Donald Duart Maclean (1913-1983) was one of the Cambridge Five, members of MI5 who acted as spies for Russia in the Second World War. He was the son of the British Liberal politician Sir Donald Maclean.
Chronology
- 1913 Born on May 25th
- Attended Gresham's School in Norfolk
- Read Modern Languages at Trinity Hall, Cambridge
- 1934 Started work at the Foreign Office
- 1940 Married Melinda Marling while working at the British Embassy in Paris
- Relocated to Washington as Secretary in the British Embassy. It was here that he had access to details of the atomic bomb program eventually becoming the Secretary for the Combined Policy Committee on Atomic Development.
- As the pressure of his double life began to mount, he started to drink heavily and became an alcoholic
- 1948 Relocated to Cairo and promoted to Head of Chancery in the British Embassy
- After a drunken episode he was sent home to London to "recover" from his "nervous breakdown"
- 1950 Promoted to head the American Department in the Foreign Office. Here he had access to top secret information on the atomic development program
- 1951 Warned by Philby that he is under suspicion and will most likely be unmasked. Maclean and Burgess both defect to Russia
- 1956 They appear in Moscow
- Made a colonel of the KGB with a Moscow apartment and a dacha outside the city
- 1983 Died of a heart attack in Moscow on March 11th
- Cremated. His ashes were later returned to England