KIM PHILIBY: THE TOP BRITISH SPY WHO IS STILL OUT IN THE COLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000100050038-1
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 1, 1998
• Sequence Number: 38
• Publication Date: May 19, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

Sanitized - Approved For Release : CIA-RDP75
CPYRGHT
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U RE UBT.IC
MAY g 1963 CPYRGHT
S - 21O,fcO
Book Ends
The Third Man, by E. H.
Cookridge. Putnam's, N.Y.
320 pp., $5.95.
The Philby Conspiracy, by
Bruce Page, David Leitch,
and Philip Knightlcy. Dou-
bleday, N.Y. 300 pp., $5.95.
By EDWIN McDOWELL
Macmillan, usually the ver
genuinely distressed as h
faced parliament.
It was bad
enough that a
eTl~ Labor MP had
implied t h a t
spies were op-
erating in the
very highest
echelons of Her
Majesty's gov-
ernment.
the alleged spy MCDOWELL
was none other
than Harold Adrian Russe
Philby, whose educational an
squarely within the British E
tablishment.
"I have no reason to conclud
that Mr. Philby has at any tim
betrayed the interests of hi
who was soon to become prim
minister in the Conservativ
government.
Later at a relaxed press co
ference which he held in I
the last time he had knowing
spoken to a Communist was
1934 - 21 years previously.
bridge grad, the consort f.
beautiful women, confidant f
high government officials
Sanitized
FOIAb3b
had been a dedicated Soviet
agent for 22 years.
Not only that, he had been
the No. 3 man in the British
Secret Intelligence Service
(SIS) - the man who in 19.1
established the special section
to deal with Russia, and the
man who was sent in 1949 to
act as liaison officer with the
American CIA.
The full damage Philby did to
the free world will never be
known.
What is known, however, is
that he seriously compromised
the CIA, protected a major
atomic spy, withheld vast quan-
tities of intelligence about Rus-
sia, and - with his fellow Brit-
ish spies, Guy Burgess and
David Maclean - reassured
Peking that the U.S. would not
bomb Manchuria even if Red
China intervened in the Korean
war.
Philby blew the whistle on
the hundreds of Albanians who,
taking part in a joint CIA - SIS
operation in the spring of 1950,
parachuted into their homeland
hoping to reclaim their country
from the Communists - only to
be met and methodically mas-
sacred.
And when a Russian named
Volkov contacted the British
embassy in Turkey, offering to
defect and hand over valuable
information on Soviet intelli-
gence to agents in the British
government, Philby saw that he
was removed - feet first in a
Russian military airplane.
CPYRGHT
munist party member while at
Cambridge, and a friend of the
crass homosexual Burgess (who
before his death in Moscow in
1963 was permitted the compan-
ionship of a curly - haired bad
let dancer) and the alcoholic
homosexual Maclean (who from
his post in the British embassy
in Washington procured impor-
tant atomic information for his
Kremlin bosses).
ONE NIGHT in January,
1963, Philby - whom Allen
Dulles described as "the best -
spy the Russians ever had" -
boarded a Soviet ship in Beirut.
Soon afterward, a govern-
ment spokesman announced
that Philby had defected to
Russia, and admitted that he
had indeed, been the "third,
man" who tipped off Burgess
and Maclean, thereby enabling
them to escape to Russia.
Today, Philby - proud pos-
sessor of Russia's Order of the
Red Banner- lives in Moscow
with Melinda Maclean, Donald :
Maclean's American wife.
He is an important official in
the Russian Security and Intel-
ligence Department. Yet he
still subscribes to the airmail
edition of the London Times -
to keep up with the English
cricket scores.
On the contrary, when
made his decision at age 21 t
serve Soviet Russia he had ne
or been there and had only
superficial knowledge of co
munism.
But what he lacked in fir
hand experience, he made u
in zeal.
And when the CIA and F
warned SIS about Philby, the
dismissed him in 1951 . . . b '
still were not convinced.
Indeed, a senior Foreign 0 -
fice official, acting for SIS, of
cially asked the London Obser -
cr to send Philby to Beirut as
foreign correspondent.
So off he went to charm tl c-
Lebanese community, se,du e
the wife of a Now York Tim s
correspondent, and just gene -
ally live life to the fullest.
IN THESE two books - t e
former by a longtime seer t
service agent who knew Phil y
back in. his (the author's) -
cialist days, the other by thr e
of the 16 Sunday Times repo t-
ers who compiled a brillia it
group series on Philby - ma y
of the gaps in Philby's esp -
nape career are filled in.
He is shown as the handsome
roue who married four ti s
and who seduced the wives of
at least two friends. (One wi e,
avowed Communist Alice Fri d-
mann, now lives in East Ber i
with her third husband.)
He is also shown as a Con
PHILBY, the perfect ideologi-
cal spy, was not driven by any
of the usual reasons: Alcohol-
ism, homosexuality, a warped-'
childhood, minority status, or a
physical deformity. Nor had he
visited Russia as a youngster
J- and fallen in love with the
Workers' Paradise.
"We knew Philby as a col-'
league . . . and we were com-
pletely deceived by him," said'
a recent London Observer edi-'
torial.
To which the top security of-;
ficials in Britain and the U.S.'
could add a plaintive, "Amen."
00100050038-1