ABSTRACT
This story, which scandalized and titillated Western journalists and read ers, was-perhaps predictably-received slightly differently in different parts of the West. The British press treated it as another homosexual spy scandal, analogous to those involving gay men like John Vassall, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. Boursicot’s explanation for his gender “mistake,” that the couple had always had sexual relations in the dark, was dismissed as a thin cover for something else. According to one British
chronicler of spy activities, “the likeliest explanation” for this unlikely story was “that Boursicot knew the truth and was hopelessly entangled in a web of lies begun to hide his homosexuality, which he continued to deny.991 In other words, the “secret” here was homosexuality, the denial of which became so important for Boursicot that he was willing to be branded a fool and a traitor.
