The Queen was kept in the dark about the palace traitor for years, the MI5 papers revealed

Queen Elizabeth II has admitted that one of her top courtiers was a Soviet spy after not speaking publicly for a decade, newly released MI5 files reveal.

Art historian Anthony Blunt has been surveying the Queen’s paintings for decades, oversees the official Royal Art Collection, and in 1964 admitted to being a Soviet agent from the 1930s.

Papers released by MI5 show Blunt confessed to spying for the Russians during the Second World War, but the late Queen herself was not told publicly for nearly nine years.

In the year

The decision to inform the Queen comes amid growing fears that the truth will emerge after Blunt’s death in Whitehall after he was terminally ill with cancer. Journalists were already investigating the story and were no longer constrained by the threat of libel.

In 1951, when fellow spies Guy Burgess and Donald McLean defected to the Soviet Union, his suspicions were initially dashed.

In the year He had been a close friend of Burgess’s from their time together at Cambridge in the 1930s – part of the Cambridge Five spy team.

During the Second World War, Blunt worked for MI5, after 1951 he was interviewed by the security service 11 times, but always denied espionage.

Then the American Michael straight up told the FBI that he was hired by Blunt himself as a Russian agent.

In April 1964, MI5 interrogator Arthur Martin confronted Blunt and promised him immunity.

His full confession is included in these files for the first time. As well as acknowledging his wartime work, he also admitted to being in contact with the Russian intelligence service after the war.

Blunt says he met a Russian named Peter before Burgess and McLean left, but he can’t remember exactly why. He said Peter encouraged him to run away, but he refused.

The interviewer said Blunt was “not calm” when he spoke, and each question had “long pauses” and he said he “seemed to be debating with himself how to answer.”

Despite Blunt’s prominence, few outside MI5 were told of this confession. The home secretary and senior civil servant were told.

The Queen’s private secretary was told only that Blunt had happened upon the matter and that MI5 intended to question him.

Blunt has agreed to be told publicly if she becomes seriously ill because that might give her past press coverage.

Another file note in March 1973 reported that the Queen’s private secretary had told her about the Blunt affair. It reads: “She took it all calmly and without surprise: she remembers being suspicious after the Burgess/Maclean affair.”

Blunt’s biographer, Miranda Carter, said she was a “hunch” that Elizabeth II was informally told sometime after 1965.

She believes the authorities “want to maintain a veil of plausible deniability.” The fact that the emperor took the news “calmly and without suddenness” suggests to Carter that she could have known.

Blunt’s past was finally exposed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a 1979 Commons statement. In the year He died in 1983 at the age of 75.

• Cambridge spy Kim Philby says he will do all this after finally confessing to being a Russian agent for years.

• Blunt feared that his KGB supervisor would turn violent when he refused to join fellow spies Burgess and McLean and flee to Russia.

• Film star Dirk Bogarde has been warned by MI5 that he could be the target of a gay “trapping” attempt by the KGB.

• MI5’s chief interrogator is confused by Philby, who says he can’t tell if he’s a Soviet spy.

Unlike other government departments, MI5 is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. It releases the folder as soon as it is selected and some files are partially edited.

Some of the documents released today will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at the National Archives.

Sir Ken McCallum, Director General of MI5, said: “While much of our work must remain secret, this exhibition demonstrates our continued commitment to being as open as we can.”