ESPIONAGE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70B00338R000300220003-8
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 20, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 17, 2007
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: December 29, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

ApprovellOW Release 2007/01/17: CIA-RDP70B00338R000300220003-8
29 December 1967
F ESPIONAGE
On Display
After years of silence and secrecy as
the most important British spy the Rus-
sians have ever owned, Harold has begun compensating by becoming
fomething of a celebrity. Exposed only
after he fled to Moscow in 1963, "Kim"
Philby has since become the protagonist
of a half-admiring, half-shocked ava-
lanche of serialized articles in every.
major London newspaper. In the past
three months, the British press has lit-
erally feasted on his exploits, as re-
vealed to "Our Own Correspondent"
by his 24-year-old son (in London), his
third wife (in Tunisia), and former col-
leagues (sometimes identified only as
"X") on practically every continent ex-
cept Antarctica. Last week Philby went
on display in Moscow, almost in the
manner of the czar's crown jewels.
Chain-smoking Russian Pamir filter
cigarettes, he threw at candlelight din-,
ner for correspondents of the Daily
Express, at which he blithely denounced
such Western institutions as "the ex-
pense-account lunch and the English'
' Channel" He poured vodka, wine and
brandy at the Minsk Hotel and "a num.
ber of restaurants" for a visiting sci-
ence correspondent from London's Sun-
day Times. And, most satisfying of all,
Moscow's own Izvestia ran a front-
i page interview with him appropriately
titled: "Hello, Comrade Philby."
Easy Time. Between. the caviar and
cognac, Philby managed to sandwich in
a few new fascinating revelations about
his past activities. He had worked, he
claimed, with such unheralded British
spies as Novelist Graham Greene ("he
worked in intelligence") and the late
Ian Fleming ("he was aide to the direc-
tor of naval intelligence"). Furthermore.
Fleming's James Bond "had an easy
time of it: Bond's only worries were
gay holidays and amorous intrigues."
As for himself, Philby modestly admit-
ted that, as chief of British intelligence
operations in Washington in 1951, he
had personally thwarted a CIA plot to
overthrow the Communist government
of Albania. How? Simply by letting
Moscow in on a CIA airlift of "several
hundred saboteurs" who were parachut.
ed into the country. They were, he
said, "greeted in a proper way."
In his new role as Hero of the Rev-
olution, Philby also revealed that he
has written an 80,000-word manuscript
"illuminating my position as a spy."
So far, no London newspaper has dared
buy his work: The Sunday Times, which
was interested, was dissuaded by a threat
of prosecution under the British govern-
ment's Official Secrets Act. In view of
the lack of buyers, Philby proposed to.
hand over his masterwork for free if
thb British would agree to release Peter
and Helen Kroger, two convicted So-
viet spies now serving 20-year terms 9 Rbt,: F
went unappreciated. The British turned'
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