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A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal Copertina flessibile – 9 ottobre 2014
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Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War.
Philby's two closest friends in the intelligence world, Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton, the CIA intelligence chief, thought they knew Philby better than anyone, and then discovered they had not known him at all. This is a story of intimate duplicity; of loyalty, trust and treachery, class and conscience; of an ideological battle waged by men with cut-glass accents and well-made suits in the comfortable clubs and restaurants of London and Washington; of male friendships forged, and then systematically betrayed.
With access to newly released MI5 files and previously unseen family papers, and with the cooperation of former officers of MI6 and the CIA, this definitive biography unlocks what is perhaps the last great secret of the Cold War.
- Lunghezza stampa368 pagine
- LinguaInglese
- EditoreBloomsbury Publishing
- Data di pubblicazione9 ottobre 2014
- Dimensioni20.3 x 25.4 x 4.7 cm
- ISBN-101408861925
- ISBN-13978-1408861929
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Descrizione prodotto
Recensione
No one writes about deceit and subterfuge so dramatically, authoritatively or perceptively. To read A Spy Among Friends is a bit like climbing aboard a runaway train in terms of speed and excitement - except that Macintyre knows exactly where he is going and is in total control of his material ― Daily Mail, Books of the Week
It reads like fiction, which is testament to the extraordinary power of the story itself but also to the skills of the storyteller . at least as compelling as any of the great fictionalised accounts of Britain's greatest traitor and one of the best real-life spy stories one is ever likely to read ***** ― Daily Express
Illuminating, gripping and moving . What Macintyre reveals - but not too quickly - is the extent to which those who confided in him, as friends or colleagues or both, were made unwitting accessories to treason ― Evening Standard
Thrilling ... An extraordinary book ... I'm not a lover of spy novels, yet I adored this book. Fictional spies never seem believable to me; novels are populated by stereotypes devoid of nuances that define the individual. That's not the case here. Macintyre's strength is his capacity for intimacy, the very thing Philby, Elliott and Angleton lacked . Just about perfect ― The Times Book of the Week
Whereas Milne thinks his friend betrayed his country because he genuinely believed in communism, Macintyre's explanation is more intriguing and more convincing ― Sunday Times
Riveting reading ... The transcript of this rendezvous is Ben Macintyre's scoop: the motor of an unputdownable postwar thriller whose every incredible detail is fact not fiction . A brilliant reconciliation of history and entertainment ... A Spy Among Friends is not just an elegy, it is an unforgettable requiem ― Observer
Gripping ... Ben Macintyre's bottomlessly fascinating new book is an exploration of Kim Philby's friendships, particularly with Nicholas Elliott . This book consists of 300 pages; I would have been happy had it been three times as long ***** ― Mail on Sunday
The life of Cambridge spy Kim Philby is analysed in this irresistibly readable study ― Sunday Times
Swiftly paced, beautifully written . It is the small, human details that makes this grim, beguiling story so intoxicating ― Scotland on Sunday
A hugely engrossing contribution to Philby lore ... Such a summary does no justice to Macintyre's marvellously shrewd and detailed account of Philby's nefarious career. It is both authoritative and enthralling ... One of the pleasures of writing about espionage is that you are almost licensed to concoct your own conspiracy theories; all that's demanded is plausibility, and Elliott and Macintyre's gloss on events is highly plausible ― William Boyd, New Statesman
He does not let his readers down here . The story has been told before, but Macintyre's ability to unbundle intelligence acronyms is unrivalled . He has thrown a detailed and always entertaining light on the practices and culture of the 20th-century British intelligence through the lens of its most ignominious episode ― Sunday Telegraph
Engaging and atmospheric ― Country Life
Macintyre writes with the diligence and insight of a journalist, and the panache of a born storyteller . Worthy of John le Carré at his best ― John Banville, Guardian
Fascinating . The real tragedy, as this book so masterfully reveals, is that Philby's charm and easy manner made fools of so many ***** ― Sunday Express
