The period covered is 1944 to 1951, when the "Cambridge spies" served in the British embassy in Washington, D.C., while conducting highly effective espionage for the Soviets. The dominant figure in these suspenseful pages is Donald Maclean, whom former CIA director Richard Helms described as "the most valuable known Soviet agent ever to operate in the West." Freelance writer/filmmaker Newton reveals how Maclean provided Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin with a direct pipeline to important Western strategy conferences; at the same time he was exhibiting flagrantly self-abasing behavior in Washington social circles. Newton also describes Maclean's sensational escape with Burgess in 1951 as they defected to Moscow.