Reviews
Edward Harrison's study of Kim Philby's early career as a Soviet spy is original and, by turns, unsettling, revealing and tragic. It is also much more than a biography of what, in French parlance, would be called the emotional and intellectual formation of a traitor. How Kim Philby infiltrated MI6, with a lot of help from his friends * Third Man in Cambridge spy ring also helped by luck and rivalry between MI5 and MI6 * Philby's first meeting with Russian agent went unnoticed Such a lot has been written about Kim Philby and the Cambridge spy ring that people may be forgiven for thinking that's enough. They would be wrong. There remains much, ranging from the exotic to the banal, to make the story of the Cambridge spies of perennial interest. A new account shows how Philby, the ""third man"" of the Ring of Five, came, partly by sheer luck, to head the counter intelligence branch of MI6 and ended up being responsible for co-ordinating British secret operations in the Soviet Union. As Edward Harrison, author of The Young Kim Philby, published on 1 October by the University of Exeter Press, points out, this Soviet agent was at the heart of Britain's secret cold war. How he got there is described in detail, some of it fresh, most of it very telling. It tells you as much as about the British establishment, as about Philby personally. A highly qualified woman in MI6 was passed over. Philby could be suitably deferential. He had charm, helped along perhaps by his stammer. He was not particularly cunning. He did not need to be. Philby got away with it because surveillance by MI5 and the police special branch was patchy. Both Harrison and Gorden Corera, in his book, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service (newly out in paperback, published by Phoenix), point to the significance of one specific incident. Neither MI5 nor the police kept tabs on Edith Tudor-Hart, Philby's talent spotter. In 1934, she walked Philby to Regents Park and introduced him to Arnold Deutsch, the Soviet Union's spy recruiter in Britain. ""If Edith had been followed to Regent's Park, Deutsch would have become suspect and Philby blown before he was even started,"" writes Harrison. Philby was also helped by the rivalry between MI5 and MI6, fed by a clash of personalities in the two agencies. As Harrison notes, Philby could play one off against the other. Corera writes: ""MI5 were seen as little more than policemen...and their well-tailored relatives from MI6 certainly never left them in any doubt that they did not move in the same circles or inhabit quite the same world as MI6 did with its gentlemanly values"". Philby's flight to the Soviet Union in 1963 shocked the British establishment. Many of his colleagues in MI6 found it difficult to believe he could have been such a betrayer. Years later, they spoke fondly of Philby to this writer. His friends included Nicholas Elliott, who was sent to offer Philby immunity from prosecution in return for a full confession. Philby confessed, a bit, before deciding to join his spymasters in Moscow. Harrison suggests that Philby's father, St John Philby, was the most powerful influence in Kim's life. The Arabist, explorer, colonial intelligence officer and eccentric kept his friends in MI6 though he was far from loyal to Britain and British interests in the Middle East. Yet in the end Philby was probably not as valuable to Moscow as other members of the Ring of Five, including Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross who were also offered immunity from prosecution in return for confessing. (The other two members of the ring were Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess). Ironically, chronic suspicion in the Lubyanka fed by Stalin's paranoia, led many Moscow spymasters to suggest that the members of the Ring of Five were actually double agents. As Harrison puts it: ""It was impossible to believe that the British government was so foolish as to employ all these old communists in top secret posts."" Such a lot has been written about Kim Philby and the Cambridge spy ring that people may be forgiven for thinking that's enough. They would be wrong. There remains much, ranging from the exotic to the banal, to make the story of the Cambridge spies of perennial interest. The Cambridge Five remain a subject of such fascination that books are still being written about them. In 2012 the harvest included a very poor biography of Guy Burgess by Michael Holzman,1 and this rather good account of Kim Philby's remarkable early life by Edward Harrison. The public appears to have an insatiable appetite for books about treachery, wartime espionage, and particularly for those about the men who, adhering to the Soviet cause during the Depression, gravitated toward Whitehall and continued to spy until the network started to unravel in May 1951 when two of the i r number suddenly fled to Moscow. All had strong intelligence connections: four of them had worked, at some time or another, for various secret branches of the British government. Only Donald Maclean was an authentic, career member of His Majesty's Diplomatic Service, but his sister was employed by MI5, the same organization for which Burgess and his brother Nigel, operated as case officers. Two of the five, Philby and John Cairncross, wrote autobiographies which were published, and Anthony Blunt bequeathed a brief memoir to the British Library. Accordingly, much accumulated knowledge is in the public domain about these individuals who, though unquestionably treasonous, were also eye-catchingly colorful. While Philby was a serial heterosexual philanderer, most of whose children were born illegitimately, Burgess and Blunt were lifelong homosexuals, and Blunt disclosed to MI5 in 1951 that, while he knew Maclean to have been a homosexual, Melinda Maclean was completely unaware of her husband's preference. With such splendid material, no wonder so many authors have been inspired to write about moles burrowing deep into the British establishment, not the least of whom have been the novelists Graham Greene and John le Carre, and the playwrights John Schlesinger (An Englishman Abroad), Alan Bennett (A Matter of Attribution), Julian Mitchell (Another Country), and Dennis Potter (Traitor). Factor into the formula that Philby was suspected of having murdered his second (of four) wives, that Blunt held a position at Buckingham Palace, and that Maclean rose to be head of the Foreign Office's American Department at the height of the Korean War, and the stuff of legend and, perhaps even perversely, inspiration becomes evident. In his confession following his arrest in February 2001, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent Robert Hanssen somewhat improbably claimed to have been inspired to sell classified information to the Russians by reading Philby's My Silent War. Whatever else, this is a rich vein to mine and, surprisingly after more than sixty years since the first pair defected, yet more highly relevant information about ring is still being declassified by the Security Service, in the form of the daily diaries of Guy Liddell, the senior MI5 officer for whom both Blunt and Burgess worked at various times during and after World War II. Thus, an undeniable dynamic is present in the continuing tale of treachery. No sooner does the belief develop that little more is to be revealed than along comes another expose. RESEARCHING PHILBY IN DEPTH Unlike Michael Holzman's Guy Burgess: Revolutionary in an Old School Tie, which is replete with factual errors, dubious analysis, and preposterous exaggeration, Edward Harrison's study of the first recruit of the notorious