HOW PHILBY STABBED INTO THE HEART OF BRITISH SECURITY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600330056-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2000
• Sequence Number: 56
• Publication Date: October 8, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

AND. TT,7,1::j
ved For Release 200 pZ /27 - CIA-RDP75-00149ROO0600330056-2
CPYR~pIR~"o
CPYRGHT uw 8 1967
Y.sgueSpy '
ax Su'er
Pax 111's Lax s L
n Sunda, T mex
LONDON - Harold (Kim) It is still almost im -
Philby's achievement in be- , sible to find chinks in the
coming head of the Soviet 'mask''that Kim Philby first
section of the British Secret put on when he' was 22.
Intelligence Service, while ;There are one or two clues:
himself being a Soviet agent, His writing was careful and
must rank as one of the restrained, and many people
great professional coups in who knew him recall an
the twisted history of. elusive sense of distance, or
remoteness. Rarely did he.
espionage. allow himsoll to he engaged
Philby latel' went on to in such a way Po to reveal
higher things when he be- his inner thoughts.
came the linkman between Had Philby been forced to
the SIS and the U.S. Central spend more time in first-
Intelligence Agency, from class intellectual company
which position he could give ;during these 30 years, it is
his Soviet spymasters tiior- questionable whether he
ough general knowledge of could have kept up ' the
the operations of both the charade. But the ineptitude
major Western intelligence of the British Intelligence
agencies. ' Service helped to make his
But there . is a ' classic fantastic career possible.
quality about the earlier Because thet SIS burenue-
lay-
achievement. The selection racy of was offic eial mystery, the
in 1944 of Philby, already a
Soviet agent of more than agency was even less pre-
cared than others in the
ten years' standing as the ,British establishment to
man to conceive, build and control a new British, opera- cope with the mid-20th cen-
'tury'. The Service was a
tion against the Russians is caricature of the establish-
an event embodying the meet, and so this is an ac-
purest essence of espionage. count of a great breach that
Well Equipped opened up the defenses of a
How was Philby able to do social class, and therefore
it? the defenses of the nation.
Philby was born on New
First, lie was superbly Year's Day, 1912, in imperial
equipped for the role of spy: T;idia, lrouically, young Phil
.His marksmanship was ex- by's Indian playmates nicl
cellent, his mind was swift named him "Kim," after
and clen:r, his nerves were the half-caste boy of the
strong. Despite some power- ' Kipling book whose centr
11
d
i
ne
. ful drinking, lie rema
theme is intelligence wor . Philhy's politica'bent was
,physically tough and re- 1. The boy's father, Ilan leftwards. His views' dente available points to this
.silient. He was also extreme- St. John Bridger Philby, were expressed more in psi-, corroborated by the accounts
But above these qualities civil service, a distinguishe I vale, although with great Philby has given to his chil
Philby had the capacity to Arabist who. though h,! conviction. dreg who have visited him
in* Philby had traveled in in Moscow since his defec-
disguise his feelings and came of middle-class bat - Central and Eastern Europe'.,tion from Beirut in 1963.
tentions, a crucial profes ground, rejected its orctere during university vacations,
sional attribute of a spy. For virtues for the passional, d On Feb. 23,? 1934, Phiiby
and after graduation in 1933. 'married an Austrian Jewish
30 years he lived as a pas- , egotistic culture of t
Communist behind he went for an extended stay
sionate Ara bian deserts. . St. Job girl, Alice Friedmann, in
. fi? 1
the facade of a middle-class Philby, like T. E. Lawrenc to Germany and Austria. zt; V ienna..She was an avowed
was here and then, in the Communist, and now lives in
Englishmann,,,, ~w~~i~t_h Liberal-to- fought to free the Ar ~~yy d s of the Nazi ter- Berlin. with her third
Conserdati IOMed For Re1e e20@1/4X> is CIA ,75 91 W6iEMK1 '?056-2 nd.
United Preee-International
HAROLD PHILBY.
1hn f!nmmunist disguised as an, establishment man.,
and later came to share the l was hardened. He becamd a .._:
Arab belief' that Britain determined Communist, and
reneged on her promises at he was, recruited as an?'
the end of World War I. agent.
