Lawfare Daily: The Costs (and Cultural Cachet) of the Cambridge Spies
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
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Summary
Senior Editor Michael Feinberg sits down with Antonia Senior, whose new book on the history of the Cambridge spy ring, “Stalin's Apostles: The Cambridge Five and the Making of the Soviet Empire,” comes out in the United States at end of this month. They talk about the history of the spy ring, how they were recruited, how they were unmasked, and their lasting effect on the culture of espionage.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Molly Roberts from Lawfare. You may recognize me for my coverage of the prosecution of Letitia James, or sandwich guy. Lawfare is built around reliable, independent, non-partisan expert analysis delivered at the pace of news. That kind of writing is increasingly rare, |
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| 1:23.7 | So absolutely everything that the Americans are doing on and off, admittedly, between |
| 1:30.9 | 1944 and 1951 to try and penetrate the Soviet world, Philby is betraying to the Russians. |
| 1:39.8 | It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Michael Feinberg, Senior Editor of Lawfare, here today with Antonia Sr., |
| 1:46.8 | whose new book on the history of the Cambridge spiring, Stalin's apostles, comes out in the United |
| 1:52.8 | States to the end of this month. They'd offered Philby this deal, which they will then subsequently |
| 1:58.0 | offer to Burgess and Cancross for immunity if he confesses. |
| 2:02.7 | So then what they've got is a confession but a pledge of immunity and a man roaming about drunk |
| 2:09.1 | who everybody knows was a Soviet spy but they're not doing anything about. |
| 2:13.0 | Today we talk about the history of the spying, how they were recruited, how they were unmasked, |
| 2:19.3 | and their lasting effect on the culture of espionage. |
| 2:23.9 | So we're going to talk quite a bit, both about the substance of your book, |
| 2:28.7 | which is the recruitment spying and eventual downfall of what is colloquially become known as the Cambridge spiring, |
... |
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