Soviet spy-ring composed of Cambridge graduates is a careful, balanced description of one spy's post-university career, with plenty of new material on his role as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. Because much of Kim Philby's life has been scrutinized in such detail in so many books of varying quality, one acid test for a new volume must be its content: mainly, does Harrison provide any entirely new insights? Over the years plenty of nonsense has been produced by writers who should have known better, among them Oleg Gordievsky, Christopher Andrew, Anthony Cave Brown, and Boris Volodarsky. But Harrison's The Young Kim Philby shows that much needed to be researched about Philby's journey, physical and ideological, from Westminster School, via the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War, to Dzerzhinsky Square. Harrison's valuable contribution amounts to plenty of original digging. Errors of Fact As for his interpretation of later events, those not directly concerned with Philby himself, any intelligence historian will have some reservations. And a couple items will unfortunately add to the mythology of the Cambridge Five: for example, that Blunt had assisted MI5's Ronnie Reed in searching Burgess's flat in Bond Street, and had paid an earlier visit to remove anything incriminating; that Philby was seriously considered as a future Chief of SIS; and that ULTRA was a codeword introduced in 1940. Harrison has also created a couple of entirely new canards: the disadvantage of using Passport Control Officer cover for Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) personnel posted abroad was allegedly that these were restricted only to 'countries with which Britain had visa arrangements."" Not so. Nor did only one VENONA decrypt implicate Maclean (there were ten). Nor were there any VENONA texts dated 1939: the first intercepts actually originated in September 1940. Nicholas Elliott was neither the first, nor the ""obvious choice,"" to accept Philby's confession in Beirut, Lebanon, in December 1962. More significantly, Harrison has misunderstood the offer made by Konstantin Volkov in September 1945, through his assertion that the putative Soviet defector in Istanbul, swiftly betrayed by Philby, had offered to help identify Soviet agents, among them ""about 250 in Britain."" Actually, Volkov had said that the NKGB, as it was then known, knew the true names of 250 members of the British Intelligence Community. Clearly, a big difference exists between the claim of 250 Soviet spies active in England, and what Volkov itemized as a ""list of employees of military and civilian of intelligence services of Great Britain known to NKGB. List includes about 250 official and secret employees of mentioned service of whom there are descriptions."" This kind of misrepresentation, innocent though it undoubtedly is, can quickly evolve into yet another part of the Cambridge Five mythology. Before long, the assertion will arise that each of the five knew that the others were spies, and that they were recruited while studying at Cambridge, or even that they were all ""double agents."" Happily, Harrison avoids these obvious pooh-traps into which plenty of others routinely plummet. However, the precise content of the Volkov letter has been so abused over so many years that the myth need not be extended still further. A COMPLEX MAN Edward Harrison ably demonstrates that the disarmingly charming Philby, despite the supposed handicaps of his alcoholism, speech impediment, mixed-race ancestry, and troubled family background (his father having been imprisoned as a Nazi sympathizer), remains a truly compelling subject for study, and the last of him has not yet been heard. Harrison set himself the task of finding aspects of Philby's life that had been missed by a dozen others who have pursued the same quarry, and he has succeeded admirably, even if the occasional detail can be faulted. The pluses far outweigh the few negatives, and those seeking to learn more about the complexities of a man whose name is synonymous with betrayal need look no further. REFERENCE 1 See Nigel West, "" A Life Still Unexplained,"" International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 26, No. 2, Summer 2013, pp. 421-426; review of Michael Holzman, Guy Burgess: Revolutionary in an Old School Tie (Amazon.com: Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2012). Nigel West, one of the world's most prolific commentators on intelligence matters, also lectures on the history of postwar intelligence at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Alexandria, Virginia. The author of more than a dozen books on various aspects of intelligence, he has compiled several volumes of the Scarecrow Press series of Historical Dictionaries of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, including volumes on British counterintelligence, Cold War intelligence, World War II intelligence, naval intelligence, and most recently Historical Dictionary of Signals Intelligence (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012). In 2003, he received the Lifetime Literature Achievement Award from the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO). Mr. West, under his given name of Rupert Allason, was an elected Member of the British Parliament in London for a decade. It will probably never be known how many people died because they were betrayed by Kim Philby to the NKVD, or its successor, the KGB. Konstantin Volkov, a KGB agent working under diplomatic cover as a consular officer in Istanbul in 1945, is just one standout example. For the sum of GBP5,000, Volkov offered to defect to the British with a treasure trove of intelligence information: the names of 314 KGB agents in Turkey and 250 in Britain. He also claimed to have the names of senior British intelligence officers who were working as double agents for the Soviet Union. He quite possibly knew about Philby's longtime work for Moscow. Philby, then heading the Section IX counterintelligence section of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), was ordered to Istanbul by the head of SIS in order to arrange for Volkov to be expatriated safely to England. He dragged his feet in getting there, meanwhile passing along to Moscow all the information Volkov claimed to have available. By the time Philby made it to Istanbul, Volkov had been kidnapped by the Russians, swathed in bandages, and then shipped back to Moscow on a Soviet military plane. There he was interrogated and summarily executed. Philby was the most prominent-and certainly the most dangerous-of a group of British traitors who came to be known as the Cambridge Five. They included diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, who defected to Moscow in 1951, and the art historian Anthony Blunt, revealed publicly in 1979 to have been a spy for Moscow since shortly after graduating from Cambridge. Why and how did Harold Adrian Russell Philby come into a life as an intelligence officer and then a double life as a KGB informant within British intelligence? The usual motives of people who become spies and then traitors to their own country are described by analysts of intelligence as falling into the acronym MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise/Control by another country's spy agency, and Ego. Since Philby defected to Moscow from Beirut in 1963, and then wrote a memoir of his double life, My Silent War (1968), it has come to be generally accepted that he was a heart-and-soul convert, almost in a religious sense, to Moscow's global Marxist-Leninist agenda. This basic reckoning of the Philby phenomenon