How Queen Elizabeth Was Kept In Dark For YEARS Over Soviet Spy Being Embedded In One of Most Senior Roles in Royal Family
Jan. 15 2025, Published 3:49 p.m. ET
Queen Elizabeth was kept in the dark for many years over a Soviet spy being embedded in one of the most senior roles in the family.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the late royal family member was allegedly not informed for nearly a decade that one of her senior courtiers, Anthony Blunt, admitted to being a Soviet spy.
According to newly released MI5 files, art historian Anthony Blunt was Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures.
He would oversee the paintings in the royal collection and occasionally exhibit her private treasures to the public.
Despite his bombshell secret, he was given knighthood.
Blunt continued in his royal role even after his confession and retired from his position in 1972.
Back in 1964, he admitted to spying for the Soviet Union as part of the notorious Cambridge Five spy ring during World War II.
Following the bombshell confession, the late Queen was not aware for almost nine years and wasn't informed until the early 1970s.
The files, which were released by Britain’s National Archives, revealed how the queen handled the shocking confession nearly a decade later.
It stated: "She took it all very calmly and without surprise: she remembered that he had been under suspicion way back in the aftermath of the Burgess/Maclean case".
The late queen was informed after Blunt died, just in case journalists started to dig for the story.
Before Blunt retired in April 1964, he made the bombshell confession to MI5 interrogator Arthur Martin, who promised him immunity for prosecution.
According to the files, Blunt was not "at ease" as he spoke, and every question "was followed by a long pause."
He "seemed to be debating with himself how to answer it".
Blunt admitted he worked with the Soviets during the war and also confessed to being in touch with the Russian Intelligence Service.
The only people aware of the confession at the palace were the queen's private secretary – Martin Charteris, and his deputy, Philip Moore.
According to the files: "Charteris thought that the queen did not know, and he saw no advantage in telling her about it now; it would only add to her worries."
Historian Chris Smith told NBC News: "To have informed Her Majesty or anyone else for that matter would have been potentially defamatory; it would also have been deemed embarrassing to Her Majesty."
Blunt's past was finally exposed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in a Commons statement in 1979, just a few years before he died in 1983 at the age of 75.
The late queen never publicly commented about the secret scandal during her 70-year reign.
She died back in September 2022 at 96 years old.