The doomed relationship between Philby and Elliott makes this old tale of treason seem new enough ― Economist
Riveting and tragic. I read Macintyre's book in one sitting, and found it impossible to put down ― Lord Faulkner of Worcester, House Magazine
A book I could give to anybody ― Observer
The consistently readable Ben Macintyre shines a penetrating light on the friendship between Kim Philby, one of the most notorious traitors in British history, and fellow MI6 spy Nicholas Elliott ― Sunday Express Summer Reading
No one writes so well on subterfuge and deceit as Macintyre ― Mail on Sunday Summer Reads
A rollicking book. Mr Macintyre is full of pep and never falters in the head-long rush of his narrative ― Richard Davenport-Hines, Wall Street Journal Europe
An extraordinary book . The focus on friendship brings an intimacy here that is missing from the cardboard stereotypes that populate conventional espionage histories and spy novels ― The Times
There is nobody to beat Ben Macintyre for a knowledge of espionage . A Spy Among Friends is, like all of Macintyre's work, a real gem ― Alexander McCall Smith, Sainsbury’s Magazine
The vicarious experience of the seedy, hard-drinking glamour of old-school espionage is thrilling ― Zoe Strachan, Sunday Herald Books of the Year
An unputdownable thriller, and the impeccably researched truth ― Nicholas Hytner, Observer Books of the Year
Terrific . Macintyre's gift is to write well-researched non-fiction as though it was popular fiction, and here he excels himself with an almost unbelievable tale of establishment complacency and incompetence ― Ian Hislop, Mail on Sunday Books of the Year
One of the peculiar pleasures involved in reading a biography of Kim Philby is that of spying on the spy . A Spy Among Friends manages to convey Philby's satanic charm ― Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday Books of the Year
This account of the high-level British spymaster who turned out to be a Russian mole reads like John le Carré but is a solidly researched true story ― New York Times 100 Notable Books Of 2014
Macintyre is a gifted storyteller ― Charlotte Heathcote, Sunday Express Books of the Year
Hard to put down . A great book that lives up to the reputation it has acquired ― Robert Lambourne, Times Higher Education Supplement
Conscious that Philby's story has been told many times before, Macintyre tries to find a new angle by interweaving it with that of Nicholas Elliott, probably Philby's closest friend in MI6. This has the merit of creating a rare sense of momentum, as we build towards their final confrontation in Beirut ― Sunday Times
Descrizione del libro
L'autore
Dettagli prodotto
- Editore : Bloomsbury Publishing (9 ottobre 2014)
- Lingua : Inglese
- Copertina flessibile : 368 pagine
- ISBN-10 : 1408861925
- ISBN-13 : 978-1408861929
- Peso articolo : 620 g
- Dimensioni : 20.3 x 25.4 x 4.7 cm
- Recensioni dei clienti:
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ben scritto fluido e pieno di notizie
The style is impeccable, the language rich and imaginative: the characters are rendered as the real people they are.
Will read again sooner or later.
Veramente da non perdere!
Le recensioni migliori da altri paesi
Spies do not, as the author asserts in this case, ooze from the home team on to the other side. Quite the contrary there is an Ah Ha moment in their relationship, occasionally dramatic, when the case officer knows he has hoked the pigeon. Thus, it was with the brilliant Arnold Deutsch, Philby’s recruiter, guide, philosopher, trainer and friend. Until he was executed. Philby was a Soviet asset while executions during the Great Purge thinned his superiors’ ranks.
The author advances a barely cogent and certainly incomplete argument argument that Elliott and Lunn left Philby, shriven, alone, and unguarded in Beirut while Elliott returned to London to negotiate the terms of Philby’s retirement to the East. The British government of the day could not afford the barrage of inculpatory fact that would bring it down and smudge the Security Services perhaps forever. Not a few including this writer believe that Moscow was asked or perhaps begged to welcome their boy home. An overly skeptical few opined later that the Brits had payed Moscow to receive Philby and put him in an attic room reserved for a dotty aunt. Philby’s exfiltration was not hurriedly planned or executed. The purported nephew of the Dolmatova’s skipper accosted this writer in a foreign land and asserted that Philby was taken aboard that bucket of rust and sailed from Beirut thru international waters to Odessa with Philby settled drowsily in a locked cabin. Why was the ship in port just when needed?
