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RRR first boss in the Secret’ Service. our second meeting, she turned up accompanied by Guy Burgess, whom I knew well I was put through my paces again. Encouraged py Guy’s presence, began © show off, name. dropping shamelessly, ‘as one does ‘at interviews. From time fo time, my — tnterlocutors exchanged glances: Guy would nod graveiy and approvingly. It turned out that Iwas wastin my time, since a decision had aiready been taken. Before we parted. Miss Maxse informéd me that,’ if T agreed I should sever my connection with The Times and report for duty to Guy Burgess at an address In Caxton Street. In the same block as the St. Ermin's Hotel. So'Y left Printing House Square without fanfare, in a manner wholly appropriate to the new, secret and important. career for which I Imaginee myself heading. I decided that it was my duty to profit from the experiences of the only Secret Service man of my acquain- tance. So T spent the weekend drinking with Guy Burgess. On the following Monday, I reported to him formally. "we both had slight headaches. je organisation to which 1 :Philby’s'* became attached called itself the Secret Intelligence Service (8.15.). It was. also widely known as M16, while to the innocent public at large it was simply the Secret Service. The ease of my entry surprised me. It; appeared~igies “that the. only" inquiry madg into my past was a@ routine reference to MIS, who passed my name through their records and came back with the laconic state. ment: Nothing Recorded ‘inst. - > ‘oday, every new-spy scandal in Britain produces a flurry of Judicial statements on the 'y subject of “positive vetting.” ‘But in that happler Eden itive vetting had never been eard of. Sometimes, tn the early Weeks, I felt that perhaps I had Bot made the grade after all, It seemed that somewhere, lurking in deep shadow, there must be another service, really secret and really powerful, capable of backstairs machination on such a ‘scale as to justify the rennial suspicions of, aay, the French, But it soon’ ‘became clear that such was not the case. It was the death of an illusion. Its passing caused me no pain. So Philby ‘entered S.1.S. (the Secret Intelligence Service). His first jobs—at ‘training schools for agents to be sent into German-occupied Europe— were frustratingly far from the hub of affairs. But that was sony the start of his career. nm September 1941, he was Given. post in’ Section V of * SS. directing counter-espion- age “activity in Spain and Portugal. But his big break-through was when S.ILS, decided to set up a new department, Section IX, to ‘udy . and combat Russian espionage’ actinit hilby records that hig Russian contacts were insistent that he should try to get him- self transferred to Section IX, ideally as its head. onde ~ This'he achieved by sustained string ~ pulling and character assassination of his potential rival (a man who had been his head in Section V). The job of Section IX was counter-espionage against Russians—and the Russians had their own man heading it. What a coup for Philby. But sas he now relates—it was at this point that he faced the Greatest crisis of his career. For into the British Embassy in Istanbul walked an officer of the Russian Intelligence Service who wanted to defect to the West. He tola an astonished offictat there that he could identify two trattors tm the Britis Foreign Office, and one in a counter-esplonage unit in Britain. In “other words, Burgess, Maclean, and Philby were all on, the brink of being named, Had this man’s information been urgently acted upon, the Burgess-Maclean affair would have been resolved tong before i assumed its final bizarre pro- portions. And Philby himself would have met a traitor’s death, But who was the sPy-catcher assigned to probe this defector’s Romeo acter ates “squeak informatio Turkey to The jot Philby. scarcely : desk onc {as hea dealing espionage when Ir from th Stewart b. across a! Papers ar them thr The to letter to t} Knox Hei the Britis! It-drew at ments anc tions. The number ¢ passed be: ritish Eur, General, f: ing story e A certa a vice-con Soviet Co Istanbul. h Page. h the Britis: and asked for himself He nominally in fact anc He said th deplorably Page* rem himself w: steady. Tn suppo FASHION INTERNATIONAL: abe things thnrt counts FASHION INVESTMENT: dresses with Rieage YOUR COUNTRY LOOK™ the tiew toamy' spin WHITE apd BLUE penal