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a COMET Soviet rest home, with twice daily temperature, takings and monastic diet ' Now the Macl were no longer news, They had beéu seen by the Western Press and their movements were necessarily freer than ours gould be. Although Donald was never very articulate he would occasionally Joosen up over a bottle of wine and -Teminisce with Kim over the “ good , old days.” They would sit around, . swapping stale anecdotes about their past and laughing at how they had fooled everyone. ‘Tf they hada't . Caught up with Kim, you'd be Lady Philby by now,’ Donald once said to me. I think he must have realised from my expression how distasteful ‘I found that sort of talk. Other evenings, in moments of nostalgia, . . Donald and Melinda would talk of - the good times they would have in Italy and Paris ‘when the Revolu- tion comes.” FT found this world of fantasy pathetic and slightly un- nerving. Doe “During this period Kim never ", went out to work except for a rare - meeting with Sergei, and. the boys. . 4 ‘ | security guards to eptendidly placed “ ‘ presumably at their office. Most of “ the work was done at home. Ho did quite a lot of typing in the study and > talked at length with~his Russian ' ¥isitors. After years in British Intet- ligence, Kim knew a great deal about its methods, operations and men. | tealised that rival Intelligence agencies spend much of their time attacking each other, secking to pene- trate each other’s organisations and “turn” each other's agents. It may be assumed that Kim is advising the Russians along these lines. He must be enormously useful, with his prodigious memory. For the Rus- sians he must be like a reference- book, as valuable, say, as a Baedeker to a traveller in Europe. I once heard Sergei say to him _. With deep affection and emotion: “We can never repay you for the work you've done for us.” The way Kim was treated in Moscow made clear to me that he was one of them. There were no longer any doubts or questions on that point. Loyalty means a great deaj to the Russians, and Kim had been.a dedicated ser- - vant. He was given VIP treatment. Ordinary Russian citizens queued for” hours for tickets to the Bolshoi and the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire, but _ -we could see whatever opera, ballet or concert we chose. In those early imonths we frequently went with the “Macleans, which was a pleasant change from the bridge table, All the arrangements for tickets were * made through Sergei, or his young assistant, Victor, ~ ‘ The November parade in 1963— with May Day, one of the two great annual pageants —.was another , occasion when ! noticed the great deference with which Kim was ' treated. A car and = chauffeur came to fetch us, equipped with special stickers, and Sergei, with passes. escorted us through a maze of [ rae, chevy, Qite--m guest tiai year--and the other -high-rankirz Soviet ’ “Seaders. Throughout the display we sete served with hot wine and dough- nuts. The Macleans did not bother to come: they had seen it all before and preferred to watch on television. At meals the conversation was of the familiar patiern: *.Remember old so-and-so? ", Donald might say, and they would laugh heartily over the tricks they had played on him. . a * * . fn Jlovember, Mrs Philby entered hospital for an operation which she had postponed for months. On the moming of 23 November T was lying in hospital trying to figure out what my neighbours were saying. All I could understand was the name John Fitzgerald, and the fact that they were all upset. It was not until Kim arrived at noon that I learned the terrible news that Presi- dent Kennedy had been assassinated ‘In moments of nostalgia, Donald and Melinda — would talk of the good times they. would have in Italy and Paris when the Revo- lution comes.’ in Dallas on the previous day, Tho effect on the hospital was shattering. Doctors, nurses and patients wept openly. As most of them knew 1 was an American, I was offered the most tender condolences. - Whatever the political cynicism of the Russian leaders, the Russian people are profoundly attached to peace. To them Kennedy was a man of peace, and they mourned his death. Kim, who talked a great deal about American politics, was also profoundly moved and depressed by the tragedy. a . t After Mrs Philby left hospital, she went with ker husband to Baku, on the Caspian Sea, to recuperate. it was Christmas— ‘not a very gay one. Lhad been in Russia barely three months but in those few days in Baku [had roy first glimpse of Kim's real feelings—the sea of sadness which lay beneath the surface of his life. He never complained, nor uttered a word of criticism of Soviet Mic. He never said ta mes ‘ive landed you in a situation you per- haps did not anticipate when you married me.’ He never seemed to think that any justification was neces-~ ry Te at hy tts EE NR! a = “ lie SS ay eT ee Woy We Aad MOL Lod me Lic bites. in spite of his discipline, 1 | bim a profound gloom. Was this ely hotel room in Baku what he had spent a lifetime working for ? It was perhaps to escape that intoler- able conclusion that be drank him- self into insensibility. In Beirut I had become used to his occasional mysterious depressions: coming to Russia had apparently not cured him | of them. . ‘They're the happiest couple in Moscow,” Melinda Maclean would say of us. Innocently E saw no more in this often repeated phrase than a wry comment on her own married life and a barbed attack on Donald. ‘But however one lodked at it, it was hardly an exact description of us that winter, We loved each other even more deeply, but a great change in our lives had taken place, and al) the recent tensions would take time and palience to iron oul. The extreme cald—outside of | Siberia, T could not believe such cold was possible—was a great shock to me. Kim adored it, like his Russian. friends, but his body could not take it. He came down with his old com- plaint, pneumonia, which he had had twice in Beirut, and Sergei, extremely worried, sent a nurse and doctor to give Kim daily vitamin injections. As soon as he recovered from pneumonia. he developed sxaiy eruptions on his hands—a reaction. T felt, to the nervous tension he was under. The eczema was not con- tagious, but it obviously lowered his morale. He could not hold a - fazor in his bandaged hands. and I used to have to help him shave. Al the bridge table, it was difficult for | | | him to hold the cards. He-could no- - longer type and, unlike the old days. I was not able to help him as the work was secret. Sergei brought him a Dictaphona, but he did not use it, Two or threo times a week we took him to the: “ ¢linic to have the skin specialist ex- amine his hands and put on fresh bandages, but the complaint did not cleat up for several weéks. _. Barrier grows about peace. He continued to stress that the Russians were far more interested im peace than in making bombs, and that if only the Western world could be convinced of this our ~~ Kim talked a good deal that winter” children would have peaceful lives. - Neither he nor his friends over attempted to lecture or brainwash me, nor did he ram his ideology down my. throat. Apart from this new theme of peace, our conversations were as much fun as in Beirut, but as the wecks went by the -barricr between us grew and I began to fee] that we could got recover the complete con- fidence we ance had in ¢ach other. In the harsh climate and unfamiliar atmosphere of Russia, we had less time for our old intimate chats. Our minds were focused on the complexi- aoe heat, # BOReRenanee