is probably true and is affirmed by Edward Harrison. The consensus view, however, fails to deal with other important questions: Was Philby living out his own version of the colorful antics of his father, the convert-to-Islam Arabist and sometime intelligence officer St. John Philby? At what point did Philby's attraction to communism become the core of a danger-prone life providing intelligence to the enemy and going against everything his country stood for? This remarkable, intriguing, and highly detailed study of Philby in his early years answers many of these questions. Harrison has done the historical record a favor by going through recently declassified SIS records and matching what they tell about Philby with Russian academic research into those parts of the NKVD archives that became available to scholars after 1991. Philby was drawn to the ideals of international socialism while still a scholar at Westminster School, which his father had also attended. Westminster's assistant head-master was an idealistic clergyman who preached that there was a fundamental flaw in capitalism and that young people should serve the world less selfishly. He was a great enthusiast for the League of Nations. But it was at Cambridge that Philby was first attracted to communism, becoming an enthusiastic member of the Cambridge University Socialist Society (CUSS). A Cambridge lecturer, Maurice Dobb, was doing his best to persuade CUSS members to go for the heady brew of revolutionary communism rather than the less violent alternative of, say, Fabian socialism. It was through a connection of Dobb's that Philby set off after Cambridge for Vienna, where he worked to protect German and Austrian refugees from the Nazis. There he married Litzi Friedmann, an older divorcee who had spent time in an Austrian prison for her Communist activities. It was through his wife's connections that Philby was first introduced to an NKVD control officer in London. Philby's political leanings from his time at Cambridge were known to several people in the British establishment, but they were always dismissed as having been part of a youthful phase that he later outgrew-a characterization Philby himself cultivated. He was aided by the fact that his eccentric father, who had made a career of opposing the policies of the British government, was able to persuade Philby's future superiors in British intelligence that his son was unlikely to betray his own class. And in a later, remarkable parallel to Philby's treachery, when Whittaker Chambers of Time was trying to prove that Alger Hiss had been a Soviet spy, his boss Henry Luce made the observation to Chambers that it was always the upper classes of Britain and America who were first to betray their countries. Philby was an able intelligence officer, working effectively for SIS in its efforts to penetrate Nazi intelligence operations during World War II. But in addition to his care in doing his work, his most important asset in avoiding detection as a Soviet double agent may have been his charm. During the war, and afterwards, the top precincts of SIS seem to have been snakepits of backbiting and professional backstabbing; in his memoirs, Philby claims credit for obtaining his position as chief of SIS counterespionage through masterful manipulation of his rivals. In fact, as Harrison shows, Philby was as much the beneficiary of good luck as of bureaucratic skills: A candidate for a top position at SIS who might have uncovered Philby's treachery was passed over for promotion because of internecine rivalry; Philby was identified publicly as the suspected ""third man"" of the Cambridge Five, but was exonerated in Parliament because of the absence of proof. The strain of living a double life, of working in the intelligence circles of one country while passing information to its enemy, finally took its toll on Philby. He was often drunk, went through three marriages before his defection to Moscow, and, once in Moscow, had an affair with the wife of fellow-defector Donald Maclean. Philby was ultimately disappointed by the Soviet Union: He turned out not to have been a KGB colonel, as he had claimed, and could find no substantive work with his new masters for several years after his defection. He died in 1988, on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet empire. One of the more intriguing aspects of Harrison's study is how lacking in curiosity Philby's British colleagues were about his worldview and philosophical allegiances. Of course, it is unlikely that a man like Philby would survive scrutiny today, by skeptical colleagues and superiors in, say, the CIA. Unlikely, but not impossible. Arrogance about one's own views is often the generator of negligence in checking the views of others. Philby was from ""the right drawer,"" in British snobspeak, but philosophically he was something else. Ask the Volkov family. This remarkable, intriguing, and highly detailed study of Philby in his early years answers many of these questions. Harrison has done the historical record a favor by going through recently declassified SIS records and matching what they tell about Philby with Russian academic research into those parts of the NKVD archives that became available to scholars after 1991. Harrison set himself the task of finding aspects of Philby's life that had been missed by a dozen others who have pursued the same quarry, and he has succeeded admirably, even if the occasional detail can be faulted. The pluses far outweigh the few negatives, and those seeking to learn more about the complexities of a man whose name is synonymous with betrayal need look no further. ...Harrison's valuable contribution amounts to plenty of original digging. Edward Harrison's account of the life and career of Britain's most infamous traitor, Kim Philby, is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the secret world of Anglo-Soviet intelligence history. The study focuses on Philby's story to 1945 and offers a brief epilogue that reflects on Philby's career through to the time of his defection in 1963. Harrison ably integrates the increasingly rich array of popular, scholarly and memoir accounts of Philby's career and offers original research based on his scrutiny of important private papers, discussions with former intelligence officers, and his own analysis of the growing number of declassified government documents. In the early parts of the book there is still the shadow of Cold War politics in Harrison's critique of Philby and not a little of Cave-Brown's 'treason in the blood', but as he builds his study he stops reminding the reader of Philby's villainy and gets on with writing some very good history. Especially welcome is Harrison's discussion of the wider context of Philby's career and the importance of lesser known figures in the secret world such as Edith Tudor Hart. Philby's Vienna experience is rightly given relevance here, taking Philby from a committed communist to an active and even courageous servant of the anti-fascist cause. Harrison, like so many others, is reluctant to attach much significance to anti-fascism as a motive for Philby's deepening resolve to rebel against the British Establishment, but much of the evidence he provides certainly reminds the reader of the anti-fascist context that moved so many to work for Stalin in the 1930s. Harrison's assessment of Philby's activities in Spain during the civil war is also nuanced and takes the discussion of the politics of the Spanish Civil War well beyond the confines of Philby's own actions. This approach is sustained throughout Harrison's analysis of Philby's action in the Second World