Conspiracy of Silence - The Secret Life of Anthony Blunt

London: Grafton Books, 1986. A near Fine unmarked copy (Fine apart from a few marks to top edge) with near Fine dustjacket which is not price clipped. xix + 588 pages. 64 illustrations. Throughout the Second World War and the Cold War which followed, Britain's Secret Service was compromised by a group of privileged, Cambridge-educated Englishmen who consistently betrayed their country by working for Stalin's Russia. Two Sunday Times writers have investigated the astonishing story of Anthony Blunt and his accomplices, who included Burgess, Maclean and Philby. Their book shows how deeply the Blunt network penetrated the British Establishment on behalf of the Russians. Anthony Blunt, Keeper of the Queen's Pictures, friend of the royal family, Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, was born in Bournemouth in 1907, the son of an Anglican clergyman. This solid middle-class background made him an unlikely agent, but at Cambridge, after meeting Guy Burges, a fellow member of the Apostles (the university's elite intellectual society), Blunt became a communist and Russian spy. PLEASE NOTE: A HEAVY VOLUME OF 1.155 KILO UNPACKED WEIGHT WHICH MAY REQUIRE ADDITIONAL SHIPPING COST 23. First Edition. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Near Fine. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.