Yuri Modin
Encyclopedia
Yuri Modin was the KGB
controller for the "Cambridge Five
" from 1944 to 1955, during which period Donald MacLean
was said to have passed atomic secrets to the Soviets. In 1951 Modin arranged the defections of Maclean and Guy Burgess
. Modin's predecessors in control of the damaging Cambridge spy ring were executed.
Modin said of Kim Philby
in 1994 that
was the Fifth Man: ‘At the close of 1944, the name of John Cairncross, code-named the Carelian, was added to the four agents to whose cases I had been assigned. He was the "Fifth Man." Cairncross had at one time or another been in contact with the others, but he was hardly a member of the group.’
The words changed and inserted by Headline were pure fabrication, according to Modin, who pointed out that Cairncross, to his knowledge, had never been in contact with any member of the group. UK The Guardian
journalist Richard Norton-Taylor
rang Modin to check on this and found him angry that the false claims, changes and fraud on the British (and later US) buying public, had been made without him being consulted. Alan Rusbridger
, who agreed with Perry’s assessment that Rothschild was the fifth man, also wrote in The Guardian: “Yuri Modin...says in the English edition of his recent book that Cairncross was “the fifth man.” Modin says he never used the term, which is not contained in the French edition of his book.’
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
controller for the "Cambridge Five
Cambridge Five
The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies, recruited in part by Russian talent spotter Arnold Deutsch in the United Kingdom, who passed information to the Soviet Union during World War II and at least into the early 1950s...
" from 1944 to 1955, during which period Donald MacLean
Donald Duart Maclean
Donald Duart Maclean was a British diplomat and member of the Cambridge Five who were members of MI5, MI6 or the diplomatic service who acted as spies for the Soviet Union in the Second World War and beyond. He was recruited as a "straight penetration agent" while an undergraduate at Cambridge by...
was said to have passed atomic secrets to the Soviets. In 1951 Modin arranged the defections of Maclean and Guy Burgess
Guy Burgess
Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess was a British-born intelligence officer and double agent, who worked for the Soviet Union. He was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring that betrayed Western secrets to the Soviets before and during the Cold War...
. Modin's predecessors in control of the damaging Cambridge spy ring were executed.
Modin said of Kim Philby
Kim Philby
Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a spy for and later defected to the Soviet Union...
in 1994 that
- "He never revealed his true self. Neither the British, nor the women he lived with, nor ourselves [the KGB] ever managed to pierce the armour of mystery that clad him. His great achievement in espionage was his life's work, and it fully occupied him until the day he died. But in the end I suspect that Philby made a mockery of everyone, particularly ourselves."
"The Fifth Man"
Modin published a book, Mes Camarades de Cambridge, in France in 1994. For the British translation, the British publisher Headline Book Publishing, made some changes, first to the title, making it My Five Cambridge Friends with the sub-heading: "For the first time, their KGB controller reveals the secrets of the world’s most famous spy ring—Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt and Cairncross." Second, Headline changed lines on page 104, now implying that John CairncrossJohn Cairncross
John Cairncross was a British intelligence officer during World War II, who passed secrets to the Soviet Union...
was the Fifth Man: ‘At the close of 1944, the name of John Cairncross, code-named the Carelian, was added to the four agents to whose cases I had been assigned. He was the "Fifth Man." Cairncross had at one time or another been in contact with the others, but he was hardly a member of the group.’
The words changed and inserted by Headline were pure fabrication, according to Modin, who pointed out that Cairncross, to his knowledge, had never been in contact with any member of the group. UK The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
journalist Richard Norton-Taylor
Richard Norton-Taylor
Richard Norton-Taylor is a British editor, journalist and playwright.He is a security-affairs editor of the British newspaper The Guardian.-Early life and education:...
rang Modin to check on this and found him angry that the false claims, changes and fraud on the British (and later US) buying public, had been made without him being consulted. Alan Rusbridger
Alan Rusbridger
Alan Charles Rusbridger is the editor of the British newspaper The Guardian. He has also been a reporter and a columnist.-Early life:...
, who agreed with Perry’s assessment that Rothschild was the fifth man, also wrote in The Guardian: “Yuri Modin...says in the English edition of his recent book that Cairncross was “the fifth man.” Modin says he never used the term, which is not contained in the French edition of his book.’
Books
- Modin, Yuri, My Five Cambridge Friends, ISBN 0-374-21698-3.