◆ SpookStack

i if “ . : > > PBR rs, x aahaeeeieniie tationan catamaran anna tidied wa neg he ate det a tn! ca Vane al Tan nye urgess .. * ot iF Service. up accompanied by Guy Burgess, whom I knew well I was put through my pares again, Encouraged by Guy's presence, began to show ‘off, name- dropping shamelessly, as one does at interviews. From time to time, my interlocutors exchanged glances: Guy would nod gravely and approvingly. It | . turned out that I was wasting TF Ale a al Ae ns Se oi my time, since a decision ha @ready been taken. Before we parted, Miss Maxse Informéd me that, if T agreed IT should sever my connection 4 with j duty to Guy Burgess at an address In Caxton Street, in the j game block as the St. Ermin’s ' Hotel, 4, So 1 left Printing House : Square without fanfare, in a manner wholly appropriate to the new, secrét and important career for which I Imaginec myself heading. I decided that q it was my duty to profit from the i experiences of the only Secret a Service man of my ‘acquain- tance. So J spent the weekend i drinking with Guy Burgess. On isthe” fellowing onday, I reported to him formally,” Wa both had slight headaches, The organisation to which 1 f ty ap “. only’ inquiry made into my . Was gg Philby's "first boss in the Secret’, our second mesting. she turned The Times and report. for oe feos rer a ey ae Pah. t ’ an or became attached called itself the Secret Intelligence Service (8.18.). It known as M.L6, while to the innocent public at large it was simply the Secret Service. The ease of my entry surprised me. past routine reference. to MIS, who passed my’ name . through their records and came back with the laconic state- hing Recorded Against... _.... cane ‘oday, every new-sapy scandal in Britain produces a furry of judicial statements on — the subject of “positive vetting.” But in that happier Eden ; positive vetting had never been heard of. aC Sometimes, tn the early Weeks, I felt that perhaps I had , not made the grade after all. It seemed that somewhere, lurking in deep shadow, there must be another service, really secret and really powerful. capable of backstairs machination on such o scale as to fustify the perennial suspicions of, aay, the ench. But it soon became clear that such was not the case. It was the death of an illusion. Its Passing caused me bo pain. . ‘ ‘ So Philby entered S.1S. (the Secret Intelligence Service). His first jobs—at training schools jor agents to de sent into German-occupied Europe— were frustratingly far from the hub of affairs." Aut that was . only the start of his career. Sepiember 1941, he was rgess S * SS. directing was giso widely. i peared igier that tha study - and combat - espionage’ acti post in Section V of counter-espion- age activity in Spain and Portugal. But his big break-through was when S.1.S, decided to set up a new department, Section IX, to Russian Given..a Phil - Ruse! contacts were insistent thet he should try to pet him- self transferred to Section IX, ideally as its head. This he achieved by sustained siring-pulling and = cheracter assassination of his tential rival (a man who had nm his head in Section V). The job of Section IX was counter-espionage against Russians—and the Russtans had their own man heading it. What a coup for Philby. But as he now relates—it was at this point that he faced the greatest crisis of his career. For into the British Embassy in Istanbul walked an officer of the Russian Intelligence Service who wanted to fect to the West. He told an astonished offictal there that could identif two traitors tn the Britis. Foreign Ofice, and one in a counter-esplonage unit in Britain. ‘In other words, Burgess, Maclean, and Philby were all on the brink of being named, Had this man’s information been urgently acted upon, the Burgess-Maclean affair would have been resolved long before it assumed its final bizarre pro- portions, And Philby himself would have met a trailor’s death, But who was the spy-catcher assigned to probe this defector’s Te ae THE BIGG informatio Turkey to The jot Philby. DALY. Ee che ea fl records: that his. “squeak searcely desk one {as hear dealing espionage when Ir from th Stewart 5. across a! ’ papers ar. them thr : The tov letter to tt. Knox Hei: the Britist It-drew at: ments anc tions. The number a: assed be: ritish Em General, fr ing story e - A certai: a vice-con Soviet Co: Istanbul. h . Page, his the Britis! 4 and asked ; ' for himself He clan nominally ; in fact anc He said th deplorably Page™ rem himself w: steady. In suppo: ee feos) SiSlet nee ernie nate me