The first and chief rule of espionage is trust no one. Everyone has
their own agenda and if you give someone the benefit of the doubt then they
will almost certainly make you regret that decision. Away from the field this
rule visibly translates into what people say and write. Nothing can be taken
for granted and you most certainly cannot believe anything you read. The
greatest example highlighting this necessity for care does not come from Russia,
but rather was provided by the now infamous James Jesus Angleton. Jim Angleton
was a forerunner in the CIA, and it's anti-Soviet department, right up until the
1960s. However, ruthless as he may have been in his later years, Maclean and
Philby were able to work in his patch with little risk of capture. As a result
Angleton spent the rest of his life dedicated to the scrupulous identification
and capture of Soviet spies on American soil. When speaking after the 1963
defection, Angleton is said to have made self-serving remarks about the day
Philby received his CBE. Claiming to have spoken to Philby, he reported that
the spy had explained “…what this country needs is good dose of socialism…”[1]
This piece of conversation was used by Angleton to highlight that he had been
aware of Philby’s true nature long before his defection. If he had been
successful then it would serve to show that Angleton did indeed have a nose for
a traitor and that he had not been made to look ridiculous by the Cambridge spies.
Unfortunately for Angleton, Philby had not been at the ceremony. In actual fact
records show, like many other recipients, Philby was sent his CBE in the post
because of the large numbers given out after the war. This was unfortunate for
Angleton and highlights the point that everything that is written or said in
the world of espionage must be proven before it can be believed.
Foreign Service officer S. J. Hamrick is an individual who has clearly
embraced the importance of reliable and indisputable evidence in the work of
the modern historian. “Deceiving the Deceivers” was written with the intention
of looking at the story of the Cambridge
spies from a new and very different angle. He based his thesis on the 1996
release of the Venona intercepts, 1942-1945. Over the course of 34 years the
Americans and British worked together to decode thousands of Soviet messages
sent between Moscow, London,
and Washington.
Within these messages there lay clues to the identity of a Soviet spy working
in the American Foreign Office. We now know this agent was Donald Maclean but
as Philby highlighted, until late 1950 there was “…still no basis for
supposition…”[2] on where the leak was
coming from.
According to official records the CIA ciphers at Arlington Hall did not
make the link between the code name Homer and Maclean until just before his May
1951 flight with Guy Burgess. The accepted version of the story claims “…Kim
set his escape plan in motion…”[3]
used inside information to get notice to Maclean, and gave him the opportunity
to escape from London
before his imminent capture and arrest. This version of events has been told in
almost every book relating to Philby written in the last 45 years. However, in
his recent publication, it is the self designated duty of Hamrick to convince
the reader that Maclean, Burgess, and Philby were in fact pawns in a much
bigger CIA/SIS ploy. He claims that, rather than holding the key to a swift and
timely exit, Philby’s “…career was on its last legs…”[4]
and that the real deception had been on the part of the CIA and SIS. Hamrick
has set his book out in a very formal manner and its appearance mirrors the
transcripts on which much of the content rests. This is very much in keeping
with his mechanical attempt to use concrete facts and figures to demythologise
and rewrite the greatest spy case in history.
Hamrick’s argument relies on the assumption that “…M15 had identified
Donald Maclean as a Soviet agent long before May 25, 1951…”[5] In
reaction to this discovery, rather than arrest him immediately, the British and
American agencies chose to use it to their advantage and root out further
Soviet spies in their midst. Thus rather than being the saviour of Donald
Maclean, Philby was instead a vehicle for disinformation intended to “…provoke
the Soviet embassy into action…”[6]
Hamrick goes a long way to highlight evidence of the British use of deception
and double cross tactics throughout their military history but finds it very
hard to back up his claims with anything more than circumstantial evidence.
Throughout the book Hamrick appears to pay particular attention to the
activities of Philby in his Washington
career. It is his intention to show that he was the main source of
disinformation and that he was not as effectual as a Soviet spy as either he or
his legend would have you believe. Throughout his publication there are many
assertions from the author of the weakness of Kim Philby. “KGB files released
in the 1990s indicate that Philby’s espionage output during the war years
didn’t compare to that of this fellow Cambridge
spies…”[7]
and “…they might have concluded that Philby had given Moscow very little from 1947 until 1963.”[8]
These are just two examples of the harsh attitude Hamrick adopts towards Philby
and his legacy. It is in the wording of these claims however that we can see
the chink in this white knight’s armour. The use of the phrases ‘might have’
and ‘indicated’ are all too common in this interpretation of the Philby story.
They prove the existence of theories throughout the book and highlight the lack
of fact or proven actualities. Rather than providing an improved and revised
version of this complex time in modern history, ‘Deceiving the Deceivers’
continues to add to the ‘what if’ section of the espionage library, giving
little concrete evidence while trying to convince you he has.