War where he served in the Iberian section of British intelligence. British diplomacy with Franco's 'neutral' Spain was critical to the war effort and often relied on the intelligence that Philby's section provided. To Harrison's credit, despite his severe critique of Philby as a traitor, he does acknowledge Philby's abilities, not only in deception, but also as an effective team leader who worked hard and successfully as a British intelligence officer and as a Soviet penetration mole. Harrison even takes time to note that some of the material that fellow Soviet moles Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross passed on to Stalin from Bletchley Park assisted in the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany, though he avoids the conclusion that this justifies or helps to explain their traitorous actions. Overall this is a significant contribution that suggests where the field of intelligence history is going and certainly ought to go. Aside from some tiresome repetition of Cold War cursing about Philby and an understandable if overdone running refutation of the inflated claims Philby made in his KGB-controlled memoir, My Silent War, Harrison is writing history as it should be written. Of particular importance is Harrison's interest in the wider context within which Stalin's spies were recruited and operated. This is especially rare in a biographical study as the unique and singular tend to overwhelm the general dynamics at work. Harrison's Philby is made more intelligible not only because of his unique qualities, but because the 1930s and 1940s gave ample room for such qualities to flourish. This was as much the case for the many others spies and traitors who rejected king and country, empire, class and fascism as it was for Philby. That the master they served, Stalin, would disappoint is no doubt true but during these years there were many disappointments, many failures and many dangers that to some seemed more immediate. Harrison is working on another volume, Secret Service and Resistance to Nazism, and if it follows the example of The Young Kim Philby, it will be a most welcome addition to this field of study. 2014 Edward Harrison's account of the life and career of Britain's most infamous traitor, Kim Philby, is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the secret world of Anglo-Soviet intelligence history. ... The Young Kim Philby, it will be a most welcome addition to this field of study. The first book about Kim Philby, the Soviet agent in the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), was published in 1968. 23 Since then, more than 150, including Philby's memoir, My Silent War (also published in 1968), have dwelled on various aspects of the case. These include his adoption of communist ideology at Cambridge, his underground activities in Vienna after graduation, his recruitment by the Soviets, his time in Spain as a journalist reporting on the Franco side for The Times, and his career in the SIS. In The Young Kim Philby, British historian Edward Harrison also covers these topics, but with a difference. Using newly discovered letters and diaries, recently released archival documents, and interviews with former acquaintances and colleagues, he fills in some gaps in Philby's career. For example, he reveals that Philby's socialist ideas were first instilled at his prep school, Westminster, and not at Cambridge, as others have suggested. (174) With respect to Philby's reporting from Spain and France for The Times, Harrison has provided lengthy quotes from the articles themselves. These show that Philby was a talented reporter. Turning to Philby's service in the SIS, Harrison reports new details on how the organization functioned during the war, with emphasis on its personalities and bureaucratic struggles. Harrison adds considerably to the understanding of Philby's personal relationships, his use of ULTRA material, and the operations he ran while in charge of counterintelligence in the Iberian section. Harrison's treatment of how and why Philby was selected as head of Section IX, the element in charge of dealing with Soviet espionage overseas, is particularly interesting. As Harrison does with other events elsewhere in the book, he compares what Philby wrote in his memoir with what the documentary evidence shows. In several cases, Harrison demonstrates embellishment on Philby's part-his description of his selection to head Section IX is good example. In that instance, the evidence strongly suggests Philby was at best misleading, if not deceptive, in his exaggerated claim that he manipulated his superior out of contention. Harrison concludes that Philby was promoted because he was the best fit for the job. There are several instances in which Harrison resorts to questionable speculation in interpreting events. For example, his description of Philby's introduction to his recruiter, Arnold Deutsch follows Philby's own account, 24 but Harrison speculates that if MI5 had been following Philby's escort, known communist Edith Tudor-Hart, his career in espionage would have ended before it started. True enough, but Tudor-Hart, an experienced agent herself took a very roundabout route, much to Philby's annoyance-which Harrison acknowledges-to the meeting. Harrison does not allow for the likelihood that she would have noticed any surveillance and aborted the meeting. (33) Then there is the relationship between Philby and his father. Harrison's claim that Philby's examination of his father's papers as requested by his handler amounted to ""betrayal"" and was ""utterly sordid in its subservience"" (4) to the cause is a bit strong. Likewise, Harrison suggests that Philby chose communism at Cambridge to ""escape from St. John's [his father's] hegemony,"" (15) but Philby's reasoning is open to other interpretations. There are a few errors worth noting. The definition of a double agent as one ""controlled by the service which employs him secondly"" (3) is incorrect. Control could be by either service. Passport control officers were posted to all British embassies, not just to those in countries with reciprocal arrangements. (90) Deutsch was not branded a traitor, nor was he the cause of NKVD suspicion that Philby was an SIS provocation. (156-57) The statement that the KGB had about 250 agents in Britain 177) should have read that the KGB knew the identities of about 250 British undercover intelligence officials in Britain. 25 In regard to Philby's service in Washington, he did not assume ""joint command of an SIS/CIA operation to subvert the communist regime in Albania""-he merely participated in the early planning. (179) The VENONA traffic did not commence in 1939, (181) and Anthony Blunt did not search Burgess's flat before MI5 did; it was a simultaneous effort. And finally, Nicholas Elliott was not the obvious choice to interrogate Philby once the SIS finally realized the truth; that would have been Arthur Martin, but he was replaced by Dick White of MI5. (183) Overall, The Young Kim Philby is a positive contribution to a familiar topic-solidly researched, well documented and informative. Overall, The Young Kim Philby is a positive contribution to a familiar topic-solidly researched, well documented and informative.
