◆ SpookStack

Roe RB oy te ee soaeage a AMAR ean eo mE {Letter in flat It was only after they drew a blank that they went on to make a private check of the passenger lists of all air- , craft which had left Beirut, then and | subsequently, «for all destinations. oN “fisTTé and theirs. He was leaving for a reason and a destination that, it seems, he could not discuss or disclose to his wife, a tolerant and understand- ing wonlan ee ee If there was coercion about it,’ The’ had co-operated. He had meant to go. It is deeply significant of the im- . pression that Harold “Kim” Philby. : had made on close friends and news- paper colleagues jn London and “Beirut, particularly in his last six ‘and “ Perhaps some sensational call of duty a quarter years as correspondent in had pulled him away. What else coula the Middle East of The Observer and explain it? ts Two days later, Eleanor called off | been such bewilderment. the’ search—or, rather, attempted to— by telling the authorities that she had |of the Burgess and Maclean case,! could trace it back no further. had a reassuring letter from her ,husband. He had left this in the flat. ‘Vit had apparently been placed so that Eleanor would discover it the morning _ fter his disappearance. But by mis- hance, of distractions of the search, it had been*’ overlooked till now: too late, incident- because of the'* first’: Hansard for November, * the. Economist, that there should have Every news- | paper office hauled out its bulky files | "noted Philby's swith ‘Burgess at Cambridge Washington Embassy, his apparently ' ready admission of ¢ariy Communist associations, and carefully reread the, 1955, when" Mr. Macmillan completely exonerated Philby from the charge of having been acquaintance ally, to avoid keen official interest in {the Third Man who had tipped off the the disappearance. Looking round Jater, Eleanor also’. found that her husband's’ attaché-case had gone, the one he normally managed with on even the longest reporting assignments. His typewriter had been left behind. But she was soon to receive letters from Cairo that had been unmistakably typed on it before departure. « .. It all pointed one way. However briefly, in whatever rush, his departure was premeditated. though, when he said a very casual heerio: to a wife and children he was aust atteanhad ta that sunning ba fenchow ABLLALHCU Ul Lal evening, ne mehow knew he was burning his oats, that he was radically changing It now Jooks as | “|two defectors. In spite of this faint connection, small * ‘even sceptics had to keep their minds - open to a wide range of possibilities. : As time went on it became clear that any final explanation was going to be extraordinary. But no investigator. Who was inclined to believe that people behaved in character, and not wilfully and unpredictably, ‘could , positively narrow down the search fo y an Iron Curtain country... certainly conclude that this man, this ‘modest, somewhat retiring man, this very capable and straightforward journalist could be another defector. No one then claimed they had heard him utter any Communist sentiment under any conditions of stress’ or liquor. Defection was simply another of many possibilities, each as unlikely as the next, . . The first messages which reached Beirut, purporting to come i from Philby. did nothing to clear up the mystery. Two more letters reaching Mrs, Philby in February and March, and certainly bearing his signature, had | Cairo postmark; though later she reveal their contents to eclined to and’ the ~ Bi ‘On atrip’ “2 v «No inauirer could honestly “and reporters she/ said that she wi was reas- . a eee eee es sured thai he was well and “ on & trip.” Then a telegram arrived which had | been handed in at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Cairo, at the odd hour of 0338 ‘on March 2. It said: “ All going well. Arrangements our reunion proceeding , satisfactorily. Letters with all details : following soon. Love... ." It was signed Kim Philby—but the original {Was not in his handwriting. It fater appeared that it had been handed in by an Arab who had been given the | equivalent of a 2s. tip, but the police ‘More mysterious still, the Egyptian authori- ties claimed there was no trace of Philby having entered the country since the previous July. Nor could the Lebanese Immigration Department find « any trace of his having left their terri- tory; they had issued a warrant for his arrest for presumed illegal exit. ; That was the sum of the concrete ‘evidence. Beyond this, reporters arriving in Beirut {as I did in March) to 5 fook for clues or knit their surmises could, like the security men, only look closer at the man, his past, his present life, his habits, his known inclinations, then attempt to fit it into a Middle East ‘context, and see which way the shadow w Hotel Normandy, Beirut, December 29 /...To turn to a purely per- sonal matter. Two of my children will be returning to the UK. this summer, probably some time in August, and I would like to accompany them for a 9 brief spell at home... . % — Yours ever, wo | SO Ki FROM Philby's tast letter to’ ‘The Observer,’ written at the end of 1962. ° ————! 4% e a ; Meme ey tt ae ge oh ate »