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Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 32

121 pages · May 09, 2026 · Document date: May 11, 1966 · Broad topic: Intelligence Operations · Topic: Cambridge Five Spy Ring · 115 pages OCR'd
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‘ role for 30 years? Was his pronounced stammer a result of the constant grinding, SOmach-iurning strain of those years? What unsuspected fanaticism sustained his Communist fervor through the Stalin years of disillusionment? What inner Strengths. or weaknesses, enabled Philby to deceive friends and colleagues, and io live with himself as he set about destroying a society that had been kind 10 him as only the British UpperClass Establishment can be kind to its own? For those whe seeh answers to these questions, Philby's book offers scant material beyond the comment that “as f look over Moscow from my study window I can see the solid foun- dations of the future 7 glimpsed at Cambridge." 11 was then. in the early 1930s, that he and many of his contemporaries espoused either socialism or Communism. Throughout, the book displays an astonishing dichotomy: on the one hand Philby describes with pride his achievements for the British SIS, while on the other he was a spy dedicated to betraving it. He sneers at the British Establishment on one page, and on the next identifies and categorizes his colleagues by the schools and universities they attended. But if Philby reveats little of himself, he does dangle three fascinating threads for students of what has come io be Known as the Third Man Affair. There is, of course, the repeated Aint that there is vera fourth man —— and a fifth, and more. He seems to believe that he successfully hoodwinked the SIS into regarding him as an innocent victim of circumstances in the Burgess-Maclean affair, and that for this reason the SIS continued to use him as a free-lance agent afier he had been forced by the scandal to leave the service. In fact, it seems likely the SIS by then knew he was a Soviet spy, and used him as a pipeline to send false information to Moscow Then there's his revelation that he did not know Maclean personally, and that Burgess, the alcoholic homosexual, should not have skipped to Russia at the same time as Maclean — in- deed, in doing so he may have queered Philby's chances of ultimately pulling off the most stupendous espionage coup in history, Since they didn't know one another, there was nothing to connect Philby to Maclean's escape a jump ahead of his arrest in 195]. Nothing, that is, except Burgess, the friend they both had in common. ff Burgess had not disobeyed orders and gone with Maclean, it's likely no one would ever have suspected Philby. And since Philhy was a young man on the wav up. Britain's secret service might today have had a different chiej. Kim Philby, Russian superspy. As it is, Burgess is now dead: Philby is living with Melinda Maclean after enticing her away from her husband, and they have litle or nothing to do with fellow Westerners in Moscow, other than the occasional dinner with another defecter. Ap- Parently, they don’! have much to do with the Russians either. in her book The Spy ] Loved, Kim's third wife. Eleanor, tells of a dreary existence in a Moscow suburb in which Philby often drinks himself insensible, and waiiows in a “sea of sad- ness." She says, “In spite of his discipline, } sense in him @ profound gloom." Perhaps it was better to be a fellow traveler than to arrive. AFRIL, 1968 MWB HE First serious crisis of my career was long drawn ¥ Vout, lasting roughly from the middle of 195! to the end of 1955. Throughout it, I was sustained by the thought that nobody could pin on me any link with Communist organizations. for the simple reason that ] had never been a member of any. The first 30 years of my work for the cause in which J believed were. from the beginning, spent underground. This long phase started in Central Europe in June 1933; it ended in Lebanon in January 1963. Only then was | able 10 emerge in my true colors, the colors of a Soviet intelligence officer. In case doubt should still lurk in devious minds, a plain statement of the facts is perhaps called for. In early manhood. IT became an accredited member of the Soviet intelligence service. ] can therefore claim to have been a Soviet intelli- gence officer for some 30-odd years. and will no doubt remain one until death or seniie decay forces my retirement. In the summers of 1949 [having set up and directed the British Secret Intelligence Service's! Soviet Section and been in charge of the S1S station in Turkey) I was offered the SIS representation in the United States, where | would be working in liaison with both Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. The intention was to upgrade the job for a significans reason. The collaboration between C1A and SHS at headquarters level (though not yet in the field) had become $0 close that any officer earmarked for high position in the SIS would need intimate knowledge of the American scene. The lure of the American post was irresistible for two reasons. Al one stroke, it would take me right back into the middle of intelligence policy-making and it would give me a close-up view of the American intelligence organizations. These, I was beginning to suspect. were of greater importance from my point of view than their British opposite numbers. I did not even think it worth waiting for confirmation from my Soviet colleagues. The event justified my action. No doubt was expressed anywhere of the unlimited potentialities of my Hew escienme mt Tr war o Rew SSsignmMent Ik was arranged that I should go for a London briefing, then sai! to America at the end of October. In London, 1} found that Air Commodore Jack Easton [assistant chief of SIS] had the general supervision of relations between SIS and the American services, and it was from him that 1 recetved most of my instruction. My briefing on the counter-espionage side aroused grave anxiety in my mind. Joint Anglo-American investigation of Soviet intelligence activity in the U.S. had yielded strong sug- gestions that there had been a Jeakage from the British Embassy in Washington during the years 1944-45, and another from the atomic-energy establishment at Los Alamos. Thad no ideas about Los Alamos, but a swift check of the 1) The SIS tolherwise M16) is the one British Imellpence group authorized by the government to gather secre! anformalion abroad by illegal means After an apprenticeship in SIS counter-mtelligence, Portuguese and Spanish division. Philby became head of the key Sewer Section sei up toward the end of the war do keep track of Russian and Communist apices and subversives throughour che world Two years later he war posted 10 Turkey 15
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