This book is salted with errors and omissions. Who in London decided Philby’s tasks? One does not just sit for hours in Arab coffee joints and listen to the day’s gossip. One recruits and meets agents and sends good dope to where it should be sent. The author does not disclose Philby’s specific requirements. Who and where were his agents and sub agents? Philby did not cause the Albanian debacle. The Albanians discussed the matter among themselves well before the event. Who had skin in this game? Was the Beirut station chief unaware of events in his parish? How closely did MI-6’s Director measure Philby’s accomplishments and failures? Did Philby work for a British boss in London or in Beirut? How did Philby’s work influence his government’s policies? Philby was fired…justly. And without any admission that he had influenced his government on his own in any way. Intelligence services serve policy makers who work for the electorate. The author sets up Philby and colleagues on both sides as pseudo governments of their own who worked on their own as they pleased. Why? Who was the driving force behind his re-employment? Detour on the road to a Marxist Damascus? Did Philby have a sponsor in the CFO or in parliament? It wasn’t Marcus Lipton. Why would any service keep employed an extravagant alcoholic with a tangled domestic life and uncertain loyalties? The author fails to note that many members of the US Intelligence community stayed away from Philby because of his personal life and unusual behavior. Not all saw him as a glamorous all- knowing figure from across the pond mostly because to at least a few he was obnoxious and condescending. A small minority, Hoover among them, despised him as they did Angleton. Why keep Elliott as the negotiator/caretaker/confident and Ambassador to London? His position in the narrative emerges just as important as Philby’s even though they had not worked together for years. Their time lines and Elliott’s ubiquity in this story trouble. Elliott’s family is given as principal sources for the book. Fair enough. Anything else? Elliott and Lunn’s subordinates must have been mute and deaf. Why?
Sir George Clutton’s post as HM Amb. did not please him. We attended Mass together at the Irish Columbans in Manila and never spoke. I was exceedingly junior. I knelt at the appropriate times. He remained upright leaning against a stone column every damn Sunday. I never knew why. He was wifeless, childless and solaced himself with a solitary life. Few knew him. Fewer still believed he existed. Many saw Christopher Biggs RIP a gallant and dear friend as the real ambassador, not Clutton. He was nearly blind and an art critic of repute. He knew Blunt and his circle. Upon his return to London he was assigned as the “Advisor”, an intimate of the Cabinet who must sign off on unofficially covered agents before dispatching them abroad. Overnight Clutton became a very important gent in Whitehall’s pantheon. Who asked Clutton to sign? He was iron stubborn. He refused to sign the document that permitted Philby to take up his post in Beirut for the ultimate benefit of his masters in Moscow giving no reason except his elegant if dilatory attendance upon such matters. He left Philby’s permit for his successor to sign. Does not the refusal of some-one as important as the “Advisor” suggest something may be out of joint? The author gives short shrift to this fascinating non-incident. So did Clutton’s colleagues. Clearly a pro Philby faction existed in the FCO as well as a group that considered Philby a bummer. Clutton later was HM Amb. To Poland.
The author mentions that his Russian hosts did not trust Philby as much as was wanted. Of course no member of any Intelligence Service trusts members of another service. Did Philby trust Elliott to make a deal with the Vashni – the important ones in London - to let him live or did Elliott trust Philby sufficiently to wait while he, Elliott, negotiated with their joint superiors? Philby must have known that his chance of living a full life in Russia were fifty-fifty at best
Philby’s work as a committee man in Washington was superb. He got himself appointed to different groups where he could embargo critical sections of the Venona messages and thwart the superb work of Meredith Gardner. He protected himself and other Soviet assets for several years. That accomplishment alone was worth a Hero Of The Soviet Union Grade 5 decoration.. The author does not credit Philby sufficiently for this subsidiary but priceless ploy. Further, exasperated readers cannot discover from this book who Philby’s agents were and who voted with him in the day to day work of running two intelligence services while advancing the cause of a third. We read much about lengthy lunches, but little
Shortly after WW2’s end Jimmy Angleton, Richard Helms plus Mrs. X RIP foregathered bibulously in Rome and concluded that Italy had at most 90 days before it toppled. Thus, began the war of posters well described elsewhere. This prescient group also assembled and distributed guns to a band of tough Milanese and former anti-communist resistants who nightly bashed targeted Reds. Good guys won 10 to 3. The Reds in Livorno held out (to this day). They hated Americans and their navy for having shelled their city into purgatory and almost the other place. It was this act of helping Italy survive Communist efforts to control the country that gratified Angleton most. Philby was never to be seen or heard during these parlous days, Why not? Possibly, only possibly, Philby had concerns for his post WW2 career path. To have converted Italy would have ensured a retirement dacha with three bedrooms on the Black Sea. Philby’s betrayal blotted his and others’ careers almost fatally, but Jimmy had other arrows in his quiver. Without doubt he had enemies within. This writer was forbidden, like swathes of others all over the U. S. Government from working with Angleton-tout court. Later, Philby’s relationships with his American friends were examined for wrong doing time out of mind. On the Philby side MI-6’s tawdry and blundering effort to exfiltrate Philby from Beirut still raised unanswered questions. In a small way this lacuna exonerates the American Intelligence community. Philby was forced to leave the game sedated and confined aboard a tired antique bottom ready for the breaker’s yard. Philby’s overt efforts to destroy both American and British Intelligence services failed. about agent’s meetings and the difficulties of handling awkward assets.