Edward Harrison's study of Kim Philby's early career as a Soviet spy is original and, by turns, unsettling, revealing and tragic. It is also much more than a biography of what, in French parlance, would be called the emotional and intellectual formation of a traitor. -- Martin Thomas How Kim Philby infiltrated MI6, with a lot of help from his friends * Third Man in Cambridge spy ring also helped by luck and rivalry between MI5 and MI6 * Philby's first meeting with Russian agent went unnoticed Such a lot has been written about Kim Philby and the Cambridge spy ring that people may be forgiven for thinking that's enough. They would be wrong. There remains much, ranging from the exotic to the banal, to make the story of the Cambridge spies of perennial interest. A new account shows how Philby, the third man of the Ring of Five, came, partly by sheer luck, to head the counter intelligence branch of MI6 and ended up being responsible for co-ordinating British secret operations in the Soviet Union. As Edward Harrison, author of The Young Kim Philby, published on 1 October by the University of Exeter Press, points out, this Soviet agent was at the heart of Britain's secret cold war. How he got there is described in detail, some of it fresh, most of it very telling. It tells you as much as about the British establishment, as about Philby personally. A highly qualified woman in MI6 was passed over. Philby could be suitably deferential. He had charm, helped along perhaps by his stammer. He was not particularly cunning. He did not need to be. Philby got away with it because surveillance by MI5 and the police special branch was patchy. Both Harrison and Gorden Corera, in his book, MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service (newly out in paperback, published by Phoenix), point to the significance of one specific incident. Neither MI5 nor the police kept tabs on Edith Tudor-Hart, Philby's talent spotter. In 1934, she walked Philby to Regents Park and introduced him to Arnold Deutsch, the Soviet Union's spy recruiter in Britain. If Edith had been followed to Regent's Park, Deutsch would have become suspect and Philby blown before he was even started, writes Harrison. Philby was also helped by the rivalry between MI5 and MI6, fed by a clash of personalities in the two agencies. As Harrison notes, Philby could play one off against the other. Corera writes: MI5 were seen as little more than policemen...and their well-tailored relatives from MI6 certainly never left them in any doubt that they did not move in the same circles or inhabit quite the same world as MI6 did with its gentlemanly values . Philby's flight to the Soviet Union in 1963 shocked the British establishment. Many of his colleagues in MI6 found it difficult to believe he could have been such a betrayer. Years later, they spoke fondly of Philby to this writer. His friends included Nicholas Elliott, who was sent to offer Philby immunity from prosecution in return for a full confession. Philby confessed, a bit, before deciding to join his spymasters in Moscow. Harrison suggests that Philby's father, St John Philby, was the most powerful influence in Kim's life. The Arabist, explorer, colonial intelligence officer and eccentric kept his friends in MI6 though he was far from loyal to Britain and British interests in the Middle East. Yet in the end Philby was probably not as valuable to Moscow as other members of the Ring of Five, including Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross who were also offered immunity from prosecution in return for confessing. (The other two members of the ring were Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess). Ironically, chronic suspicion in the Lubyanka fed by Stalin's paranoia, led many Moscow spymasters to suggest that the members of the Ring of Five were actually double agents. As Harrison puts it: It was impossible to believe that the British government was so foolish as to employ all these old communists in top secret posts. The Guardian, Defence and Security Blog Such a lot has been written about Kim Philby and the Cambridge spy ring that people may be forgiven for thinking that's enough. They would be wrong. There remains much, ranging from the exotic to the banal, to make the story of the Cambridge spies of perennial interest. -- Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Defence and Security Blog The Cambridge Five remain a subject of such fascination that books are still being written about them. In 2012 the harvest included a very poor biography of Guy Burgess by Michael Holzman,1 and this rather good account of Kim Philby's remarkable early life by Edward Harrison. The public appears to have an insatiable appetite for books about treachery, wartime espionage, and particularly for those about the men who, adhering to the Soviet cause during the Depression, gravitated toward Whitehall and continued to spy until the network started to unravel in May 1951 when two of the i r number suddenly fled to Moscow. All had strong intelligence connections: four of them had worked, at some time or another, for various secret branches of the British government. Only Donald Maclean was an authentic, career member of His Majesty's Diplomatic Service, but his sister was employed by MI5, the same organization for which Burgess and his brother Nigel, operated as case officers. Two of the five, Philby and John Cairncross, wrote autobiographies which were published, and Anthony Blunt bequeathed a brief memoir to the British Library. Accordingly, much accumulated knowledge is in the public domain about these individuals who, though unquestionably treasonous, were also eye-catchingly colorful. While Philby was a serial heterosexual philanderer, most of whose children were born illegitimately, Burgess and Blunt were lifelong homosexuals, and Blunt disclosed to MI5 in 1951 that, while he knew Maclean to have been a homosexual, Melinda Maclean was completely unaware of her husband's preference. With such splendid material, no wonder so many authors have been inspired to write about moles burrowing deep into the British establishment, not the least of whom have been the novelists Graham Greene and John le Carre, and the playwrights John Schlesinger (An Englishman Abroad), Alan Bennett (A Matter of Attribution), Julian Mitchell (Another Country), and Dennis Potter (Traitor). Factor into the formula that Philby was suspected of having murdered his second (of four) wives, that Blunt held a position at Buckingham Palace, and that Maclean rose to be head of the Foreign Office's American Department at the height of the Korean War, and the stuff of legend and, perhaps even perversely, inspiration becomes evident. In his confession following his arrest in February 2001, U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent Robert Hanssen somewhat improbably claimed to have been inspired to sell classified information to the Russians by reading Philby's My Silent War. Whatever else, this is a rich vein to mine and, surprisingly after more than sixty years since the first pair defected, yet more highly relevant information about ring is still being declassified by the Security Service, in the form of the daily diaries of Guy Liddell, the senior MI5 officer for whom both Blunt and Burgess worked at various times during and after World War II. Thus, an undeniable dynamic is present in the continuing tale of treachery. No sooner does the belief develop that little more is to be revealed than along comes another expose. RESEARCHING PHILBY IN DEPTH Unlike Michael Holzman's Guy Burgess: Revolutionary in an Old School Tie, which is replete with factual errors, dubious analysis, and preposterous exaggeration, Edward Harrison's study of the first recruit of the notorious Soviet spy-ring composed of Cambridge graduates is a careful, balanced description of one spy's post-university career, with plenty of new material on his role as a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War. Because much of Kim Philby's life has been scrutinized in