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A Spy Spectacular F rom Fleet Street Blosy Robert L. Mott ‘Washington Post Poreisn Service « LONDON—The reading public in this lively and most competitive newspaper town in the Western world is currently enjoying one of the bloodiest journalistic battles in memory. Last Sunday, Brit- ain’s two Sunday “heavyweights,” the Sunday Times (circulation 1,500,000) and Observer (900,000) leaped into print— almost but not quite simultaneously— with the latest ‘details oI te; career of master spy, Harold (Kim) Philby. Philby's extraordinary 30 years as a double--agent -for Russia and Britain's MLG came to light nearly five years ago when he fled to sanctuary in Mos- cow, and thus far, at least, the “star- thing revelations” promised by both news- Papers have generally been publie know!- edge. More fascinating to the vicarious participants in Fleet Street's never-end- ing battle for circulation and attention is what the Philby “spy spectacular” re- veals about the ineptitude of journal- istic “espionage” on one of the most Sossipy streets on earth. ow IF THIS LATEST Philby caper has a beginning, it is probably a year ago ‘when the Observer's Middle East cor- respondent, Patrick Seale, took a leave of absence to collaborate with the now- estranged Mrs. Philby on a book about her husband's fantastic career. The Ob- server had hired Philby as ils man in the Middle East after recelving what Proved to be errofeous government as- surances that he was out of the spy business, and Seale had replaced Philby when he defected in. 1963. The Observer obtained rights to serialize Seale’s book in the British Isles. Surprisingly, the Sunday Times did not find out about the Seale-Mrs. Philby project until early this year. Apparent- ly to take the gloss off Seale’s book, which is due to be published next year, the Sunday Times quickly dispatched its super-sleuth Insight reporter team to write an exhaustive series of articles on Philby. The Observer, whose intelligence system was no better than the Sunday Times,’ did not learn that the Sunday Times was now following Philby’s traces -until fess than a fortnight ago, when a brief item in Newsweek tipped them. Events then moved swiftly, Seale, who was pledged to give the Observer only serialization rights to the book, met with , John Philby, 24-year-old son-of the spy, - | who had just returned f) Moscow on a mission financed by ae Times. «Based on his conversati ith the talk. ative young Phil been spirited 6b Gots BOI ‘imes, _ Seale Ms ‘Sunday Times Was aboyt to spring its series on an_un- suspettirg’ public, and on the boyerier? x server's fear that it wi " may have been height- ened by the appearance at about this time of a government “D-notice,” a device by which editors are asked to voluntar- ily withhold cértain information involy- ing national security. The D-notice was worded to cover almost anything about British intelligence operations, and it was strongly suspected that Whitehall. issued it to prevent a Sunday Times “spy expose” calculated to counteract the Observer's publication of the Svet- lana Stalin memoirs (which the Observer won by outbidding a number of news. papers, Including the Sunday Times.) nd SUSPICIOUS of the government's tim- ing, and after a bit more sleuthing, the Observer decided to ignore the D-notice and go with 2 Philby story last Sunday in order to blunt the expected blow from the Sunday Times. In what must have been a long Friday night, Seale pitched -in with two Observer staffers to produce & Philby story, and the Observer adver- tised that it would publish, the following Sunday, a first-person account by Mrs. - Philby, ghost-written by Seale. Scarcely minutes after the first -edi- tion of the Observer hit.the street Sat- urday night, the Sunday Times, which was holding its Philby series for the following Sunday, flew into action. Game- ly but somewhat lamely it managed io put together a Philby story for the read- ‘ers of its later editions, and promised further articles that would document “how Britain’s security forces were pen- etrated in the crucial cold war years.” On the following day, the country's daily newspapers started nibbling at the leftovers, ranging from reports that Philby is now married to the ex-wife of fellow-spy Donald Maclean (who also lives in Moscow) to interviews with Phil- by's former intelligence chief who in- dignantly labeled . his ex-protege a@ “blackguard.” It is too early to say what action if any the government will take over the ignoring of its D-notice, but at least one embarassed Whitehall official found a bit of solace. “If anybody's security perv. iceg need Jooking at,” he observed, Siesta” . pera) Gio sae v MT vy Mohr Bishop Casper Callahan Conrad Felt Gale Rosen Sullivan Tavel Trotter Tele. Room Holmes Gandy The Washington Post Times Herald Ble The Washington Daily News ‘The Evening Star (Washington) __— “The Sunday Star (Washington) —— Daily News (New York) Sunday News (New York) New York Post The New York Times. ‘The Sun (Baltimore) The Worker The New Leader The Wall Street Journal The National Observer People’s World OCT 8 1967 Date