The incoming British Head of Station calls on his mates in the diplomatic Pantheon and anyone else who can do him harm or good. Sycophants and supplicants are legion. During these sometimes extended conversations deals are made, agreements are broken and new scams put into play. Records of these contrivances hostile and friendly are carefully recorded by their participants, but absent from Philby’s story.
Jimmy made his personal telephone calls after work outside his office. Philby’s ghost stayed with Angleton till his end of days. Many if not most of Washington’s senior Intelligence Community attended his Unitarian funeral most out of curiosity. Years ago, on a rainy afternoon at the Army Navy club in Washington DC Angleton sat at a small table two feet from the author and telephoned: “They’re after me. I need help.” Angleton was Philby’s friend. He had enemies. Jimmy feared prosecution from somebody and needed money for a legal team. He had little family money. Exotic Orchids cost. Breaking the habit of a life time I rose from our joint table and walked away. I never did know the result of this conversation.
The author has written a slick narrative that is a cover story aimed at covering another story that covers a porous narrative that will never be fully explicated. Philby was the wooden doll. Andrew Lownie in his Burgess book wrote about the world of espionage in the context of a declining society served by a malignant intelligence service itself founded and funded to serve and protect the Realm. It is a singular contribution to the field in method and substance. Is it not time for others to stop telling spy stories advanced by those who know little of their sometimes-horrible truths? I think so. Philby’s career was Kabuki Theater. Nobody caught the movements until after the curtain fell.
Please! The proper phrase is “Trade Craft” not “Spy Craft.
Mr. Ben Macintyre has written a book ostensibly about Kim Philby, the English traitor before, during and after WW2. The most interesting and affected persons in this horrid saga: George Clutton, Edgar Hoover, Nick Elliott, Peter Lunn, Meredith Gardner, Guy Liddell, Bill Harvey, Philby’s own family and several others have their entrails left almost untouched. That is a shame and bad history.
Spies do not, as the author asserts in this case, ooze from the home team on to the other side. Quite the contrary there is an Ah Ha moment in their relationship, occasionally dramatic, when the case officer knows he has hoked the pigeon. Thus, it was with the brilliant Arnold Deutsch, Philby’s recruiter, guide, philosopher, trainer and friend. Until he was executed. Philby was a Soviet asset while executions during the Great Purge thinned his superiors’ ranks.
The author advances a barely cogent and certainly incomplete argument argument that Elliott and Lunn left Philby, shriven, alone, and unguarded in Beirut while Elliott returned to London to negotiate the terms of Philby’s retirement to the East. The British government of the day could not afford the barrage of inculpatory fact that would bring it down and smudge the Security Services perhaps forever. Not a few including this writer believe that Moscow was asked or perhaps begged to welcome their boy home. An overly skeptical few opined later that the Brits had payed Moscow to receive Philby and put him in an attic room reserved for a dotty aunt. Philby’s exfiltration was not hurriedly planned or executed. The purported nephew of the Dolmatova’s skipper accosted this writer in a foreign land and asserted that Philby was taken aboard that bucket of rust and sailed from Beirut thru international waters to Odessa with Philby settled drowsily in a locked cabin. Why was the ship in port just when needed?
