ANATOMY OF A TRAITOR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100050036-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 1, 1998
• Sequence Number: 36
• Publication Date: May 31, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

Sanitized - Approved FgIje,:DCF75
May 31, 1968
CPYRGHT
Two views of Kim Philby, the centuryis. most audacious spy
a
0
CPYRG4 JOHN QUINN T
- r AROLD (KIM) I , very
nearly bungled his first assign-
ment as a spy for the Soviet Un-
ien, and very nearly lost his life
hi consequence.
It was in Spain during the Civil
War, and Franco's police were not as
thorough as they should have been, per-
haps, with the young English journal-
ist. In any event, Philby lucked through
and went on to become an audacious
and highly successful Soviet agent and
one of history's more remorseless
traitors.
Philby recounts the episode in his
book, "My Silent War," which he has
sent out from his refuge in Moscow
and which has been published here by
Grove Press.
Not a spark of regret animates his
memoirs, which constitute a rather de-
liberately blurred summary of his 30-
year career as the Kemlin's window on
British and American intelligence opera-
tions. As a devoted-indeed, fanatical
- Communist, he tells nothing that
would compromise the work of nameless
colleagues still on the snoop.
We must look elsewhere to learn
about the staggering extent of Philby's
treachery, the flaccid self-assurance that
permitted it to flourish and the bitter
consequences that it produced.
A good place to start would be in
another book, "The Philby Conspiracy"
(Doubleday), a-meticulously detailed ac-
count by three British newspapermen-
Bruce Page, David Leitch and Phillip
Knightley-of the reason why.
It is not a pretty story, but it is a
salutary and necessary one.
It is good to see that it is the work
of English hands, for a society that can
-indict itself can still reclaim itself. And
make no mistake about it, English so-
ciety is indicted, thoroughly and soberly,
for criminal folly and indolent corruption
that smoothed the way for Philby and his
comrades in treason, Guy Burgess and
Donald Maclean.
In sum, it did not matter that Bur-
gess was a raging homosexual and vio-
lent drunkard. Or that Maclean had gap-
ing character defects. Or that Philby's
early Communist connections were a mat-
ter of record easily obtained by anyone
capable of picking up a telephone.
No,'they were of good families and
had gone to the right schools and univer-
sity (all were at Cambridge). Hence they
simply could'not be traitors. ' .
Maclean, therefore, entered the diplo-
matic corps and became the principal
conduit through which so much dearly
Philby, therefore, could become head
f England's counterintelligence effort
ndergoing a routine check on his reli-
bility. As a result, from 1944 until the
light of Burgess and Maclean behind
,he Iron Curtain in 1951, every single
Western attempt to gather anti-
om?munist intelligence or subvert Com-
unist aims was known to the Russians
ell in advance. There is much blood
n Philby's hands.
His duplicity-first asserted in this
ewspaper, by our London correspondent,
leery Maule'--became virtually certain
n 1963, when the truly unforgivable-
oily was committed. Philby was allowed
o get away,
j,' IIY ? Page, Leitch and Knightley
annot say. Philby, smugly showing a
?limpse of the colossal vanity that
loubtless led him into the world of be-
rayal, suggests that he might have been
tipped off, even as he had tipped off
Iaclean when Maclean's perfidy came
to light.
It is not hard to believe. For, as spy-
the Bay of Pigs Invasion. FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover, he writes, has "a byb-
ble reputation." "Hoover did not eatph
Burgess or Maclean; he did not catch
(another Russian spy Rudolph) Abel for
years.; he did not even catch me."
Philby rates the CIA as superior to
the FBI-in social graces at any rate.
The G-men he dismisses as stolid,
country-bumpkin types, gruff of speech
and insensitive to the nuances of wine
selection. The CIA boys, on the other
hand, at least knew that Burgundy is
served at room temperature.
Philby says he once asked Hoover
what he thought of the spy-catching
ability of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy,
and that Hoover replied, elliptically: "I
often meet Joe at the race track, but he,
has never given me a winner yet,"
So much for the drollery. The fact'
remains that Philby gave his Soviet mas-
ters just about every winner we had in,
the stable, all safo bets. It is tempting.
to do anything to prevent this happening:
again.
Perhaps it. would be better to say:
"anything the law allows," for as Le'
Carre notes, "Philby is the price we pay
for being moderately free.'.
story writer John Le Carre suggests in
his introduction to "The Philby Con-
spiracy," someone recruited Philby for
Soviet service. Nobody knows who that
someone is, or what he does. But it is
quite conceivable that this someone is
still active, and that his activity could
have been compromised if Philby had
been caught and had cracked.
Perhaps we shall never know. For
what it's worth, 'however, we do ' know
now what Philby thinks of the responsi-
ble figures in Whitehall and Washington-
with whom he came in contact.
And some of this makes rather good
reading, for Philby is a witty and facile
writer. He had nothing but respect and
fear for Gen. Walter Bedell Smith, who
was chief of the CIA when Philby was
first secretary at the Britisih Embassy
in Washington and head of the English
intelligence apparatus here. '
Smith had "a cold fishy eye and a
precision - tool brain," Philby writes
about the investigation that followed the
defection of Burgess and Maclean, and
"I had an uneasy feeling that he would
he apt to think that two and two made
four rather than five."
Allen Dulles,. R subsequent boss of.
the CIA, he. considered "bumbling" {end
"easy to get around." He wonders why
President Kennedy took Dulles' advice on
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For Release : CIA-RDP75-00001 R000100050036-3