In 1929 Kim Philby entered I A few months after he left
Cambridge, where; he mot Cambridge, Philby was iv-
future colleagues Guy Bur- ! en his lifetime 'task-to pen-
etrate British intelligence.
gess. and Potiaid Tlaclean. Every piece of objective evi-
 0
Loncloi l@\cI O1TTR
n assistant editor on a
liberal magazine. But
hilby was to spend the next
've years carefully obscur-
g his. left-wing past be-
eath'a right-wing camau-
lage. ;
Obviously an excellent
gay to insulate oneself
gainst charges of commu-
ism was to condone Hitler's
ail regime, which both
hilby and Burgess did by
Dining the Anglo-German
ellowship. Philby managed
o have his picture taken at
Swastika-decked dinner.
his was in 1936, just before
he outbreak of the Spanish
1vil War, which gave Phil-
y another opportunity to
stablish his public political
osition.
Philby went to Spain in
'ebruary, 1937, and began
reporting as a free-lance
vriter from the Franco side.
P,ecently in Moscow, Phil-
-v ^, told his son Jobs}: "I
oLlIdn't have lasted a "week
n Spain without behaving
like a Fascist." He behave
so well, in fact, that Gen
eral Franco awarded hi
the Red Cross of Militar
Merit,
The 1"irsi Glimmers
When 'the civil war ended
Philby' had completed tw
cars as an undercover
Communist In Franco '
camp. But was he a]read?
spying on the.Britisli? There
are two bits of evidence.
One is that an office
named Pedro Giro recall.
that in a cafe in Sal.amanc,
a German agent passed
note to him with a warning
against two men then in the
cafe. According to the Gcr
man, these men were Brit
sh agents. Twice subse
quently, 'Giro saw Philh
locked in conversation with
the same two men.
Another point was notice gence Service. of job on his own," said one cumulated a vast store of in
by Sam Pope Brewer, a New This agency, better known of his colleagues. "I ktf`ow formation on Communists In
ark Times corresponden as itiil-6, was and is con- it was Burgess who rang up Western countries, front or-
whose wife, Eleanor, Phil cerned with espionage and ganizations. and the other
y was to acquire 20 years counter-espionage in foreign someone and got him in." now-familiar stuff of Cold
ater in Beirut). At press countries. (llil-5, the home The Iberian subsection's War counter-espionage. And
conferences, Kim was al unit of the mythical .Tames theater was a vital. one. Kim Philby had acquired the
rays the last questioner Bond, concerns itself with Spain was a neutral, friend-' confidence of his staff.
and the man who wanted to counter-espionage in Britain ly to Germany, and provided "He could get them to do
now just which regimen and the colonies). Both agen- the perfect base for opera- anything for him," one of
ad made just which move. ties had suffered a sevn re tions against Britain's tom-l'; them has'recalled.
Perhaps at this point Phil- contraction since the paimy ruunications keystone, Gig ! This witness remembers
y, anxious to ingratiate days of World War I. bra~tar. Portugal was ;, that everyone there came
imself with British intelli MI-6 had escaped any basic friendly to Britain, but .i 'from a strict security back-
ence men, was collecting
and passing on any tidbits reforms: During the 308 it Portuguese Mozambique ; mound, where the rigid
he could get. had done its recruiting, in was the center of German tradition was that office
the tradition of the Great espionage operations, in desks 'should be locked at
Zany Correspondent i Game of the establishment, southern, Africa. it was in night. But Kim broke that
When the British expedi I from the British police force this ' connection that Philhy tradition as he broke so
ionary force left for France in India and partly among sent' Malcolm Muggeridge many others. "Don't worry
rich upper-class young men to Lourenco Marques and about that," he said, "I'll
n'r_L . I.;:.:: , . from London's financial dis- Graham Greene,- to, Sierra lock them up later."
