◆ SpookStack

jane, = Ry Ot, Se ~ “Rrprivontid for ‘some months dur ying the last war under section 18B- ‘because he allegedly advised his: friend King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia against joining the Allies. Kim, who deeply admired and respected his father, may well have | inherited his idiosyncratic outlook. The suggestion has been made that if Philby was working for the Russians during 1956 to 1962, he was connected with the Middle East Centre of Arabic Studies at Shemian, which is incidentally not in the outskirts of Beirut but 20 miles away. Presumably the suggestion arose because George Blake, who was revealed in 1961 to have been a British-Soviet double agent, studied Arabic there. But the charges that Shelman is a “spy school” have been made in Lebanese Press and elsewhere ever since it was moved from the Transjordan just before th. Palestine war and have always been rubbish. The centre teaches Arabic, not pying. and by its nature could not lo otherwise, as I know, having ptudied there myself for 10 months in a es Spee: bara LS AIO Tp LOT TNE ae gE