Queen advised by KGB spy for years without knowing it

A double agent spies in Buckingham Palace on behalf of the KGB. What sounds like the exciting plot of a James Bond film actually happened: Anthony Blunt, former art curator and advisor to Queen Elizabeth II, actually worked as a spy. There have been rumors about this for a long time. He later confessed to giving British intelligence information to the Soviet Union during World War II.

However, it wasn’t until almost ten years later that Monarachin found out that her long-time art advisor was actually working as a double agent. That suggests. Such documents actually remain secret for decades. The National Archives agency has the papers of the domestic intelligence service. Accordingly, the palace officials did not inform the queen in order to protect her.

Anthony Blunt was a cousin of the Queen and also a member of the royal household as curator of the royal painting collection. In 1964 he confessed to having supplied the Russian spy agency KGB with secret information as a high-ranking MI5 officer during the Second World War. After his confession, Blunt felt a “deep sense of relief,” according to the secret service files.

In return, Blunt was allowed to remain in office – while the Queen was kept in the dark. The documents show that her private secretary saw “no advantage” in informing the Queen about Blunt’s activities. “It would only increase their concern and nothing could be done about him,” it was said at the time.

In 1973 the government decided to inform the monarch. Bunt was ill at the time and politicians feared that reports about his past would become public if Blunt died. However, the Queen didn’t seem surprised. According to the files, she received the news “very calmly and without surprise.” She also remembered earlier rumors that Blunt was suspected of espionage in the 1950s.

The case became public knowledge in 1979 when the British Prime Minister exposed Blunt as a spy in the House of Commons. He lost his knighthood status but was never prosecuted. He died in 1983 at the age of 75.

Anthony Blunt was part of the “Cambridge Five”, a group of five double agents who worked for Moscow. During or after their studies around 1930, its members were initially convinced communists and later KGB spies who worked their way into high positions in the secret service or the government.

The files were released on the occasion of the exhibition “MI5: Official Secrets”, which opens in 2025 at the National Archives in London.