[ ] CALL . . . A CHOKING SOUND. . .A MEETING WITH PHILBY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600330001-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: December 25, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

1Aipproved For Release 2001/~7/~7 : !~eAel r7 0 98000600330001-2
7`:1e Boston Globe -- on ay,
CPYRGHT
EDITOR'S ',OT1: -
uring the past few
weeks, there have been
ersistent r..mors that the
icmoirs" of the Soviet
s,v Rini Philby are about
t be published in the
est. 1'3.ilby appears to
I eve made a number of
wih wcstcrn
.fill:; organizations,
u.a . I. is :1s.n evidence
lie manuscript has
11,11, pushed by official
,tan sources.
the London
u,nay 'Iinlcs was offered
Ihi chance to publish an
0,000-word manuscript by
hilby. After considera-
'on, the Sunday Times
ecided it could not justify
itch a step. The question
f financial reward was
of the de'i~ive one -
hilhy made it clear that
O e was not interested in
ioney for himself. It was
itller a mater that mem-
irons this admitted
tiGR (The Soviet Coln-
nittee for State Security)
fficer, could only be a de-
iheratc attempt to dani-
ge Western interests, in-
luding Western intclli-
ence organizations.
Ilowever, file London
outlay 't'imes did take
tees to ascertain what
ort of manuscript Philby
vas offering. It turns out
.o be not simply his mem-
irs - but rather an in-
lietauent of western secret
operations against the So-
ict Union, 1945-55.
Two weeks ago, Sunday
Times reporter Murray
Sayle was in Moscow on a
.cienfific feature assign-
ment for the Sunday
'fillies Magazine. Philby
,net Sayle several times.
miring these meetings,
Philby made the remark-
able suggestion that he
q F. CIwkZ
C:a~ O R M A
77
Phil
four years in a labor
camp. Suggestions of an
exchange have been stead-
fastly refused by the Brit-
ish government. The fol-
lowing is Sayle's report of
his meetings with Philby).
By MURRAY SAYLE
The London Times
My first direct contact with
Philby was a telephone call
to my room at the Lenin-
gradskaya Hotel in Moscow,
one of those marvcllously
ugly wedding-cake buildings
in the Stalin Gothic style of
the '50s.
I picked up the telephone
and heard a strange choking
sound, as if someone at the
other end was trying to say
something. Then the un-
known caller hung up. The
same thing happened five
minutes later - a ring, the
same sound, a click and si-
lence. The third time, I
picked up the telephone and
said, on the off-chance, "Mr.
Philby?" "Speaking!" said
Philby, quite distinctly this
time, and after a few sec-
onds' preliminaries, we ar-
ranged to meet in Room 436
at the Minsk Hotel on Gorky
Boulevard (the "Broadway
of Moscow"), at 8 o'clock the
same night.
I knocked, the door
opened, and there was Phil-
by, smiling with hand out-
stretched. I went in and took
off my snow-powdered hat,
and coat. The room was
completely bare except for
two chairs and a table on
which stood a briefcase, a
bottle of vodka and two
glasses. The table stood by a
window with a breath-
taking view over Moscow,
red stars shining on the
ghostly white walls and
spires of the Kremlin in the
distance.
"This is a tough, dynamic
city," said Philby. "This so-,
ciety is going somewhere.
Care for a drink?"
I accepted his offer and we
sat down. Philby was
dressed in sports coat and
grey flannels; lie is a courte-
ment of life. He speaks ex-
actly as a senior British civil
servant would about his
present employers - "my
superiors" he says, "my col-
leagues," and very early in
our conversation lie ex-
plained, "I aln a serving offi-
cer of the KGB, as you prob-
ably know." Ile made no se-
cret of his KGB employment
and told me at one stage lie
had been on the telephone
with his employers.
After Philby said that lie
worked for the KGB .1 took
the opportunity to make my
position clear: I did not pro-
pose to conduct a formal in-
terview in the sense of ask-
ing him a set of questions
but that I held myself free to
write an account of our
meeting at some subsequent
time; and that I did not
think there was any point in
our debating the merits or
otherwise of communism, or
in my offering him any com-
ments on the career he had
chosen. He said in reply that
he would assume that it was
possible that I worked for
some Western intelligence
service. (He subsequently
said: "I naturally took pre-
cautions against any rough
stuff - you would not have
got 10 yards down the
street.") But the seemed, at
the time, quite relaxed.
We met subsequently at a
number of restaurants nomi-
nated by Philby. During
these long Russian meals
vodka, wine and brandy
flowed freely, and Philby
talked lengthily, even com-
pulsively. He is clearly a so-
ciable type of drinker and
he seems to have an iron
head; I could detect no
change in his alertness or jo-
viality as the waiters ar-
rived with relays of 300
grams of vodka or 600 grams
of Armenian brandy.
The conversations which
follow took place in no par-
ticular order, and I present
them without further com-
ment of my own.
ous man, smiles a great deal,
and his well-cut grey hair
and ruddy complexion THE GERALD
K OGERS:KEPA Philby
suggest vitality and enjoy-
rain ct this ;.uhject hlmsc ,
spontaneously. "There was
an inter,-.;ting suggestion in
The Economist," lie said.
"The idea was that I would
be prepared 1