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August 25, 2025 17 mins

During the summer break, the 15-Minute History podcast team are republishing some of their favorite episodes. This episode originally aired on November 18, 2024.

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Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross—passed almost 17,000 classified documents to the Soviet Union for 30+ years. The information was so extensive and the volume so large, that Soviet intelligence initially suspected some of it might be disinformation, due to the high-ranking positions these spies held and the access they had. However, much of this intelligence was invaluable, influencing Soviet strategies during pivotal moments of World War II and the Cold War.

Join us as we teach you about one of the most notorious spy rings in modern history, The Cambridge Five, and the most prominent member, Kim Philby.


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