◆ SpookStack

- But tt ts now becoming i debatable which is the | fruitier melodrama: the ‘James Bondish career of | Philby, the infamous trator,” ~ chimself, or the recent plot: i tng. counter-espionage and { Strategies throughout | eet Street and the pack | rooms of British publishers. 7,.The contestants in the race to reveai “the truth about Kim Philby, double agent” (aec the ‘gover of Mr. Cookridge’s boo!: aust be dealt with as they come --Not in from the cold, but hol trom the. presses, Just in case anyone is a little ouy of touch, “the bald” ines are: that ‘Harold “Kim” Philby (Westminster and Cam- bridge, now residing in Mos. cow) on behalf of the Soviet ~Union, insinuated himself into Our Becret Service. | He almost became chief—and for 4 yenrs Kept the Russians enerously informed of our vita Sallaties : ‘ 4 a Matted Perhaps Mr. Cockridge's dos- sier would more accurately be entitled “The Three Men,” for iit ds as much about Guy’ Bur- gess and Donald Maclean as “about their old chum and men- tor Philby. + But of course the “Unhaty Trinity,” as he catis them, were 40 matted together in deceit and dereliction that the story could not faithfully be told with any other emphasis. Xt ts by now all fairly fam- iligr terrain, but this Is not Des, —" 4 hasty” hotch-potch complied from news cuttings. Mr, dge began draft ing his book 12 years ago when Philby was exonerated by the Highest authority from” com- plicity in the scandal of the other two. Without claiming any explo. five intimate knowledge ("YT Was Philby's Fag" or “The Spy I Played Squash With"). has, from his vantage point as a political and lobby corres: _ pondent, constructed an unsen- sational and clarifying natra- tive of this sensational and muddy episode. What continues to amaze is that two committed Commu- nists (Philby and Burgess) and one feeble fellow “travelter (Maclean) wera able to pene- trate 50 fitorttessly, and so deeply, Into our theoretically invulnerable security enclaves The explanation of this bizarre teat — which most thriller writers would hitherto have rejected as too prepos- lerously " unconvincing—is, one fears, that stale, but resilient Dower in the land, the old-boy network, Within the bastions of the mutusi aid and self-protection, preserved by the distorted loyaity of school and olass so)i- vived and . ‘The flagrant homosexuality, alcoholism, —_ instabilit ly cubloumess have got them elf the discreetty ignored. Mave there ever been threo characters’ flat with its should: £.. . ‘Thug he won such wildly su ~ and! Union — Jack rue, had carried out his duties; ns Lttered with debris ¢ ‘his nightly queer » the Foreign Office brawling in public i UD furniture, Defended denounced by the igence and FBI, yet Establishment to be reminded underlings to fly the coop, r being named by reus Lipton in the he was, innocently but . defended by cham. pions on both sides. Philby came out @ extremely well.” ad given eminent ¢ to Ais country had had @ misfortune of being mixed of this debati darity, the conspirators eur--A man who flourished. wp with a on Sa ie “Mr. Harold Macmillan’ tota | the world that Mr, Hid | Philby Was s good mes conscientiously and ‘nm trayed his country.’ , All got away with’ after | @ fashion. To Russia dove’ they went, i 5 ¢ Burgess, a decrepit ipsom- aniac ia his Old Etonian tie, is dead. Maclean, divorced, 1s on the bottle and in,a drab translator's job. AA nding . the Bay tangle, has tied | ted depresse sodden, ach would be too ety So ate w a moral out of this, for how. can Personal happiness of this.-trio. be equated with the , immeasur- able sone quenees ehigteer | lecades of treachery? (C5 + | When interviewed~. two! months ago about his ‘und: cover Mfe 96 @ Soviet apy, Phiiby said: “I would do it again tomorrow.” oo... The only useful hi that | the lesson ‘has beer Viearned | and that the Bentlemanty days Nave gone when Phitiy and his Kind could do i ag