Free Last of the Cold War Spies by Roland Perry Page A

for The Spectator . His experience had only confirmed his dedication to communism. This was more than hinted at in his writing, where under Straight’s precocious influence, he attempted to apply Marxist theory to aesthetics. Works of art, Straight suggested, could be judged by their historical impact instead of their intrinsic worth.
    Blunt continued with this kind of analysis, which damaged his reputation as an art historian and critic. Marxism, rather than a fair aesthetic sense, dominated his judgment. This reached a point of absurdity when he later attacked Picasso, one of the most important artists of the twentieth century, for his painting, Guernica , which had been inspired by the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Blunt, in a deluded critique, dismissed it as “disillusioning . . . it is not an act of public mourning but the expression of a private brain storm, which gives no evidence that Picasso has realized the political significance of Guernica.” 17
    Blunt’s assessment of the potential recruits on the Russian trip was more acute. His job—and to a lesser degree Burgess’s—now was to seduce to a deeper cause those who showed the right temperament and dedication on the tour.
    Top of the list was Michael Straight.

5

IN THE RING
    D orothy became worried as Straight entered his second year at Cambridge and took up residence in suite K5 at Trinity College with another communist, Hugh Gordon. His letters and utterances to her waxed between fanaticism and a callousness she had not before detected in her son.
    He mentioned to her and others the death of the poet, A. E. Housman, who had lived in the suite above his. Straight and his friends had ignored him as he shuffled down the stairs and into the diminishing autumn sunshine for his daily constitutional walk. They laughed him off when he tapped his cane on the ceiling to noisy K5, where the students reveled below playing loud music on Straight’s gramophone. One day the cane stopped tapping.
    Straight demonstrated the indifference and arrogance that touched Michael Young at Dartington when he wrote that they did not pause to mourn Housman. The poets of his generation were the ones who moved them. Cambridge was not now a place for old men. 1
    No creative or intellectual writers motivated Straight, although he was inspired, in a limited way, by the ideas behind Keynes’s book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money . This book was not published until 1936, but all economics students such as Straight were familiar witheverything in it long before this. Keynes had been preaching his views in lectures and papers since he first appeared at King’s College in 1909.
    The Spanish Civil War, rather than thoughtful documentation, moved Straight’s generation. If he and his contemporaries read anything it was supporting magazines such as The News Chronicle , New Statesman , and Palme Dutt’s Monthly .
    Straight began misleading his mother and the family, dolling out just enough careful information that would lead her to believe he was a socialist (not a dirty word in 1935) or a liberal working in communist cells, but not out of any conviction. He admitted he was recruiting others to the cause but alleged, disingenuously, that he didn’t know what was driving him to do it.
    Remarks to his mother and family members demonstrated that he was seeking Dorothy’s approval by suggesting that his activities in the communist cells were not carried from a sense of conviction. He even wondered if he was damaging the lives of new people he was drawing into the movement. He claimed, plaintively, he didn’t know why he was doing it. 2
    However, by late 1935, he had strong feelings of affection for Cornford, Klugman, and Dobb; they gave him an inexplicable sense of comradeship. But just in case his parents became concerned, he let them know that he had been all evening with Klugman, his brother Whitney’s friend Guy Burgess, and an art historian named Anthony