This book is salted with errors and omissions. Who in London decided Philby’s tasks? One does not just sit for hours in Arab coffee joints and listen to the day’s gossip. One recruits and meets agents and sends good dope to where it should be sent. The author does not disclose Philby’s specific requirements. Who and where were his agents and sub agents? Philby did not cause the Albanian debacle. The Albanians discussed the matter among themselves well before the event. Who had skin in this game? Was the Beirut station chief unaware of events in his parish? How closely did MI-6’s Director measure Philby’s accomplishments and failures? Did Philby work for a British boss in London or in Beirut? How did Philby’s work influence his government’s policies? Philby was fired…justly. And without any admission that he had influenced his government on his own in any way. Intelligence services serve policy makers who work for the electorate. The author sets up Philby and colleagues on both sides as pseudo governments of their own who worked on their own as they pleased. Why? Who was the driving force behind his re-employment? Detour on the road to a Marxist Damascus? Did Philby have a sponsor in the CFO or in parliament? It wasn’t Marcus Lipton. Why would any service keep employed an extravagant alcoholic with a tangled domestic life and uncertain loyalties? The author fails to note that many members of the US Intelligence community stayed away from Philby because of his personal life and unusual behavior. Not all saw him as a glamorous all- knowing figure from across the pond mostly because to at least a few he was obnoxious and condescending. A small minority, Hoover among them, despised him as they did Angleton. Why keep Elliott as the negotiator/caretaker/confident and Ambassador to London? His position in the narrative emerges just as important as Philby’s even though they had not worked together for years. Their time lines and Elliott’s ubiquity in this story trouble. Elliott’s family is given as principal sources for the book. Fair enough. Anything else? Elliott and Lunn’s subordinates must have been mute and deaf. Why?
Sir George Clutton’s post as HM Amb. did not please him. We attended Mass together at the Irish Columbans in Manila and never spoke. I was exceedingly junior. I knelt at the appropriate times. He remained upright leaning against a stone column every damn Sunday. I never knew why. He was wifeless, childless and solaced himself with a solitary life. Few knew him. Fewer still believed he existed. Many saw Christopher Biggs RIP a gallant and dear friend as the real ambassador, not Clutton. He was nearly blind and an art critic of repute. He knew Blunt and his circle. Upon his return to London he was assigned as the “Advisor”, an intimate of the Cabinet who must sign off on unofficially covered agents before dispatching them abroad. Overnight Clutton became a very important gent in Whitehall’s pantheon. Who asked Clutton to sign? He was iron stubborn. He refused to sign the document that permitted Philby to take up his post in Beirut for the ultimate benefit of his masters in Moscow giving no reason except his elegant if dilatory attendance upon such matters. He left Philby’s permit for his successor to sign. Does not the refusal of some-one as important as the “Advisor” suggest something may be out of joint? The author gives short shrift to this fascinating non-incident. So did Clutton’s colleagues. Clearly a pro Philby faction existed in the FCO as well as a group that considered Philby a bummer. Clutton later was HM Amb. To Poland.
The author mentions that his Russian hosts did not trust Philby as much as was wanted. Of course no member of any Intelligence Service trusts members of another service. Did Philby trust Elliott to make a deal with the Vashni – the important ones in London - to let him live or did Elliott trust Philby sufficiently to wait while he, Elliott, negotiated with their joint superiors? Philby must have known that his chance of living a full life in Russia were fifty-fifty at best.
Philby’s work as a committee man in Washington was superb. He got himself appointed to different groups where he could embargo critical sections of the Venona messages and thwart the superb work of Meredith Gardner. He protected himself and other Soviet assets for several years. That accomplishment alone was worth a Hero Of The Soviet Union Grade 5 decoration.. The author does not credit Philby sufficiently for this subsidiary but priceless ploy. Further, exasperated readers cannot discover from this book who Philby’s agents were and who voted with him in the day to day work of running two intelligence services while advancing the cause of a third. We read much about lengthy lunches, but little
Shortly after WW2’s end Jimmy Angleton, Richard Helms plus Mrs. X RIP foregathered bibulously in Rome and concluded that Italy had at most 90 days before it toppled. Thus, began the war of posters well described elsewhere. This prescient group also assembled and distributed guns to a band of tough Milanese and former anti-communist resistants who nightly bashed targeted Reds. Good guys won 10 to 3. The Reds in Livorno held out (to this day). They hated Americans and their navy for having shelled their city into purgatory and almost the other place. It was this act of helping Italy survive Communist efforts to control the country that gratified Angleton most. Philby was never to be seen or heard during these parlous days, Why not? Possibly, only possibly, Philby had concerns for his post WW2 career path. To have converted Italy would have ensured a retirement dacha with three bedrooms on the Black Sea. Philby’s betrayal blotted his and others’ careers almost fatally, but Jimmy had other arrows in his quiver. Without doubt he had enemies within. This writer was forbidden, like swathes of others all over the U. S. Government from working with Angleton-tout court. Later, Philby’s relationships with his American friends were examined for wrong doing time out of mind. On the Philby side MI-6’s tawdry and blundering effort to exfiltrate Philby from Beirut still raised unanswered questions. In a small way this lacuna exonerates the American Intelligence community. Philby was forced to leave the game sedated and confined aboard a tired antique bottom ready for the breaker’s yard. Philby’s overt efforts to destroy both American and British Intelligence services failed. about agent’s meetings and the difficulties of handling awkward assets.
