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Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 32
Page 59
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KIM PHILBY’S SILENT WAR
conunued
relevant Foreign Office list left me in little doubt about the
identity of the source in the British Embassy:
A careful study of the files did something to allay my
immediate fears [for the source's safety]. As SIS was not
supposed to operate inside the U.S.. investigation of the
leakages was in the hands of the FBI. Characteristically, they
had put in an immense amount of work resulting n an im
mense amount of waste paper. It had so far occurred neither
to them nor to the British that a diplomat was involved, let
alone a fairly senior diplomat. Instead. the investigation had
concentrated on non-diplomatic employees of the embassy,
and particularly on those locally recruited: the sweepers,
cleaners. botile-washers and the rest A charlady with a Lat
vian grandmother, for instance, would rate a 15-page report
crowded with insignificant detail of herself, her family and
friends. he: private life and holiday habins, lt was testimony
to the enormous sesources of the FBI, and to the pitiful extent
to which those resources were squandered. It was enough to
convince me that urgent action would not be necessary, but
that the case would require minute watching
medbately after entering American territorial waters. An FBI
Tepresentative had come out in the pilot's launch to greet me.
J gave him a gtass of To Pepe which he sipped unhappily
while we made polite conversation. 1 was Tater to Jearn thay
the men of the FBJ, with hardiy an exception, were proud of
their insularity. of having sprung from the grass roots. One
of the first senior G-men J met in Washington claimed to have
had # grandpappy who kept a general store at Horse Creek.
Mossourr They were. therefore, whisky-drinkers, with beer
jor light refreshment By contrast. CIA men flaunted cos-
mopolitan postures. They would disduss absinthe and serve
Burgundy above room temperature. This is not just flippancy
Tt points to a deep social cleavage between the two organiza-
bons, which accounts for at least some of the rift between
them
In Washington, my predecessor. Peter Dwyer?. met me
and explained. over our first Bourbon, that his resignation
had nothing to do with my appointment to succeed him. For
personal reasons, he had long wanted to settle in Canada,
where a congenial government post was awaiting bim. The
news of my posting to Washington had simpy determined the
timing of his northward move to Ottawa So we started on a
pleasant footing. Nothing could exceed the care and astute-
ness with which he inducted me into Washington politics
Jt is not easy to make @ coherent pictuse of my tour of
duty in the United States It was too varied, and often too
2 Now wsunate director of the Canad Council in Ottawa
The Casadian posernmen! apparentis never did set up a secret gervice as auch
Internal wesurry and coamler-espionage ave handied by the RCMP
Aran, 196%
amorphous, to be reduced to simple terms. Liaison with the
FB) alone, if 1 had been conducted thoroughly, would have
been a full-time job. It was the era of McCarthy in full, evil
Dlast. I was also the era of Hiss. Coplon, Fuchs. Gold.
Greenglass and the brave Rosenbergs — not to mention others
who are still nameless. Liaison with CIA covered an even
wider field, ranging from a serious attempt to subvert an East
European regime to such questions as the proper exploitation
of German secret documents. In every question that arose,
the first question was 10 please one party without offending
the other, In addition. I had 10 work with the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police and with individuals in the Department of
External Affairs who were dickering with the idea of setting
up an independent Canadian secret service’.
Where to begin” As the end of my story chiefly concerns
the FBI, ] should perhaps concede to CIA the beginning. The
head of the organization when I arrived was Admiral Hillen-
koetter. an amiable sailor who was soon to give way to Gen-
era} Bedell Smith without leaving much of a mark on Ameri-
can intelligence history. The two divisions with which I had
most to do were the Office of Strategic Operations (OSQ)
and the Office of Policy Co-ordination (OPC). In plain
English, OSO was the intelligence-gathering division and OPC
was charged with subversion
The driving force of OSO at the time was Jim Angleton,
who had formerly served in London and had earned my respect
by openly rejecting the Anglomania that disfigured the young
face of OSO.
Although our discussions ranged over the whole world.
they usually ended, if they did not begin. with France and
Germany. The Americans had an obsessive fear of Com-
munism in France. and 1 was astonished by the way in which
Angleton devoured reams of French newspaper material daily.
That this was not a private phobia of Angleton’s became
clear at a later date when a British proposal for giving French
intelligence services mited secret information was firmly
squashed by Bedell Smith in person. He told me flatly that he
was not prepared to trust a single French official with such
information
Germany. That country concerned him chiefly as a base of
operations against the Soviet Union and the socialist states of
Eastern Europe. CIA had lost no time in taking over the
anti-Soviet section of the German Abwehr [part of Hitier's
secret service). under Von Gehien, and Angleton often de-
fended, with chapter and verse, the past record and current
activities of the Von Gehien organizations. Secret activity of
al) kinds. including operations directed against the German
authorities themselves, wese financed by the Germans, as part
of the payment for the expenses of occupation.
Apari from Angleton, my / continued on page 74
7
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