Cambridge
From Gresham's, Maclean won a place at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, arriving in 1931 to study modern languages. While there, he joined the Communist Party. In his second year at Cambridge, his father died, and in his last year he was recruited into Soviet intelligence by Anthony Blunt, ultimately becoming one of the Cambridge Five. He graduated with a First in Modern Languages and took the Civil Service exams. At the Final Board, Maclean was asked by one of the Panel interviewing him whether he had favoured communism whilst a university student, ostensibly because the Panel knew of a trip he had taken to Moscow in his second year at Cambridge.
Maclean replied:
- "At Cambridge, I was initially favourable to it," he said, "but I am little by little getting disenchanted with it." His apparent sincerity satisfied members of the Panel; Blunt had coached him on how to avoid this and other potentially incriminating traps.
Read more about this topic: Donald Maclean (spy)
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