The incoming British Head of Station calls on his mates in the diplomatic Pantheon and anyone else who can do him harm or good. Sycophants and supplicants are legion. During these sometimes extended conversations deals are made, agreements are broken and new scams put into play. Records of these contrivances hostile and friendly are carefully recorded by their participants, but absent from Philby’s story.
Jimmy made his personal telephone calls after work outside his office. Philby’s ghost stayed with Angleton till his end of days. Years ago, on a rainy afternoon at the Army Navy club in Washington DC Angleton sat at a small table two feet from the author and telephoned: “They’re after me. I need help.” Angleton was Philby’s friend. He had enemies. Jimmy feared prosecution from somebody and needed money for a legal team. He had little family money. Exotic Orchids cost. Breaking the habit of a life time I rose from our joint table and walked away. I never did know the result of this conversation.
The author has written a slick narrative that is a cover story aimed at covering another story that covers a porous narrative that will never be fully explicated. Philby was the wooden doll. Andrew Lownie in his Burgess book wrote about the world of espionage in the context of a declining society served by a malignant intelligence service itself founded and funded to serve and protect the Realm. It is a singular contribution to the field in method and substance. Is it not time for others to stop telling spy stories advanced by those who know little of their sometimes-horrible truths? I think so. Philby’s career was Kabuki Theater. Nobody caught the movements until after the curtain fell.
Please! The proper phrase is “Trade Craft” not “Spy Craft.
Davis J Kenney
Easter Sunday
Upperville
The incoming British Head of Station calls on his mates and anyone else who can do him harm or good. Sycophants and supplicants are legion. During these sometimes extended conversations deals are made, agreements are broken and new scams put into play. Records of these contrivances hostile and friendly are carefully recorded by their participants, but absent from Philby’s story.
politicians of all persuasions were blind to their perfidy. it is totally astounding.One hopes it could never happen again, but I doubt it.
Of course for outsiders like Lewis, slowly earning your way to an inner ring may not only take years but may turn out to be a hollow promise after all. But the nature of the old British establishment was that if you were born into the right family, went to the right school, had the right kind of accent and bearing, you could skip all those tawdry outer rings and accelerate right to the centre of things where commoners rarely, if ever, appear. The inner rings are inevitably smaller, and fewer people share the high-octane experience of access to key decisions and key information.
What MI6, the UK’s secret intelligence organisation, hadn’t bargained for was that once their trusted men were in the inner ring it was practically the only place they could let their guard down and share their experiences without fear of a snooping ear. And boy did they offload. Here were brothers, comrades, co-spies in a world where no one else knew their true work, not even their wives. And, from the 1930s through to the early 1960s, one man in particular – charming, intelligent, a veritable Bond – was picking them clean of every detail, every initiative, and every name.
Entrance into the UK spy organisation’s inner rings was surprisingly easy for Kim Philby. He simply asked a friend of his father’s to recommend him. ‘I know their people!’ was recommendation enough. In the 1940s the old boy network was considered as sound as a pound. A typical Eton old boy was as British as you could be. But it was at Cambridge that Philby first encountered the vision of a communist society. And it was an idealistic vision that held his loyalty for the remainder of his life. In fact he was so devoted to this ideal that he gave uncritical obedience to his KGB handlers from first to last. Philby’s beliefs as a student were well known, but when the Soviets recruited him they advised him not to join the Communist Party but rather to appear to grow out of that youthful phase and adopt more right-wing views. He obeyed, and became the KGB’s most senior operative; one who infiltrated the British security system to the highest levels. Philby, the Eton and Cambridge old boy, who loved cricket and was a thoroughly good egg, was ushered into the inner ring, and became the most notorious spy of his generation. He was so thoroughly British that the British refused to doubt him, and the KGB refused to trust him.