such detail in so many books of varying quality, one acid test for a new volume must be its content: mainly, does Harrison provide any entirely new insights? Over the years plenty of nonsense has been produced by writers who should have known better, among them Oleg Gordievsky, Christopher Andrew, Anthony Cave Brown, and Boris Volodarsky. But Harrison's The Young Kim Philby shows that much needed to be researched about Philby's journey, physical and ideological, from Westminster School, via the battlefields of the Spanish Civil War, to Dzerzhinsky Square. Harrison's valuable contribution amounts to plenty of original digging. Errors of Fact As for his interpretation of later events, those not directly concerned with Philby himself, any intelligence historian will have some reservations. And a couple items will unfortunately add to the mythology of the Cambridge Five: for example, that Blunt had assisted MI5's Ronnie Reed in searching Burgess's flat in Bond Street, and had paid an earlier visit to remove anything incriminating; that Philby was seriously considered as a future Chief of SIS; and that ULTRA was a codeword introduced in 1940. Harrison has also created a couple of entirely new canards: the disadvantage of using Passport Control Officer cover for Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) personnel posted abroad was allegedly that these were restricted only to 'countries with which Britain had visa arrangements. Not so. Nor did only one VENONA decrypt implicate Maclean (there were ten). Nor were there any VENONA texts dated 1939: the first intercepts actually originated in September 1940. Nicholas Elliott was neither the first, nor the obvious choice, to accept Philby's confession in Beirut, Lebanon, in December 1962. More significantly, Harrison has misunderstood the offer made by Konstantin Volkov in September 1945, through his assertion that the putative Soviet defector in Istanbul, swiftly betrayed by Philby, had offered to help identify Soviet agents, among them about 250 in Britain. Actually, Volkov had said that the NKGB, as it was then known, knew the true names of 250 members of the British Intelligence Community. Clearly, a big difference exists between the claim of 250 Soviet spies active in England, and what Volkov itemized as a list of employees of military and civilian of intelligence services of Great Britain known to NKGB. List includes about 250 official and secret employees of mentioned service of whom there are descriptions. This kind of misrepresentation, innocent though it undoubtedly is, can quickly evolve into yet another part of the Cambridge Five mythology. Before long, the assertion will arise that each of the five knew that the others were spies, and that they were recruited while studying at Cambridge, or even that they were all double agents. Happily, Harrison avoids these obvious pooh-traps into which plenty of others routinely plummet. However, the precise content of the Volkov letter has been so abused over so many years that the myth need not be extended still further. A COMPLEX MAN Edward Harrison ably demonstrates that the disarmingly charming Philby, despite the supposed handicaps of his alcoholism, speech impediment, mixed-race ancestry, and troubled family background (his father having been imprisoned as a Nazi sympathizer), remains a truly compelling subject for study, and the last of him has not yet been heard. Harrison set himself the task of finding aspects of Philby's life that had been missed by a dozen others who have pursued the same quarry, and he has succeeded admirably, even if the occasional detail can be faulted. The pluses far outweigh the few negatives, and those seeking to learn more about the complexities of a man whose name is synonymous with betrayal need look no further. REFERENCE 1 See Nigel West, A Life Still Unexplained, International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Vol. 26, No. 2, Summer 2013, pp. 421-426; review of Michael Holzman, Guy Burgess: Revolutionary in an Old School Tie (Amazon.com: Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2012). Nigel West, one of the world's most prolific commentators on intelligence matters, also lectures on the history of postwar intelligence at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Alexandria, Virginia. The author of more than a dozen books on various aspects of intelligence, he has compiled several volumes of the Scarecrow Press series of Historical Dictionaries of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, including volumes on British counterintelligence, Cold War intelligence, World War II intelligence, naval intelligence, and most recently Historical Dictionary of Signals Intelligence (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2012). In 2003, he received the Lifetime Literature Achievement Award from the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO). Mr. West, under his given name of Rupert Allason, was an elected Member of the British Parliament in London for a decade. International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Volume 26, Number 4 It will probably never be known how many people died because they were betrayed by Kim Philby to the NKVD, or its successor, the KGB. Konstantin Volkov, a KGB agent working under diplomatic cover as a consular officer in Istanbul in 1945, is just one standout example. For the sum of GBP5,000, Volkov offered to defect to the British with a treasure trove of intelligence information: the names of 314 KGB agents in Turkey and 250 in Britain. He also claimed to have the names of senior British intelligence officers who were working as double agents for the Soviet Union. He quite possibly knew about Philby's longtime work for Moscow. Philby, then heading the Section IX counterintelligence section of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), was ordered to Istanbul by the head of SIS in order to arrange for Volkov to be expatriated safely to England. He dragged his feet in getting there, meanwhile passing along to Moscow all the information Volkov claimed to have available. By the time Philby made it to Istanbul, Volkov had been kidnapped by the Russians, swathed in bandages, and then shipped back to Moscow on a Soviet military plane. There he was interrogated and summarily executed. Philby was the most prominent-and certainly the most dangerous-of a group of British traitors who came to be known as the Cambridge Five. They included diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, who defected to Moscow in 1951, and the art historian Anthony Blunt, revealed publicly in 1979 to have been a spy for Moscow since shortly after graduating from Cambridge. Why and how did Harold Adrian Russell Philby come into a life as an intelligence officer and then a double life as a KGB informant within British intelligence? The usual motives of people who become spies and then traitors to their own country are described by analysts of intelligence as falling into the acronym MICE: Money, Ideology, Compromise/Control by another country's spy agency, and Ego. Since Philby defected to Moscow from Beirut in 1963, and then wrote a memoir of his double life, My Silent War (1968), it has come to be generally accepted that he was a heart-and-soul convert, almost in a religious sense, to Moscow's global Marxist-Leninist agenda. This basic reckoning of the Philby phenomenon is probably true and is affirmed by Edward Harrison. The consensus view, however, fails to deal with other important questions: Was Philby living out his own version of the colorful antics of his father, the convert-to-Islam Arabist and sometime