Catalogue description Edith TUDOR-HART, aliases SUSCHITSKY, WHITE, Betty GREY, codename EDITH: Austrian,...

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Details of KV 2/4091
Reference: KV 2/4091
Description:

Edith TUDOR-HART, aliases SUSCHITSKY, WHITE, Betty GREY, codename EDITH: Austrian, nationalized British. TUDOR-HART was a communist who first came to the UK around 1925. Excluded in 1931 on account of her political activities, she married in Vienna Alexander TUDOR-HART, an English doctor who was also a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and a fellow Russian Intelligence Service (RIS) recruit. The couple returned to London but separated. Edith set herself up as a professional photographer. Having joined the CPGB in 1927 she remained associated with it for the rest of her life, sometimes using an alias to disguise her membership. In 1947 TUDOR-HART told a reliable source that she had worked for the RIS in Austria and Italy in 1932-1933, running a photographic studio as cover. A personal friend of Litzi FRIEDMANN, Kim PHILBY's first wife, it was almost certainly she who first talent spotted PHILBY to the RIS in Vienna in 1933. In 1938 receipts for a Leica camera used by the Percy GLADING group to photograph documents stolen from Woolwich Arsenal were made out to TUDOR-HART. In 1938-1939 she was used by Guy BURGESS and others as a courier to make contact with the RIS in Paris. In 1952 TUDOR-HART was interviewed by MI5 as part of the investigation into Kim PHILBY's activities

Note: For Volumes 1-3 see KV 2/1012-1014
Date: 1951 Oct 24 - 1952 Mar 17
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: PF 63349 VOL 4
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Closure status: Open Document, Open Description
Access conditions: Retained Until 2015
Record opening date: 21 August 2015

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