trict. .Leone _. "I didn't like to do it,"
It was these men, often As "'a boss, Philby was a this witness now says, "but
OCT _ A r He For Rel ase 2001/07/27: CIA-RDP7 .He he was 'so charming ?e
'PP ~iQt4~,Q~334~gs' ~iassessed -2auldn't refuse anyt. -ig n~, he
hilby went with em n w as "the s ock bro -ers, "dently won him intense per-
as
@0n2QQ$/07d2RTo.Cl:14#2 R, -Oh149RO0?siaci Q~56s?nal loyalty: This was to
orrespondent. His colleague, connection with White's be a feature of his entire
oh Cooper, thought Philby Club, one of London's most career, and it is with an al-
wild, slightly drunken exclusive men's clubs. This most unspeakable sense of
nd rather brutal young . u notorious liaison stands` at irony that associates recall
an. Kim, it seems, was ad- the center of any picture of the word which they always
icted to a curious bar ? the wartime secret service.. felt summed him up: "in-
ame which involved bust- ' And it epitomizes the te? rity."
zg people's knuckles. Also, rougish, dilettante quality of "You didn't just like him,
s in Spain, where he had MI-6, of which the rest of admire him, agree with
cquired a Royalist mistress, Whitehall, and especially the him," says one man who
embroyonic professionals of saw him often from the
e was rather conspicuously MI-5, were to become in- war until his, defection.
loin g with a girl, this time creasingly contemptuous "You worshipped "
ady .Margaret Vane-Tem- ' over the next decade. ? 1?'years By 1943, two'
wo 'years after
est-Stewart. Most of the, top brass, be- ? comin in, Philby was firm-
Other c o l l e a g u e s still longed there, including Sir ; ly established as one of
a,w him as slightly pro-fas-- ? Steward Menzies, the Ml-6 ' Menzies' very best men.
ist: He wore. the Franco chief until 1951 and the '; But by early 1944 Philby
s eporation on his uniform. model for Ian Fleming's fie- :was getting bored by the,
The disaster of Dunkirk The etiquette of the time limitations of the Iberian
n June, 1940, brought Phil- tional? security chief "M," subsection.
)y )back to London. At last was to leave Menzie alone It was then that Menzies
onaitions were ready for . with his personal assistant asked Philby, just a few
hi `crucial penetration of when they were together, months before D-Day, to re-'
l since it was understood that rive the defunct counter-
Brit sh intelligence. ,they were "running :the espionage operation against
These conditions were no- t secret service or something." the-Soviet Union. To Philby
where better than at the
hnnsfe where young intelli-
de w~nte. vo Among yt- them were basic English principle that
de
Guyt'Burgess and a number if you could not trust your
of homosexuals, heavy ! club, who could you trust?
drinkers and hangers-on of As for Menzies himself,
varying types. one former subordinate re-
Phi,lhy was immediately calk: "lie was terrifying to
taken into the department work with because he acted
i for sabotage, subversion and entirely on instinct. He
propaganda. His particular rarely read a single case
job was lecturing on propa- right through, yet he often
ganda leaflet technique. came in. with the answer."
Philby was later transfered ' Counter-Espionage
to a unit training for un- Kim Phil became part
armed combat behind en- py
part
of Section Five of 111-6
emy lines, but his stammer
work which was responsible for
and nd thee' fact that his work
in Spain had made him counter-espionage, or more
known to a .great many exactly,. spying on the Ger-
German military people man spies. Through per-
made it seem , suicidal to sonal contact supplied by
send him into dccupied ! his old colleague Guy Bur-
Etfrope. gels, Philby became head
So in the summer of 1941 of the' Iberian subsection.
Philby' was recruited for ._ "Philby just- did not have
also to represent the u?y
mate folly of the men abo
him.
Philby's appointment is,
measure of the blind fai'
In him on the part of 1>
superiors, whose own rep-
tations had been aided i
Philby's work. Had Philby`
early Communist experien;
been forgotten? Had it bee
obliterated from the recoi
by his e x c e 11 ent perfori
ante? Or was it, just c'
ceivably, noted and, in a m
ment of supreme politic,
naivete, ignored?
The aging colonel who,
was the sole incumbent of
the inactive Soviet section
was pensioned off, and Phil-
by moved in to build an em-.
pire which, within 18
months, occupied an entire
floor and ? employed more
work in the Secret Intelli- the contacts to get tnat sort years, the section had ac-
White's provided, top, a this must have seemed th
fertile source for emergency ultimate opportunity, az
athv, faculties which. evi-' asked."