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| 4 { \ i t r mation to the West. Names such as Uleg Penkovsky, Viadimar Petrov, Nikolal Khokhiov {licensed to kill with bullets fired from the hinge on opening cigarettecase}), Evgeny Runge, and Irog Gouzenko are but a few of the Soviet agents who have betrayed their country to _ the West. This catalogue {s many times jonger, especially if Russian diplomats, scientists and writers are added, than that sordid litte collection of British traitors and defectors -—— Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blake, Nunn May and Fuchs, ‘ If we are to learn the lessons of the Philby case we must keep a sense of proportion, To exaggerate our mistakes could be almost as dangerous as to cover them up. Anthony Nutting The authors reply; To deal with Mr Nutting's lesser point first: It appears that Mr Nutting has misread the reference of Philby and $18 during the Spanish Civil War. We did not write that Yhere is “little doubt" that Philby became a member of SIS as carly as 1937. We wrote (p. 92): “So there scems little doubt that . dt was in Spain that Philby made his first careful, tentative contacts with the intelligence service he was later to domin- te.” Hardly the same thing. And on p. 109 we say when hilby did join S1S.—"in August, 1940, Philby became a member of Section D~of the British $15." Mr Nutting’s mare serious point comes as a surprise in “ seporters concerned. with the that he used very rm lanzuage more than once to two of the Philby inquiry. On the final occasion he described a briefing he had received on coming to the Foreign Office after the elec- tion in October, 1951, This con- sisted of an account of the FO position as regards Philby, over whom there had been fierce inter-departmental disputes dur- ing the summer. The reporters pressed Mr Nutting several dimes on the question of whether his understanding was that Philby was still employed in the STS in O¢tober, 195). He registered surprise that the question shauld be in «doubt, and concluded: “T would almost go to the stake on the fact.” This suggestion cross-checked with another authoritative source, an official connected with S1S during the relevant years of the fifties, that is, prior to 1955. It alsa checked with a further source, a political one, familiar with the circumstances of Mr Macmillan's actions in 1955. It should also be noted that in this period Philby made no serious attempls to make an- other career but made several curious trips outside Britain. Mr Nutting writes, “I have. now checked the record and am completely satisfied that Philby was asked to resign from STS and did so in 1851 as was subse- quently stated in Parliament by Macmillan and Heath.” This is a strange thing to write because ‘one of the most important points about the controversy is that neither Macmillan nor Heath said any such thing.. Heath, in 1963, elaborately avoided men- tioning anything about Philby’s S1S work. . Mr Nutting mentions “the records,” but in this kind of situation it is difficult to know which records he means, and who wrote them. During our in- quiry. into the Philby affair we were given numerous conflicting assurances of what “the re- cord” said, only to find time and time again that peeling another skin from the onion changed the picture entirely. Despite our high regard for Mr Nutting we do not fee: shaken in our essential belief that Philby maintained some kind of SIS links during the 1950s —a version we have had from several sources. . Undicate page, no Rewspaper, city and sta Date: Edition: Authort Editors Tithe: Character: or Classitication: Subaitting Officer (2 Being Investigated