Social Service, Citizens Advice Bureau, and government departments such as Health and Labour. The series generated a huge post bag and was widely popular. It also gave him confidential information on the realities of life in Britain during the war, which he was able to pass to his Soviet masters.
An early champion of the broadcasting of parliament, at the beginning of October 1941, he also took on responsibility from Norman Luker for The Week in Westminster, the flagship political talks programme of the Home Service. Broadcast every Saturday evening, it commented on the past week in parliament. Burgess dealt with technical as well as editorial aspects – from timing scripts to editing them, as well as nominating, preparing and evaluating speakers.1
The speakers were selected in consultation with his BBC bosses, the Ministry of Information and party whips, but the new job gave him terrific contacts in parliament, as well as journalists and academic experts. He was now in the House of Commons several times a week and became a crucial liaison figure between the House of Commons and the BBC. Burgess broadened the range of speakers from politicians to journalists such as the Daily Herald’s Maurice Webb, chairman of the parliamentary correspondents, and brought in representatives from the Manchester Guardian, the Star, Australian News Service, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph, though the programme eventually reverted back to politicians.
Lord Hailsham, a regular contributor, remembered Burgess as ‘a charming, sensitive and civilised person … he made no secret of his pronounced Left Wing opinions and frequently expressed his distaste of the Right Wing elements of the Labour Party’.2 Leonard Miall, who had been at Cambridge with Burgess and joined the BBC in 1939, had similar memories. ‘He was very open about his communism and homosexuality, but one didn’t believe most things Guy said. A very amusing talker, but he was a natural liar.’3
In December 1941, the BBC informed Burgess he would be released for military service after 31 December and his contract would expire on 14 March 1942, but ‘if you have not been called up for military service on the expiry of the notice your engagement with the Corporation will be continued temporarily on a week to week basis, until such time as you are called up’.4
His freelance work for MI5, as planned, however, saved him from being called up. According to a BBC memo, Burgess claimed to have no personal objection to military service ‘but that he was at present “reserved” by the War Office … The position is that Burgess still does work for the War Office in his spare time, which does not interfere with his Corporation duties. He is extremely useful to Talks Department and they are anxious to keep him as long as possible.’5
Though he remained as a temporary BBC employee, Burgess’s salary was raised to £580 p.a. in February and Barnes gave him a good report:
Mr Burgess is a very useful member of the Dept. He is fertile in ideas, and if he lacks the insistence to carry them out, his exposition of them is a tonic to the rest of us. He is a good editor of scripts but is inclined to be lenient with speakers. He is not a tidy office worker, but lately he has clearly tried to ‘grow up’ and to improve this side of his work. He has earned his increment.6
Burgess’s reputation amongst his colleagues was high. In June he was one of a select number of BBC producers, another was Eric Blair (George Orwell), and MPs such as Harold Nicolson, invited for dinner by Stafford Cripps, the Leader of the House of Commons, to discuss ‘the place of the artist in society’ as part of Cripps’s planning for the post-war world.7
Through Norman Luker and E.H. Carr, who were now advisers to Stafford Cripps, Burgess heard that Cripps, who wanted a War Planning Directorate instead of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, had sounded out press support and was considering resigning. Cripps, back from Moscow and in the War Cabinet, was seen as Churchill’s chief rival and such a resignation would have created a political crisis. Burgess alerted Harold Nicolson, who then arranged for Churchill to be warned through Violet Bonham Carter, ‘the only outside person I know who is on terms of intimate friendship with Winston and also has the confidence of Stafford and Lady Cripps’. Cripps agreed to delay his decision, the following month Churchill removed him from the War Cabinet and the crisis was averted, but it was a strange intervention, given Burgess’s own views were closer to Cripps, a very public champion of opening a Second Front, than of Churchill.8
Burgess had become increasingly exercised by the need for a Second Front and had started lobbying anyone he could, including Clarissa Churchill, who had been working for Smollett at the Ministry of Information as a research associate on a propaganda paper Britansky Soyvznik.9 Just as he had used his broadcasting position during the Munich Crisis to shape public opinion, Burgess now marshalled his influence on the need to take pressure off the Russians on the Eastern Front.
