PHILBY'S BIGGEST COUP WAS CIA AFFILIATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01350R000200270003-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 27, 2004
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: October 3, 1968
• Content Type: NSPR

1AT
PORTLAND, GSAINFkpprovo'd For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP84
EXPRESS
.0C 9 3 1968
.:nY'Z'11e Conspirator:-=~hww^??"0a3 plain the passionate defense of Philby by
11 his colleagues of the SIS when the security
R traitor. It was to be some time yet before
Igges-E c] things did go wrong for Philby but when
the day came the SIS stood by him with
Up,. '1',. Phil b ' Be R 'an extraordinary, apparently inexplicable i
4
A ff ) determination
fL O ++ '~' t In the meantime his star was `still high and his
~J? Hat to come: in
Was CIA
coup
was
biggest
In the 1940s Stalin was loudly claiming a 1949 he Was sent to Washington, with the
still of First Secretary, to be the SIS
By Bruce Pare, David Leitch and {
slice of Eastern Turkey plus the right to rank
Philip Knightley liaison man with the fledgling Central inV
put Russian bases on the Bosphorus and
telligence Agency. It is difficult to exag-
book The Philby the Dardanelles: The Turks, in reply, were
]Exccrpttd from the gerate the importance of this posting. The
Conspiracy. Copyright (c) 1968 by Times clamoring for Western military aid. A civil
-Central Intelligence Agency had been set
Newspaper Ltd. Published by Double- war was raging in nearby Greece which
in 1947 and although beginning to feel
day & Company, Inc, looked as though it could easily go Com -up
strength still tended to regard the SIS
munist. Much Communist shipping Passes its
with some awe. Between the two existed
Early in the summer of 1946 Kim Philby through the Bosphorus, and Istanbul has
what CIA officers describe as "'a very' spe-
relinquished his London department to take flourishing communities of Armenians,
cial relationship," and with it, "an amaz-
an Important new Post "in the field.' He' Georgians, Bulgarians, and Albanians, with
free exchange. of information" took
went to Turkey under diplomatic cover,' direct links to the homeland communities ingly
Philby was right in the heart of this.
ostensibly as temporary First Secretary -behind the Iron Curtain. A better place to place.
is contacts ranged from the director, a
with the British Embassy, stationed in make contact with spies would be hard to H
tough ex-Army man, General Bedell Smith;
Istanbul and In charge of passport con- ; find.
down through the ranks, He was privy to
trol. His-real work, of course, was still spy-
CIA planning; he told the CIA what the
.ing.for the Secret Intelligence Service. The The Turks, of course, knew fairly soon
SIS was doing; he was often briefed by
Diplomatic Service, who appeared to be his. that Philby was an SIS man. Indeed, a man
Bedell Smith himself on top policy and,
employers, were in fact only his hosts. on the Istanbul newspaper Cumhuriyet
above all, he knew what the CIA knew
Philby clearly did not lose any rank by ? once asked Philby if he would be inter-
about Soviet operations.
going out to Turkey. His subsequent ap- ; viewed for a feature-aritele on "The Spies
pointment to Washington, if nothing else, of Istanbul." Kim discreetly refused. All
that the Turkish security men noted was This, by itself, would have more than
that Philby used to have meetings with satisfied Philby's Russian controller, but he
Express Special Report "students" from Communist Balkan states- ; was able to improve on it. Like most agen-
-but as that was his job, who cared? cies of its type the CIA is compartmental-
ized as a protection against penetration-
in Turkey Philby spent a good deal of.' ?no one department knows the whole story.
proves that. But the nature of his work '...time traveling around the Lake Van dis- But an agent is prey to a normal man's
did change sharply once he went out "into tract close to the Soviet border. He kept an 'need to talk to someone about his fob and
the field.." He was then bound to come into : odd souvenir of the period which in later the only person he can talk safely to Is an-
working. contact with the Soviet espionage' years he disl!laycd in his apartment in other agent. In the CIA that other agent
networks-and thus be projected into a p0- .Beirut: a In rge photograph of Mount Ararat was often Philby. Because he was cleared
sition where his real work as a Soviet spy!, which stands on the Turkish-Soviet border. to speak'' with Bedell Smith, Philby was
was not in any- external way distinguisha-1 Most people who recognized the double- 'cleared right through every department and
ble from his pretense of being a British ..;humped shape of the mountain would puz- . merely by drinking around he could have
spy. Whether Philby took the lead in per- ? zle over ,the pictl.ue, :ouch to Philby's . learned more about the agency and its op-
suading his British superiors to 'send him to' -- amusement. Some of the more technically- erations than any man except the director
Turkey we do not know. But if he did not minded would believe that they had solved 'and perhaps one or two of his assistants. A
do so, he should have, because once he was the puzzler the Print had been made with, high-ranking CIA officer, now retired, told
in-the field he was almost impregnable. the negative reversed: the little hump was us; "How much 'did Philby know? The sky
on. the left instead of on the right. This was the limit. He would have known as
IN ' THIS CONTEXT, the British Gov- would amuse Philby even more and he much as he wanted to find out."
ernment's terse admission, 17 Years later, would point- out that the little hump was
that they knew the truth about Philby's only on the left when the mountain was This explains the reason for the silence
loyalty makes interesting reading. In 1963 . viewed from the Turkish side. The view that has surrounded Philby's period with
Edward Heath said that the British were' from the Russian side was, like the Photo- the CIA. If an intelligence agency has one
"now aware" that Philby had "worked for j . graph, the other way around. the two men whose careers are going well,
the Soviet authorities before 1946." (Au- and these men-through no fault of their
thors'. italics.) In other words, the . knowl- THE PICTURE seems to have been an 'i own-are "blown," the agency immediately
edge that Philby had worked for the apt symbol of Philby's enigmatic status, retires-them. This may appear ruthless but
Soviets after 1946 was not new-he was Clearly, throughout his Turkish period, he i is obviously essential.' What happens-as it
working for them to the extent that any i was closely in touch with the Soviet intelli- did with the CIA and Philby-when the en-
field agent must do so in order to survive. gence network and equally clearly his tire agency is "blown?" There is no choice
What was new was that he had been work- superiors in London knew this. The vital but to cover up, reorganize, and keep going.
ing for them all along. question is how far the superiors had given-.. When the extent of )?hilby's treachery was
Istanbul had been an important neutral ! him permission to venture into this. moral finally realized the CIA 'had no choice
center in the war against Germany. Now, twilight. The authors have had' confirma- ' (short of disbanding the whole organiza-
the East-West confrontation gavt it an tion that Philby had been given; permission },ion), bpt to.smlle bravely and:, Carry on.
cen-
h
e
, to play the full double game with the
even greater importance. It was at t
ter of ? a cold war which seemed likely to go , ! Russians=to pretend to them' that he was
hot at the drop of an ultimatum. Turkey a British agent willing to work for them:
has a long border with Soviet Union and which,, unknown.,.to Lor;don;,,.was, exactly
another: border with ?C=IISml tiGt_ Bulgaria.. )
Approved For Release 2004/10/13 : CIA-RDP88-01350R000200270003-2