George Blake

George Blake ( Behar; 11 November 1922 – 26 December 2020) was a spy with Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and worked as a double agent for the Soviet Union. He became a communist and decided to work for the MGB while a prisoner during the Korean War. Discovered in 1961 and sentenced to 42 years in prison, he escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison in west London in 1966 and fled to the Soviet Union. He was not one of the Cambridge Five spies, although he associated with Donald Maclean and Kim Philby after reaching the Soviet Union. Early life George Blake was born George Behar in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in 1922. He was the son of a Protestant Dutch mother, Catherine (née Beijderwellen), and an Egyptian father of Sephardi Jewish origin who was a naturalised British subject. He was named George after George V of the United Kingdom. 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. The Behars lived a comfortable existence in the Netherlands until Albert's death in 1936. The thirteen-year-old Behar was sent to live with a wealthy aunt in Egypt, where he continued his education at the English School in Cairo. He later attended Downing College, Cambridge, to study Russian. While in Cairo, he was close to his cousin Henri Curiel, who was later to become a leader of the Communist Democratic Movement for National Liberation in Egypt. In 1991, Blake said that his encounter with Curiel, who was a decade older and already a Marxist, shaped his views in later life.