intelligence officer St. John Philby? At what point did Philby's attraction to communism become the core of a danger-prone life providing intelligence to the enemy and going against everything his country stood for? This remarkable, intriguing, and highly detailed study of Philby in his early years answers many of these questions. Harrison has done the historical record a favor by going through recently declassified SIS records and matching what they tell about Philby with Russian academic research into those parts of the NKVD archives that became available to scholars after 1991. Philby was drawn to the ideals of international socialism while still a scholar at Westminster School, which his father had also attended. Westminster's assistant head-master was an idealistic clergyman who preached that there was a fundamental flaw in capitalism and that young people should serve the world less selfishly. He was a great enthusiast for the League of Nations. But it was at Cambridge that Philby was first attracted to communism, becoming an enthusiastic member of the Cambridge University Socialist Society (CUSS). A Cambridge lecturer, Maurice Dobb, was doing his best to persuade CUSS members to go for the heady brew of revolutionary communism rather than the less violent alternative of, say, Fabian socialism. It was through a connection of Dobb's that Philby set off after Cambridge for Vienna, where he worked to protect German and Austrian refugees from the Nazis. There he married Litzi Friedmann, an older divorcee who had spent time in an Austrian prison for her Communist activities. It was through his wife's connections that Philby was first introduced to an NKVD control officer in London. Philby's political leanings from his time at Cambridge were known to several people in the British establishment, but they were always dismissed as having been part of a youthful phase that he later outgrew-a characterization Philby himself cultivated. He was aided by the fact that his eccentric father, who had made a career of opposing the policies of the British government, was able to persuade Philby's future superiors in British intelligence that his son was unlikely to betray his own class. And in a later, remarkable parallel to Philby's treachery, when Whittaker Chambers of Time was trying to prove that Alger Hiss had been a Soviet spy, his boss Henry Luce made the observation to Chambers that it was always the upper classes of Britain and America who were first to betray their countries. Philby was an able intelligence officer, working effectively for SIS in its efforts to penetrate Nazi intelligence operations during World War II. But in addition to his care in doing his work, his most important asset in avoiding detection as a Soviet double agent may have been his charm. During the war, and afterwards, the top precincts of SIS seem to have been snakepits of backbiting and professional backstabbing; in his memoirs, Philby claims credit for obtaining his position as chief of SIS counterespionage through masterful manipulation of his rivals. In fact, as Harrison shows, Philby was as much the beneficiary of good luck as of bureaucratic skills: A candidate for a top position at SIS who might have uncovered Philby's treachery was passed over for promotion because of internecine rivalry; Philby was identified publicly as the suspected third man of the Cambridge Five, but was exonerated in Parliament because of the absence of proof. The strain of living a double life, of working in the intelligence circles of one country while passing information to its enemy, finally took its toll on Philby. He was often drunk, went through three marriages before his defection to Moscow, and, once in Moscow, had an affair with the wife of fellow-defector Donald Maclean. Philby was ultimately disappointed by the Soviet Union: He turned out not to have been a KGB colonel, as he had claimed, and could find no substantive work with his new masters for several years after his defection. He died in 1988, on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet empire. One of the more intriguing aspects of Harrison's study is how lacking in curiosity Philby's British colleagues were about his worldview and philosophical allegiances. Of course, it is unlikely that a man like Philby would survive scrutiny today, by skeptical colleagues and superiors in, say, the CIA. Unlikely, but not impossible. Arrogance about one's own views is often the generator of negligence in checking the views of others. Philby was from the right drawer, in British snobspeak, but philosophically he was something else. Ask the Volkov family. The Weekly Standard, Vol. 18, No. 43 This remarkable, intriguing, and highly detailed study of Philby in his early years answers many of these questions. Harrison has done the historical record a favor by going through recently declassified SIS records and matching what they tell about Philby with Russian academic research into those parts of the NKVD archives that became available to scholars after 1991. -- David Aikman The Weekly Standard, Vol. 18, No. 43 Harrison set himself the task of finding aspects of Philby's life that had been missed by a dozen others who have pursued the same quarry, and he has succeeded admirably, even if the occasional detail can be faulted. The pluses far outweigh the few negatives, and those seeking to learn more about the complexities of a man whose name is synonymous with betrayal need look no further. ...Harrison's valuable contribution amounts to plenty of original digging. -- Nigel West International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Volume 26, Number 4 Edward Harrison's account of the life and career of Britain's most infamous traitor, Kim Philby, is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the secret world of Anglo-Soviet intelligence history. The study focuses on Philby's story to 1945 and offers a brief epilogue that reflects on Philby's career through to the time of his defection in 1963. Harrison ably integrates the increasingly rich array of popular, scholarly and memoir accounts of Philby's career and offers original research based on his scrutiny of important private papers, discussions with former intelligence officers, and his own analysis of the growing number of declassified government documents. In the early parts of the book there is still the shadow of Cold War politics in Harrison's critique of Philby and not a little of Cave-Brown's 'treason in the blood', but as he builds his study he stops reminding the reader of Philby's villainy and gets on with writing some very good history. Especially welcome is Harrison's discussion of the wider context of Philby's career and the importance of lesser known figures in the secret world such as Edith Tudor Hart. Philby's Vienna experience is rightly given relevance here, taking Philby from a committed communist to an active and even courageous servant of the anti-fascist cause. Harrison, like so many others, is reluctant to attach much significance to anti-fascism as a motive for Philby's deepening resolve to rebel against the British Establishment, but much of the evidence he provides certainly reminds the reader of the anti-fascist context that moved so many to work for Stalin in the 1930s. Harrison's assessment of Philby's activities in Spain during the civil war is also nuanced and takes the discussion of the politics of the Spanish Civil War well beyond the confines of Philby's own actions. This approach is sustained throughout Harrison's analysis of Philby's action in the Second World War where he served in the Iberian section of British intelligence. British