As Ben Macintyre describes in this highly readable account of Philby’s adventures, he actually became head of the UK’s anti-Soviet division – an almost unbelievable feat. The most senior Soviet spy in Britain became the head of the Britain’s anti-Soviet operations. And the information Philby was sending to the Soviet Union was so thorough and so accurate that the KGB began to be suspicious of him and had him followed.
After two other well-to-do Cambridge recruits were exposed as Soviet spies and defected, the spotlight fell (accurately) on Philby. He must have tipped them off. The CIA in America was certain of it. MI5 (British security service) and MI6 (British foreign intelligence service) had differing views on Philby. MI5 were convinced he had been a double-agent. MI6 thought those horrible people at MI5 were just slandering him, and had nothing concrete against him. And so, as an old boy truly in the security of a tightening inner ring, Philby was exonerated and declared to be so in Parliament by fellow-Etonian, Harold Macmillan. Incredibly, a few years later he was working for MI6 again.
Of course, it all finally caught up with him, and he was probably (Macintyre, and others infer) allowed to escape to Moscow where he received by the Soviet authorities. It was hardly a hero’s welcome for a lifetime or risk and deceit. He was kept at arms length. He lived in a small flat, avidly reading through old cricket games in old copies of the Times when he was able to get them, desperate of news from home. A humbling isolated end. A Briton in exile.
Philby’s betrayal, not only of country, but of friends, was intensely difficult to process by those who were closest to him. They were left devastated by his defection when the watertight evidence was revealed. We’re told Nicholas Elliot, in MI6, never fully recovered from the shock of it all. His closest friend was working for the Communists. He re-lived whole segments of his life with a new perspective. The realisation that he had spilled the beans on numerous activities which was relayed to the Soviet Union must have been unbearable to him. And the American James Angleton, another close friend, nearly destroyed the CIA through increasingly invasive internal witch-hunts prompted by the post-Philby paranoia.
Suave, sophisticated, well educated, gracious, the quintessential British gentleman, Kim Philby deceived them all. And all for an ideal it seems he didn’t care to review beyond his earlier infatuation with it. Somehow he looked past Stalin’s crimes and doggedly held on to a pristine ideal. He looked past the ruthless disappearance of KGB handlers who were suddenly under suspicion, and kept looking for the communist dream. He didn’t live to see the fall of it all along with the Berlin Wall in 1989.
As a result of his winnowing work he frustrated numerous cold-war operations, sent hundreds of agents to their deaths, and told a gazillion bare-faced lies, not least of which were his declarations of innocence in his mother’s flat before a crowd of reporters after Macmillan’s statement in the House of Commons. You can see footage of that and of him speaking in the USSR here
‘Meet it is I set it down that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain’, said Hamlet. Macintyre’s superbly readable account of the secret world of high-class spies has certainly been one of my most engaging reads of this year, and is a subject which continues to fascinate. Surely it’s time for a film version.
Recensito nel Regno Unito il 16 settembre 2019
Of course for outsiders like Lewis, slowly earning your way to an inner ring may not only take years but may turn out to be a hollow promise after all. But the nature of the old British establishment was that if you were born into the right family, went to the right school, had the right kind of accent and bearing, you could skip all those tawdry outer rings and accelerate right to the centre of things where commoners rarely, if ever, appear. The inner rings are inevitably smaller, and fewer people share the high-octane experience of access to key decisions and key information.
What MI6, the UK’s secret intelligence organisation, hadn’t bargained for was that once their trusted men were in the inner ring it was practically the only place they could let their guard down and share their experiences without fear of a snooping ear. And boy did they offload. Here were brothers, comrades, co-spies in a world where no one else knew their true work, not even their wives. And, from the 1930s through to the early 1960s, one man in particular – charming, intelligent, a veritable Bond – was picking them clean of every detail, every initiative, and every name.