In January 1942, he arranged a talk by Ernst Henri, which the intelligence expert Christopher Andrew has described as ‘probably Burgess’s most remarkable coup within the BBC, on behalf of the NKVD’.10 Henri was a Soviet illegal and propaganda associate of Muenzenberg, working under journalistic cover.11 Now, as part of a series of ‘active measures’ co-ordinated by Burgess and Smollett to shape British public opinion, he broadcast on the importance of opening the Second Front as soon as possible.
BBC coverage of Russia worried Harold Nicolson, who wrote to Maconachie that all the public ‘think about is the glory of Russia and they have a completely distorted and legendary idea of what Russia really is’ and there needed to be more balance in coverage of the Soviet Union.12 However, whilst his friend continued as the Talks Department expert on the Soviet Union, that was unlikely to happen, and Burgess continued to slip in speakers with a communist background, arguing they simply reflected the growing public interest in Russia. These included the independent MP Willie Gallagher and in February 1943, Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, the British ambassador to the Soviet Union in London and former lover of Harold Nicolson, refuting suggestions that the Soviet Union was an ideological enemy.13
Burgess’s enthusiasm for all things Russian continued unabated. Jack Hewit remembered going to the premiere of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, often known as the Leningrad Symphony and regarded as a symbol of resistance to Nazism, as part of the Proms at the Albert Hall at the end of June 1942. He went with Blunt and an emotional Burgess ‘with a cigarette in his mouth smoking with tears streaming down his face’.14
He also continued to use his position to put forward friends such as Jack Macnamara. Burgess had successfully kept his lover Peter Pollock safe and in London for the first part of the war by employing him to befriend and, if required, sleep with various refugees of interest to MI5. Now he tried to interest the BBC in using him as a contributor to John Hilton’s popular advice series Forces Problems Answered.
Burgess had known Hilton since attending his inaugural lecture as the first Cambridge Professor of Industrial Relations in 1931 and the two worked closely together on the series, which covered every facet of army life as it affected ordinary soldiers and their families. Burgess used his position to deal with the various Army departments including the Adjutant-General, not least on questions of morale, without them knowing how far he had strayed from his BBC brief and was using the information to influence what listeners thought.15
Hilton wrote in August:
My dear Guy … I don’t think I ever wrote to say how much I like young Pollock. Whether he personally would be regarded as allocate-able to the task of working with me in these matters I do not know, but he is just the type … I feel sure that if the talks are to open out in the way we have in mind, it must be in part by my having in parallel with me some young officer of the Pollock type, who volunteered or was called up in the ordinary way for military service as a unit of the New Army, who did his turn as a private, went to an OCTU, got his commission, and therefore is able to see the needs and problems of the great multitude of the Forces personnel from personal experience first-hand.16
A week later Burgess returned to the fray, using Hilton’s response, to propose Pollock fill a requested position as an army officer to advise the BBC, though the request was for officers over forty. ‘The name of Lieut. Pollock, 5th Battalion, Gordon Highlanders has been suggested as the type wanted. He is known to Hilton, Major Sparrow of the Army Morale Committee, and myself.’17
Throughout 1944 Burgess continued to push friends. In January 1944 he brought Pollock in for a voice test, and proposed an old friend from Cambridge to broadcast for Forces Problems Answered:
I have also in mind Jim Lees, now working with Nottingham University as an extension lecturer and an area organiser for WEA. This man is an ex-coal miner, a Trinity open scholar, and of the possible future Hilton type. I think you knew him; he and I were contemporaries and friends at Cambridge, though he is considerably older than I … Pollock should be coming up, if Glasgow agrees, for a voice-test … As might be expected the note in Radio Times has produced a long list of applicants for the post. Interviewing and voice-testing them would be almost a whole-time job for a week or two – I do not propose to undertake it till the candidates I have mentioned, all of whom I think are better than anybody who have written in, have been disposed of.18
He was also using his broadcasting contacts to lead him to others. The political journalist Maurice Webb, later elected as a Labour MP in 1945, and chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 1946, was one of his regular broadcasters and would often drink with him after broadcasts at the various pubs near Broadcasting House. ‘He was a great cadger of small change and an enthusiast for a quick drink,’ Webb remembered, adding that he became worried when ‘Burgess began to make frequent calls on me at the House of Commons. He pressed me for introductions to all kinds of important people. Most of all, he tried to get me to supply him with private reports on war conferences that were passed on to certain journalists.’19