diplomacy with Franco's 'neutral' Spain was critical to the war effort and often relied on the intelligence that Philby's section provided. To Harrison's credit, despite his severe critique of Philby as a traitor, he does acknowledge Philby's abilities, not only in deception, but also as an effective team leader who worked hard and successfully as a British intelligence officer and as a Soviet penetration mole. Harrison even takes time to note that some of the material that fellow Soviet moles Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross passed on to Stalin from Bletchley Park assisted in the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany, though he avoids the conclusion that this justifies or helps to explain their traitorous actions. Overall this is a significant contribution that suggests where the field of intelligence history is going and certainly ought to go. Aside from some tiresome repetition of Cold War cursing about Philby and an understandable if overdone running refutation of the inflated claims Philby made in his KGB-controlled memoir, My Silent War, Harrison is writing history as it should be written. Of particular importance is Harrison's interest in the wider context within which Stalin's spies were recruited and operated. This is especially rare in a biographical study as the unique and singular tend to overwhelm the general dynamics at work. Harrison's Philby is made more intelligible not only because of his unique qualities, but because the 1930s and 1940s gave ample room for such qualities to flourish. This was as much the case for the many others spies and traitors who rejected king and country, empire, class and fascism as it was for Philby. That the master they served, Stalin, would disappoint is no doubt true but during these years there were many disappointments, many failures and many dangers that to some seemed more immediate. Harrison is working on another volume, Secret Service and Resistance to Nazism, and if it follows the example of The Young Kim Philby, it will be a most welcome addition to this field of study. 2014 European History Quarterly, Volume 44, No. 1 Edward Harrison's account of the life and career of Britain's most infamous traitor, Kim Philby, is a welcome addition to the growing literature on the secret world of Anglo-Soviet intelligence history. ... The Young Kim Philby, it will be a most welcome addition to this field of study. European History Quarterly, Volume 44, No. 1 The first book about Kim Philby, the Soviet agent in the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), was published in 1968. 23 Since then, more than 150, including Philby's memoir, My Silent War (also published in 1968), have dwelled on various aspects of the case. These include his adoption of communist ideology at Cambridge, his underground activities in Vienna after graduation, his recruitment by the Soviets, his time in Spain as a journalist reporting on the Franco side for The Times, and his career in the SIS. In The Young Kim Philby, British historian Edward Harrison also covers these topics, but with a difference. Using newly discovered letters and diaries, recently released archival documents, and interviews with former acquaintances and colleagues, he fills in some gaps in Philby's career. For example, he reveals that Philby's socialist ideas were first instilled at his prep school, Westminster, and not at Cambridge, as others have suggested. (174) With respect to Philby's reporting from Spain and France for The Times, Harrison has provided lengthy quotes from the articles themselves. These show that Philby was a talented reporter. Turning to Philby's service in the SIS, Harrison reports new details on how the organization functioned during the war, with emphasis on its personalities and bureaucratic struggles. Harrison adds considerably to the understanding of Philby's personal relationships, his use of ULTRA material, and the operations he ran while in charge of counterintelligence in the Iberian section. Harrison's treatment of how and why Philby was selected as head of Section IX, the element in charge of dealing with Soviet espionage overseas, is particularly interesting. As Harrison does with other events elsewhere in the book, he compares what Philby wrote in his memoir with what the documentary evidence shows. In several cases, Harrison demonstrates embellishment on Philby's part-his description of his selection to head Section IX is good example. In that instance, the evidence strongly suggests Philby was at best misleading, if not deceptive, in his exaggerated claim that he manipulated his superior out of contention. Harrison concludes that Philby was promoted because he was the best fit for the job. There are several instances in which Harrison resorts to questionable speculation in interpreting events. For example, his description of Philby's introduction to his recruiter, Arnold Deutsch follows Philby's own account, 24 but Harrison speculates that if MI5 had been following Philby's escort, known communist Edith Tudor-Hart, his career in espionage would have ended before it started. True enough, but Tudor-Hart, an experienced agent herself took a very roundabout route, much to Philby's annoyance-which Harrison acknowledges-to the meeting. Harrison does not allow for the likelihood that she would have noticed any surveillance and aborted the meeting. (33) Then there is the relationship between Philby and his father. Harrison's claim that Philby's examination of his father's papers as requested by his handler amounted to betrayal and was utterly sordid in its subservience (4) to the cause is a bit strong. Likewise, Harrison suggests that Philby chose communism at Cambridge to escape from St. John's [his father's] hegemony, (15) but Philby's reasoning is open to other interpretations. There are a few errors worth noting. The definition of a double agent as one controlled by the service which employs him secondly (3) is incorrect. Control could be by either service. Passport control officers were posted to all British embassies, not just to those in countries with reciprocal arrangements. (90) Deutsch was not branded a traitor, nor was he the cause of NKVD suspicion that Philby was an SIS provocation. (156-57) The statement that the KGB had about 250 agents in Britain 177) should have read that the KGB knew the identities of about 250 British undercover intelligence officials in Britain. 25 In regard to Philby's service in Washington, he did not assume joint command of an SIS/CIA operation to subvert the communist regime in Albania -he merely participated in the early planning. (179) The VENONA traffic did not commence in 1939, (181) and Anthony Blunt did not search Burgess's flat before MI5 did; it was a simultaneous effort. And finally, Nicholas Elliott was not the obvious choice to interrogate Philby once the SIS finally realized the truth; that would have been Arthur Martin, but he was replaced by Dick White of MI5. (183) Overall, The Young Kim Philby is a positive contribution to a familiar topic-solidly researched, well documented and informative. Studies in Intelligence Vol. 57, No. 1 Overall, The Young Kim Philby is a positive contribution to a familiar topic-solidly researched, well documented and informative. Studies in Intelligence Vol. 57, No. 1
'Edward Harrison's study of Kim Philby's early career as a Soviet spy is original and, by turns, unsettling, revealing and tragic. It is also much more than a biography of what, in French parlance, would be called the emotional and intellectual formation of a traitor.' (Martin Thomas, Professor of History, Exeter University)