Entrance into the UK spy organisation’s inner rings was surprisingly easy for Kim Philby. He simply asked a friend of his father’s to recommend him. ‘I know their people!’ was recommendation enough. In the 1940s the old boy network was considered as sound as a pound. A typical Eton old boy was as British as you could be. But it was at Cambridge that Philby first encountered the vision of a communist society. And it was an idealistic vision that held his loyalty for the remainder of his life. In fact he was so devoted to this ideal that he gave uncritical obedience to his KGB handlers from first to last. Philby’s beliefs as a student were well known, but when the Soviets recruited him they advised him not to join the Communist Party but rather to appear to grow out of that youthful phase and adopt more right-wing views. He obeyed, and became the KGB’s most senior operative; one who infiltrated the British security system to the highest levels. Philby, the Eton and Cambridge old boy, who loved cricket and was a thoroughly good egg, was ushered into the inner ring, and became the most notorious spy of his generation. He was so thoroughly British that the British refused to doubt him, and the KGB refused to trust him.
As Ben Macintyre describes in this highly readable account of Philby’s adventures, he actually became head of the UK’s anti-Soviet division – an almost unbelievable feat. The most senior Soviet spy in Britain became the head of the Britain’s anti-Soviet operations. And the information Philby was sending to the Soviet Union was so thorough and so accurate that the KGB began to be suspicious of him and had him followed.
After two other well-to-do Cambridge recruits were exposed as Soviet spies and defected, the spotlight fell (accurately) on Philby. He must have tipped them off. The CIA in America was certain of it. MI5 (British security service) and MI6 (British foreign intelligence service) had differing views on Philby. MI5 were convinced he had been a double-agent. MI6 thought those horrible people at MI5 were just slandering him, and had nothing concrete against him. And so, as an old boy truly in the security of a tightening inner ring, Philby was exonerated and declared to be so in Parliament by fellow-Etonian, Harold Macmillan. Incredibly, a few years later he was working for MI6 again.
Of course, it all finally caught up with him, and he was probably (Macintyre, and others infer) allowed to escape to Moscow where he received by the Soviet authorities. It was hardly a hero’s welcome for a lifetime or risk and deceit. He was kept at arms length. He lived in a small flat, avidly reading through old cricket games in old copies of the Times when he was able to get them, desperate of news from home. A humbling isolated end. A Briton in exile.
Philby’s betrayal, not only of country, but of friends, was intensely difficult to process by those who were closest to him. They were left devastated by his defection when the watertight evidence was revealed. We’re told Nicholas Elliot, in MI6, never fully recovered from the shock of it all. His closest friend was working for the Communists. He re-lived whole segments of his life with a new perspective. The realisation that he had spilled the beans on numerous activities which was relayed to the Soviet Union must have been unbearable to him. And the American James Angleton, another close friend, nearly destroyed the CIA through increasingly invasive internal witch-hunts prompted by the post-Philby paranoia.
Suave, sophisticated, well educated, gracious, the quintessential British gentleman, Kim Philby deceived them all. And all for an ideal it seems he didn’t care to review beyond his earlier infatuation with it. Somehow he looked past Stalin’s crimes and doggedly held on to a pristine ideal. He looked past the ruthless disappearance of KGB handlers who were suddenly under suspicion, and kept looking for the communist dream. He didn’t live to see the fall of it all along with the Berlin Wall in 1989.
As a result of his winnowing work he frustrated numerous cold-war operations, sent hundreds of agents to their deaths, and told a gazillion bare-faced lies, not least of which were his declarations of innocence in his mother’s flat before a crowd of reporters after Macmillan’s statement in the House of Commons. You can see footage of that and of him speaking in the USSR here
‘Meet it is I set it down that one may smile, and smile, and be a villain’, said Hamlet. Macintyre’s superbly readable account of the secret world of high-class spies has certainly been one of my most engaging reads of this year, and is a subject which continues to fascinate. Surely it’s time for a film version.
The author gives us a look at Kim Philby, the most notorious double agent in UK history and how he could have done everything that he did to spill tonnes of blood of UK agents by passing secrets to the USSR. The friendship at the heart of the story is that of Philby, Nicholas Elliott and James Angleton, the latter two, unwittingly, told Philby everything that he needed to know to give to the Russians and to upset many UK missions.
The Old Boy network in the UK is partly to blame for all of the issues that occurred, it was the means to the end for Philby to continue his work with little worry for years. Indeed he may never have been caught if it hadn't been for the defections of Maclean and Burgess.
I enjoyed the writing style of the author and look forward to reading more of his books in the future.