The Week in Westminster gave Burgess huge powers of patronage and influence, as ambitious MPs saw the advantages an appearance could bring, and Burgess was only too happy to exploit them, though he tried to produce balance and encourage younger MPs. Writing to Harold Nicolson on 9 September 1943 about Peter Thorneycroft, an MP since 1938 and future Chancellor of the Exchequer, ‘that nice though Thorneycroft is, neither his voice nor his intellect appeared likely to be an answer to the Central Office’s prayer … He seemed very ordinary indeed, and this is a quality which only makes for success in broadcasting when it’s pushed to the point of genius.’20
At the beginning of November 1943, a new name was suggested as a speaker for The Week in Westminster. Hector McNeil was a former journalist on the Daily Express, elected to parliament in 1941 and a Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Ministry of War Transport. ‘This man has never broadcast before, and is a choice of mine’, reported Burgess. ‘I have, however, consulted the Labour Party who think very highly of him and he is also, if not popular, much respected by the Tories. I have great hopes that he may turn out a real winner, but this opinion as yet is only at the “hunch” stage.’21
On 2 November McNeil made his first broadcast. It was a success. Writing four days later to thank him, Burgess noted, ‘I think you have it in you to be a very fine broadcaster indeed, and I look forward, both on broadcasting and on personal grounds very much indeed to any future collaboration that we can both manage.’22 McNeil was to become a regular broadcaster from that point. It was to prove a very shrewd decision.
Burgess ended 1943 with a good report from Barnes, supported by Maconachie:
Maintains a wide range of contacts and can be relied upon to report new ideas and tendencies, though his judgement in selecting from them what is important is sometimes wild. Aided by a good secretary his office work has improved, but it is still apt to be careless. Complaints have again been received from outside the Dept from announcers of his manners, but such complaints are not from speakers. There is no doubt in my mind of his high value as a Talks producer and his presence is always stimulating … Grade increment recommended.23
His relationship with authority and expenses continued, however, to be a problem. In January 1943 his December expenses were queried:
His office hours are very flexible – he is rarely here before 10.45 a.m. since he reads his papers and Hansards at home and spends most of the rest of the day out of the office making contacts … Some producers apparently manage their business by taking a bus or tube and seem to be able to allow sufficient margin of time, except in exceptional circumstances, for using this ordinary means of transport. Mr Burgess isn’t the most extravagant on taxis, but the taxis on the 15th and 29th appear quite unreasonable, since he lives in Bentinck Street.24
As always there was an explanation. ‘What, in fact, happened was that in one case I walked some way with Brooks (15/12) and in the other I dropped him at his house (taxis being in short supply) (29/12). In the second case I have only charged a proportion of the taxi fare to the Corporation since I do not normally take taxis to Bentinck Street.’25
Concerns that Burgess was exploiting the BBC rumbled on, with further queries from BBC Administration that Burgess was rather too generous in terms of his entertaining of potential speakers at the cost of the taxpayer, and his habit of loaning BBC secretaries to type out MPs’ scripts. ‘To take the two questions separately, as regards expenses I feel that nearly £11 in a month, the bulk of which is entertaining of one sort or another in connection with the House of Commons is far too high. I realise that a certain amount of drinking at the bar is inevitable, but I cannot believe that it is not possible to do business with responsible MPs except at the bar.’26
Burgess’s colleague dealing with administration, G.J.B. Allport, noted that many of the same names kept cropping up, such as Quintin Hogg:
while there is almost continual entertaining to lobby correspondents, and I must say I do not quite see how they fit into the picture as between Burgess and prospective speakers … I do not know whether it is my business to say this, but I feel sure someone will be asking before long whether it would not be better to have a rather older producer in charge of this series. I should rather have thought that this was the one series above all others where the art of salesmanship in the sense of selling the BBC to its prospective speakers was not required.27
The disputes over expenses continued throughout the year. In August he was authorised to spend up to £1 a week on entertainment whilst parliament was sitting. When Burgess claimed that some weeks he didn’t go to the Commons, other weeks he was there all the time, and wondered if he could carry the allowance forward, the frosty response was that this was ‘not in the spirit of the authorisation’.
