George Blake was a spy with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. He became a communist and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. Discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison. He escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in west London in 1966. He later died in a car crash on the outskirts of London in 1986, aged 80.
About George Blake in brief
George Blake was a spy with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. He became a communist and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. Discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison. He escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in west London in 1966. He was not one of the Cambridge Five spies, although he associated with Donald Maclean and Kim Philby. Blake, then family name Behar, was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1922. He is the son of a Protestant Dutch mother, Catherine, and an Egyptian father of Sephardi Jewish origin who was a naturalised British subject. His father, Albert Behar served in the British Army during the First World War. While Albert received the Meritorious Service Medal, he embellished his war service when recounting it to his wife and children, and concealed his Jewish background until his death. In 1943, his mother decided to change the family name from Behar to Blake. After he reached Britain, Blake joined the Royal Navy as a sub-lieutenant before being recruited by the Secret Intelligence service in 1944. He intended to marry an MI6 secretary, Iris Peake, but her family prevented the marriage because of Blake’s Jewish background and the relationship ended. In 1947, the Navy sent Blake to study languages, including Russian, at Downing College, Cambridge, where his fellow students included the future foreign policy analyst Michael MccGwire.
Blake’s mission was to gather intelligence on Communist North Korea, Communist China, and the Soviet Far East. After his release in 1953, he returned to Britain as a hero, landing at RAF Abingdon in October 1954. In 1955, he married Gillian Allan in St Mark’s Church in London in Mark’s St Mark’s Church, London. He later died in a car crash on the outskirts of London in 1986, aged 80. He has been remembered as one of Britain’s most decorated servicemen. His son, George Blake, is now a director of the Centre for Defence Studies at the University of London. The Centre for Defense Studies is based at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and is run by the London School of Economics and the Royal College of Music. It is also based in London, with a branch in Paris, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Tel Aviv. For confidential support call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details. In the U.S. call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255 or click here for details on how to get in contact with the National suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSL) in the UK. In Europe, call the European Association for Suicide Prevention (EAPL) on 0800 555 111.
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This page is based on the article George Blake published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
