Cambridge 5 discovered in WWII

Just as it says on the tin. What could have happened to unravel the soviet spy ring in the UK during WWII? Would this affect the UK/US relationship?
 
During WWII? Well, for one, the Soviet Union would have been in the dark about many of the internal workings of US-UK relationship. Without Maclean they wouldn't have data about the US's nuclear arsenal capacity, so in order to rival their number they would have to make guesstimates (or use other spies). If you take into account the work by other spies also connected to Maclean's assignment (but not strictly part of the Five), the USSR would probably have been unable or severely delayed in developing its own atomic aresenal to begin with.

IIRC, Philby provided the USSR with details about who British agents were so it's likely that more information about Soviet doings would have been leaked to the UK.

As to how it would affect the US/UK relationship, I'm not entirely sure. There could be a diplomatic crisis of sorts but I'm not sure the extent, giving that they were allies and a world war was going on. Maybe the US would become more private in its dealings and share much less with the UK, or security in their meetings would be enhanced. I also think it's possible that internally, the US would become (even more) paranoid about possible spies in its own system, and earlier.
 

Flubber

Banned
Would knowledge of the Cambridge 5 spur the US to look for Soviet spies at home? While rat bastards like Fuchs and Hall at Los Alamos get all the press, the US government and civilian sectors were riddled with Soviet spies.

Would an ever growing spy hunt slow various projects down, spark trouble with the unions, and cause all sorts of other problems?
 
Well, Blunt copied everything that he could get hands on (a lot!).

So without that, Stalin might not have known as much about German operations (despite his own rather supreme spies in Germany, Rote Kapelle, etc).

W. Allieds needed Russia in the war, so maybe the consequences short term would not be too bad.

Maybe the scales would have fallen from FDR's eyes sooner and that could have consequences for the occupation of Germany and Eastern Europe.

Suppose they would have been un-covered in 1941?or 1942?

Churchill might not have been flying off to Moscow as frequent?
Eisenhover told to go full force for Berlin and Warsaw for good measure?
No agreement on occupation zones?

Or is this too extreme?

Ivan
 

Flubber

Banned
So without that, Stalin might not have known as much about German operations (despite his own rather supreme spies in Germany, Rote Kapelle, etc).


A big part of Rote Kapelle's "product" were actually Enigma and other decrypts passed in a double blind manner through Red Three, Rote Kapelle's Switzerland subgroup. The WAllies obviously wanted to share intelligence prouced by decryption with the Soviets. The WAllies also knew Soviet paranoia would automatically suspect any decrypts handed over "above board" and such decrypts would clue the Soviet in to WAllie decryption abilities. Hence the double blind method of feeding decrypts to the Soviets via the Soviets own espionage efforts.

When Moscow became more aware of WAllied decryption successes, Red Three's "product" was immediately suspect. Red Three members were recalled to the Soviet Union, charged with spying for the WAllies, and jailed.
 
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