When, at the end of October, Burgess went to Cambridge to give the tribute at the memorial service for John Hilton, who had died in August, and took taxis to and from Liverpool Street Station and within Cambridge, it did not go down well at the Corporation. Burgess was furious:
If you will refer to your papers, you will see that in the past I successfully established the principle of travelling first class when at work, under wartime conditions, on Corporation business. I think you will find this on your predecessor’s minutes. I normally travel first class and see no reason why I should alter my practice when on BBC business, particularly when I am in my best clothes to attend a service.28
Allport was not convinced, however, stating ‘there is no case for Mr Burgess travelling first class on an occasion such as this’. He added, ‘Incidentally, could Mr Burgess be requested not to write memoranda on the backs of expenses sheets?’29
Even when Barnes warned Burgess that, if he went ahead with an appeal on the rail travel, it ‘would probably do me serious harm and end up on my personal file’, Burgess refused to budge. ‘I hope it’s not necessary to put on record that I am not anxious to waste time or cause trouble, and that since the financial sum involved is so small, it is surely obvious that I am arguing on a point of principle.’30 It was an indication of how far Burgess would push, when others would have made a strategic retreat.
The episode doesn’t appear to have affected Burgess’s annual confidential report from Barnes, who approved a grade increment and wrote, ‘I have little to add to my report of 27/11/42. He is as full as ever of ideas, he shows signs, faint signs, of a growing sense of responsibility, though he still writes and speaks before he thinks. A bit of a sea-lawyer on matters of administration, but yet a valuable member of the department.’31
By 1944 the government was beginning to think about the postwar world, not least the importance of propaganda. Harold Nicolson, a former diplomat, foreign affairs expert and broadcaster, was consulted, and he recommended Burgess be approached. As a recognised propaganda expert from his days in Section D and the JBC, and with good political connections, it is not surprising that Burgess should be asked. At the beginning of January 1944, he and Barnes met Sir William Ridsdale at the News Department of the Foreign Office to discuss plans to develop post-war propaganda. The discussions continued the following month, when Burgess, Ridsdale and Nicolson dined at the Moulin d’Or restaurant to discuss plans for post-war talks on foreign affairs at the BBC.
In fact these discussions had been going on for much longer. In May 1943 Burgess had approached Ridsdale, with whom he had liaised at the Ministry of Information as well as the BBC, making suggestions on foreign affairs programming, and in particular controversial subjects such as Poland.32 On 4 March Burgess gave his three months’ notice to Barnes, saying he had been offered a job in the News Department of the Foreign Office. This was part of a careful plan. The News Department had been blunting the almost totally pro-Soviet line of the Ministry of Information and the Russians needed someone to address that. Burgess was felt to be just the person.
At the end of March, Sir Alexander Cadogan, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, wrote directly to Robert Foot, the BBC Director-General, an indication of how important the transfer was believed to be, asking if Burgess could be released early, as the News Department was short-staffed:
I understand that Mr Burgess of your Talks Department is interested in this vacancy, and from our point of view he would appear to be well qualified to fill it. I fully appreciate that he is doing most valuable work with the British Broadcasting Corporation and I fear that his release may inconvenience you. But as I have said, our own need is great, and we should therefore be most grateful if you could see your way to facilitate his transfer to us.33
Though Barnes told Maconachie he couldn’t spare Burgess, he agreed to a one-month notice period, adding, ‘I agree with you that it would be useless to keep Burgess against his will, but his mind is by no means made up, and I have told him that if he stays he would handle the proposed foreign affairs series. He has promised to let me know by 2.30 tomorrow whether he means to resign.’34 But Burgess’s mind had been made up. At the end of March, he gave formal notice to Barnes asking to be released early and offering to work part-time. ‘Personally, it will be a real grief to leave the department and the division. I should like to emphasise this very strongly. Also to say that I should like to give any assistance that may be possible in the future to the department if this should be found useful.’35
Reluctantly the BBC agreed, on the understanding he stayed until 4 June, but could work two hours a day at the Foreign Office to learn his work there. In a memo to the Director-General, Maconachie wrote, ‘Mr Burgess is a very good producer and, although he has his failings, will be a serious loss to the Talks Department.’36
Burgess’s career at the BBC was now over. Following in the footsteps of Donald Maclean and Kim Philby, he had manoeuvred himself into the Foreign Office. He knew this was where the real power lay.