Richard Greene: Graham Greene and the Spies

We are delighted to welcome the biographer and poet Richard Greene to give the 2020 Anthony Burgess Lecture: ‘Graham Greene and the Spies’.
Richard is an award-winning poet, editor and biographer, and is a professor of English at the University of Toronto. His most recent book is an acclaimed new biography of Graham Greene, Russian Roulette: The Life and Times of Graham Greene.
Published earlier this year, his accessible and humane study draws on newly discovered archive material and interviews that shed new light on this contradictory, secretive and complex writer.
Buy the book here:
blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...
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[@dougwalters8003]

The more I learn about Graham Greene, the more fascinating of a character he becomes.

[@Eris123451]

A clear, articulate and informed dissertation about events and characters that anyone of my generation, (I was born in 1956,) will only be familiar with in passing, but nonetheless an hour well and usefully spent, thank you.

[@brucevilla]

Thanks for Uploading.

[@romanclay1913]

Graham Greene and Kim Philby worked together in MI6 during WW2. In 1949, Greene wrote the screenplay, THE THIRD MAN, whose main character was "Harry Lime." The name was amalgamation. Harry was Philby's first name and "Lime" referred to Greene.

[@romanclay1913]

@AMT IN SEARCH OF THE THIRD MAN by Charles Drazin

[@romanclay1913]

@AMT Philby and the Cambridge Five of Blunt, Burgess, Maclean & Cairncross are considers treasonous reprobates but I look at the historical context of their decision to become USSR agents. In the 1930s the UK prime ministers of Stanley Baldwin & Neville Chamberlain advocated a policy of Appeasement of Nazi Germany. Given the choice of appeasing Hitler or opposing, I know I would oppose the Nazis.

[@romanclay1913]

@AMT People criticize the August 1939 Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact but they overlook one salient point. In March 1939 USSR Foreign Minister, Maxim Litvinov, proposed a united front with UK and France against Nazi Germany. They both rejected it. Litvinov was replaced with Molotov who signed the treaty with the Nazis.

[@romanclay1913]

@AMT Litvinov proposal was in 1939. Cambridge 5 made their choice in 1934. The Cold War was determined to denigrate the USSR's role in signing the Non-Aggression Pact with nazis totally obscuring the Litvinov proposal. Even today one has to really dig to even find any sources.

[@romanclay1913]

@AMT Here's the source---1939: THE ALLIANCE THAT NEVER WAS AND THE COMING OF WWII by Michael Jabara Carley At a crucial point in the twentieth century, as Nazi Germany prepared for war, early 1939 negotiations between Britain, France, and the Soviet Union sought to make a Grand Alliance that never was. Incredibly, the French and British governments dallied, talks failed, and in August 1939 the Soviet Union signed a nonaggression pact with Germany.

[@adamsmith275]

41:30 ... Alexandre Yakolev... ambassador of the Soviet Union to Canada... A fact that Green... Richard, that is, must have known...

[@stevecharman8420]

riveting

[@adamsmith275]

12:30 ...Canaris was executed by... "GARROTING" (?)... Really?...

[@naradaian]

2 months before the war ended. He was a decent man, quite anti-war and helped Britain thru ww2

[@adamsmith275]

30:45 ... Maurice... "Oldcastle"... (?)... head of MI6... Hummm!... 39:30 ..."Oldfield"... Hummm!...

[@adamsmith275]

46:00 ..."the Vatican and the Soviet Union exchanged ambassadors in the 1990s"... And who was the Pope?... Wojtila!... Hummm!...

[@Eris123451]

He was indeed.

[@joliettraveler]

Your point is ????

[@domiinique5134]

So many wasted anxious tongue lashes our paranoid Baron won't feel lolll

[@soutteruk1]

Why does Biswell insist on a 'hard g' in 'Burgess', yet when he pronounces the name with 'a soft g', he 'corrects' himself?

[@anthony_burgess]

We're pretty sure Andrew Biswell only pronounces 'Burgess' with a soft g. If it sounds hard, blame KZbin compression!

[@soutteruk1]

@@anthony_burgess I am pretty sure Biswell pronounces Burgess with a hard 'g'. Listen again to the first three minutes. I am certainly not defending the deplorable institution that is KZbin, let me state!

[@nickwyatt9498]

I attended a conference on Burgess once in France, where Andrew Biswell was one of the speakers. He pronounced the name Burgess in the normal way.

[@soutteruk1]

@@nickwyatt9498 Biswell or on French 'les bis maux!'

[@barrybarnes96]

Shame about the delivery.