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Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 28
Page 56
56 / 66
“Books of The TiméS ~ Ve —
Calishan
. yy. : Entrances and Exits . ~ Conrad
THE PHILBY ; CONSPIRACY. By Bruce Page, i saleL wonder is that. their careers aie
V" David Leith and Philip Knightly. 300 pages. Could go on for so long. The sloppiness Rosen
+ THustratedy Doubleday. $5.95. with which the Secret Service’agencies were Sull
“MY SILENT WAR. By'Kim Philby, 262 pages. TUM in Britain’ is unbelievable. Class bias
Store se PY * , and snobbish blindness are documented in Tav
| every chapter of “The Philby Conspiracy.” Trotter
ROM the late twenties through the ' (One of the things that pratected the con- Tele. Room
+ fortiés, one of the more popular genres sSpirators was the unwillingness of the ere
. in book publishing was the confessions i Britis w-befleve that’ the three men wear- Holmes
of those who had become Communists, saw | ing the old school tie and hasisa—gach Gandy
the light and defected, and quickly hastened | j
te ‘et the world how they had been duped. | desastcannections could possibly be work-
From Benjamin Gitlow to Howard Fast,; ing for the Russians. . 2°
they poured out their souls, telling how As a result, Philby, easily the most. im-
their god had failed them, and asking why portant figure, rose very high in British
others still so obtuse as to continue} intelligence, at one point serving as head
in their blind ways. . of a section dealing with Communist af-
‘ Perhaps the best of these books was fairs. In Washington, he worked as liaison
wre aps Chamber's “Witness” best in 4 man between his organization and the C.1.A.
the grace and limpidity of its writing, in its! {ng Americans could not wet at There oti
: conveying of the atmosphere of Communist | seems to be some resentment in Washington
activity from the inside, and in the search | over how Philby’s case was handled.
i
of Chambers’s lumbering spirit for a trans- i.
cendental experience in the dross of con- not moe the enna bt een mare
sspiracy, hack politics and menial jobs. | sure to be debated in the future. But don't
: The two books at the head of the column | fool yourself into believing that theirs was
are striking in that they deal with three merely a cloak-and-dagger operation. For
who stayed. As is well known by now; example, there was a time during the last
they were three upper-class, Cambridga , war when the army and other units in
‘University bred, English clubmen, who Germany became disillusioned with Hitler
worked in high and sensitive places in the ; and tried to find out what terms the Allies
British Government and transmitted infor- , would accept short of unconditional sur-
mation back to the Russians. Guy Burgess render. But all such feelers that came
and Donald Maclean did it from some time , through Philby’s sector were stopped by
in the thirties until their escape to the | him from going further, because the great
Soviet Union in 1951. Kim Philby was a. Soviet nightmare was that the Allies would
Soyiet agent for 30 years, until he showed ' make peace with their adversary and let
up in the ‘Soviet Union—he called it
f)
the Nazis fight on on the Eastem Front. ‘The Washington Bost
pore tee It comes aga slight jolt ! And there were other incidents when the Times Heraid ~—__________
to read Philby’s contemptuous reference in | ussians seem to have been alerted to ‘The Washi Bay Ni
his book, “My Silent War" to those, de | tentiat defectors sin their owm ranks mdto we Evening star iy News —
ectors from Communism who chose “the | saboteurs drop; to Sovict-steminated _—
political position of querulous outcast” or | territory. ° . . The Sunday Star (Washington) —____
to hear Burgess in “The Philby Conspiracy” re 1, Sas Daily News (New York) -
defend Stalin’s paranoid ruthlessness as & ‘ .
necessary and in the long ron beneficial. - Ww Sunday News (New York) ——_—_—_-
- ; - Ute wo New York Post —________
{ +) -Ableand Astute . Be 4 ‘The New York Times YJ
} ‘These men were able, astute, iron-willed B Rye ye” The Sun (Baltimore)
‘and lucky—until they broke down under‘ a thew -_
the strain, It must take great nervous and | ré) F } e Worker
spiritual discipline ag maintain two separate i kK rn Pr hy te y¥ “The New Leader —_____
personalities, to always on guard, to |
possess only a public face, never to know | a The Wall Street Journal
when the action of a second man will throw | a ae The National Observer
you into the greatest danger. Eventually ,DELETED copy SENT AG ‘ eS People’s World
the persistence of such pressures shawed. \py LETIER @| 15 \as
“Maclean and Burgéss became increasingly : aA s+ ”
“unstable inf before their escape. The IER FIA REQUEST
jwonder is that their wildness and obvious t Ss yy
didn't get them cashiered « BS
Date
sponsibili i.
“earlier, And Philby exhibited sure signs of = ° “|
- mental disorder and anxiety when he knew ¢ S-¢ %0 Ys -f7
of the trail‘had ‘come. “> _—.
Bow ide GS ODED inv aa” 963
eee
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