the Cambridge Communists" and his own recruiter (Costello 44). He was, however, supported in his efforts at disinformation by British intelligence which had granted him immunity from prosecution and the cloak of secrecy until, in 1979, Prime Minister Thatcher was forced to reveal his name. The diminishment of Blunt's importance was a matter of policy for British intelligence since the government had failed to make his involvement known and generally hoped "to keep the truth from the public and England's allies" (Costello 44).
But the government had been protecting itself for many decades. Britain's severe Official Secrets Act muzzles the press regarding anything the government deems a secret and investigations of MI5, the internal-security network of the Home Office, and MI6, the Foreign Office's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), supposedly so secret that "no government official knowingly admits to its existence," would have been all but impossible had it not been for the existence of MI5 files and other materials in various American archive
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