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The’ picturo. of Phitby's a. « "1 Ad Tinbred” little” Commis: survival given “in | Insight's s bY-sion pxists: at the moment, report is a shocking one. On #2 °° "HT but No one seams to pay any. four separate occasions he gat “Ul attention ito’ its ‘reports. True away with the benefit of the iff outsiders are already coming. doubt: on the tast he simply “ ‘4 more and imore into use: In| ol away. The reasons are two- the Government "machine, old. One was that he had |, ‘J and in the United States they fe. Proved himself, to the Aimeri- ‘| are co-opted into the White. cans as well as the British, a House itself tu advise on very high-class operator who secret matters of ‘glabpl was also a charming felluw, policy. A group here consist of us.” The olher was “ding of, for instance even more serious: the poli- high - powered t licians’ reluctance ta deat scientist, journatist, — dan! with a Very unsavoury ques- Judge, and wontan might wel! tion on its merits, produce a valuable’ jneresse Any assessment of possible in public confidence. 0+ * reforins mnust begin with what ‘The Philby phantaxmayoria, | as already been done, While which scems incredible even Philby and ‘his“friends' were’ though it'is trué, “shows. that doub Leeroesing us, we were we nerd them. We ‘can dis- ating a ye numbers vo! ‘4 miss the tired joke that we Fighgrade defectors from have the tired worthy the the other side. “One could ‘T keepi T ‘ ‘ One . ping.. The KGB do hot Name at least fifteen in the seem to think so. The dav Past two decades who have we can rela u “st into Pe clax will be fhe day entered with equal zest into the last KGB agent géts the |, the double game and given ‘ , ¢ i us critically valuable {nforma- t | train for Moscow. | There: is | no sign of & slackening of tion, Great credit for this J i wi ) goes to Sir Dick White, by far KGB activity in _ Britain; | Ihe best head of SIS we have quite the contrary. We can be certain that hidden in the had. As a former head t of M{5, he has defused the * | Fecesses of the Western body |: Pomicious: Tivalry between | politic there are other poten. | hese two services and, tial Philbys. And in his K G-R equally important, got relat office Kim is hard at work right now on the best inet hod tions with the CIA ‘back on . to recruit and exploit them, | T y . by Geoffrey McDermott: Former: Foreign Office Adviser to the Secret intelli t + gence Service a 1S FHILBY really all that impurtant? Do his activiti past, -.present and future, justify a long newspaper probu and + ravaged — soul- searching by the authorities? Or is the “Bond and Dully Detly syndrome warping the judgment of .serious- people? For a start, it is worth recording the upinion of those inside the inteliugence world, T have been able to do this. There ; is no doubt In the minds. of the Secret In- telligence Service. Up to 1951, Philby had solid hopes of becoming head of that organi- sation: und, as they later dis- covered, he was doing max- imum damage in those sane of years, Equally the KGB (the Rtussign Intelligence service) cisked keeping him in the West for a dozen years after he came under suspicion as the’ Third Man, because . of his continued usefulness to them. ‘ y ‘ Ilis use was not merely in the provision of disconnected detail. By luck and judgment, thls master spy ‘and arch Irtilor was able to supply Moscow not oaly with S1S's deployment in the. field, but with information on the state of their intelligence on Com- ist affairs, Unlike George he was able, in fact, to infiuence policy, both British a Rod footing, He has also improved S1S practice in security and re- cruitment. Socially the service is now considerably more heterogenous than the Foreign Orifice. They also treat ‘security against enemy pene tration very seriously. My own main reservation about the top STS eclielons is that they are too gentle- manly vin “a deadly - yame where that is 2 ‘definite disadvantage. Nevertheless, | think that the great vaiwe of Tnsight’s report is the ques- lion it raises about S1S's olltical and’ public accounta- ility. "I believe, that the present dispersal of power etween the Foreign Office and’ the Prime Minister ex- poses STS-to “a dangerous degree of attlonomy. To my mind there is a strong case for a new body, quite outside Whitehall ‘and Westminster, {to Subject the service to a \regular Snspection and, if neressary, aU;