Goronwy Rees
| Goronwy Rees | |
|---|---|
| Born | 29 November 1909 Aberystwyth, Wales, United Kingdom |
| Died | December 12, 1979 (aged 70) London, United Kingdom |
| Nationality | British |
| Education | New College, Oxford |
| Alma mater | All Souls College |
| Occupation | writer |
| Years active | 1931-1979 |
| Employer | The Spectator |
| Parent(s) | Richard Jenkyn Rees, Apphla Mary James |
Goronwy Rees (29 November 1909 – 12 December 1979) was a Welsh journalist, academic and writer.
Rees was born in Aberystwyth, where his father was minister of the Tabernacle Calvinistic Methodist Church. The family later moved to Roath, Cardiff, and Goronwy was educated at Cardiff High School for Boys. He received three scholarships in 1927 to attend New College, Oxford, where he studied History. In 1931 he became a Fellow of All Souls College.
After leaving university, Rees wrote first for the Manchester Guardian. In 1936, he became assistant editor of The Spectator, for which he travelled to Germany, Russia, Spain, and Czechoslovakia. Though a Marxist during most of the 1930s, the Hitler-Stalin Pact turned him from Communism and led him to enlist before the UK entered the war. During World War II, he joined the Royal Artillery and rose to second lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. After the army, he resumed work at The Spectator. In 1946, he then became an administrator for H. Pontifex & Son and may have started working for MI6. Rees's daughter confirms that he worked for MI6 then and through at least 1949: "...And in the afternoons he went to 54 Broadway, next door to St. James's Park tube station, the offices of SIS (or MI6), where he worked for the Political Section which... assessed and evaluated information..."
In 1953, Rees became principal of Aberystwyth University. In 1956, a series of articles appeared in The People. They described their anonymous author as a "Most intimate friend, a man in a high academic position." Guy Burgess appeared in them as a corrupt man, spy, blackmailer, homosexual, and drunk. The Daily Telegraph then revealed Rees was author. The university held an enquiry into the matter (1956-1957). Despite student support, university staff did not support him. Rees resigned before the enquiry ended, thus also ending his academic career. The enquiry's report was very critical of Rees. Moreover, "It turned out that a great many old acquaintances of Burgess and Maclean were much more horrified – felt, indeed, much more betrayed – by the fact that the late Goronwy Rees gave a version of their flight to the People than by the flight itself. When Stephen Spender showed the Daily Express a friend’s letter about Burgess, he was held to have disgraced himself."
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