13. Maclean and Burgess lived different lives in the Soviet Union
When Guy Burgess fled to the Soviet Union he believed he would one day return to Britain, where he would be exonerated for his crimes. He maintained the belief in Russia, learning only enough of the language to get by. He spent most of his time drinking and partying, pursuits he had long followed in Washington and London. Maclean followed a different path. He learned to speak Russian fluently, corroborated with the Soviet Foreign Ministry, and eventually received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. He published several papers in Russian under a pseudonym, and in 1952 was joined by his wife and children. In 1956 the Soviet government announced the presence of both Burgess and Maclean to the world. It denied either had been spies, but they had rather sought refuge in Russia.
During the 1950s Burgess lobbied the UK government to allow him to return to Britain several times, for visits. None of his requests were granted. Maclean demonstrated no desire to return to his homeland, content to live out his days in the Soviet Union. Gradually Burgess’s heavy drinking wore down his health and he died of arteriosclerosis and complications of liver failure in August 1963. By then the two former Cambridge spies in the Soviet Union had been joined by a third. Despite having been exonerated by MacMillan in 1956, Kim Philby fled to the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, after having conducted further espionage for the benefit of the Soviet Union.