This, however, need not be the case. For although the Philby story
appears to be protected by a hall of mirrors, the coldest of Soviet shoulders,
and a Britain reluctant to share the secrets of the infamous spy, it is
possible to prove that Harold Adrian Russell Philby was indeed the greatest and
most effective spy of the 20th Century. Beyond the traps and tricks
that surround the Philby story, proof of his effectiveness throughout his ten
year career at the top of SIS is available to those who want and know where to
find it.
Firstly, the NKVD deployed Philby with various goals, and his aims and
instructions differed as much as his MI6 title did. Obviously his missions
would not end with the last minute destruction of a WMD or the defeat of a
notorious villain; after all he was not James Bond. Instead we must look at Kim
Philby’s career in terms of his contribution to the defence of the Soviet Union. When speaking in his only lecture to the
KGB he explained that during his 1934 recruitment “…it seemed obvious to me
that, for any true Communist…defence of the Soviet Union was the first
priority…”[9]
During his illustrious career Kim was head of the Iberian section when Spain
and Portugal were important battle grounds for German, British and Russian
spies, he was head of the anti-Soviet department of SIS for several years, and
he was British liaison officer with the CIA and FBI in Washington. As a result
he was constantly privy to information that would always be of interest to the
KGB and allowed them to stay one step ahead of their superpower rivals.
The ability of Philby to single-handedly protect the USSR was most evident when he was stationed in
the United States of America.
As liaison officer with the American intelligence services, his job was to
represent Britain
in the build up to any cross Atlantic operations. It would prove to be the peak
of his service career; he had significant exposure to valuable information, and
could exert a considerable amount of influence over decisions made by the CIA.
It was thus not surprising that his two years in Washington led to a remarkable lack of
success “…with the number of covert operation mounted in the late 1940s and
early 1950s…”[10] Philby had passed every
ounce of information back to his control officer through courier Guy Burgess.
However, the USSR
could only act on his messages once they had covered his tracks by duplicating
it from other sources. These efforts were successful and the result was the
eventual capture and, more often than not, execution of every Western force
sent across the Iron Curtain. Astonishingly though, it would be 1967 before the
“…betrayal is laid to Philby…”[11]
and a further year before this would be confirmed in his autobiography. The
actions Philby would have taken when dealing with possible infiltration are
best highlighted in his treatment of “…one of the most extraordinary secrets of
the cold war…”[12]
In what was known as the ‘Albanian Operation’, the allied intelligence
services wanted to use rebel forces to provoke civil war in one of Russia’s
satellite countries. They hoped that if the rebellion was successful then it
would weaken the Soviet Union via a domino effect similar to the one that would
appear later in South-East Asia. After much
deliberation they chose Albania
because it was the “…smallest and weakest of the socialist states…”[13]
Marshal Tito had broken from the USSR
in neighbouring Yugoslavia
and reconstruction plans were struggling under the Communist government. With
Kim Philby and James McCagar as joint commanders the allies set off to
rearrange the face of Eastern Europe. When the
Albanian émigrés left from their Maltese base they had no idea that they would
be victims of one the most notorious betrayals of the Cold War. Newspapers
claimed that of the 300 men sent in by SIS and the CIA 150 were either killed
on landing or jailed and executed. The remaining 150 “…struggled back to Greece…”[14]
The Albanian forces had been waiting for the arrival of the rebels and were
dealt with swiftly. Obviously Philby could not be the only reason for this
debacle; after all he was back in London
and in exile of his own for the last two years of planning. He did however
clearly “…betray the existence of an Albanian operation to the Russians.”[15]
This was enough for the Albanians to infiltrate the rebels and lead them to
their slaughter. Throughout Philby’s time in America
there were similar attempts in satellites such as Latvia
and Estonia, Poland, Armenia,
and the Ukraine.
As expected each of these covert operations resulted in similar levels of
failure, much to the bemusement of the CIA and MI6.
Throughout the Cold War one of the biggest and most constant threats to
the superpowers was the defection of agents to the other side. Paranoia and
anxiety were prevalent in both Russia
and the United States
just from considering the possibility of a defection. They had every right to
be worried. There were innumerable defections throughout the span of the Cold War and with
each one there went the possibility of vital information being transferred to
the enemy. For Kim Philby his experiences and run-ins with aspirant defectors
presented the need for him to defend not only Soviet Union
but his true identity as well.
In September 1945 First Secretary of the Soviet embassy in Istanbul, Konstantin
Volkov, approached the British embassy to propose a defection deal. As it
turned out Mr Volkov was employed by the NKVD and had been preparing for his
defection for quite some time. In return for safe passage to Cyprus with his wife and £27,500 he offered a
doorway to Russia’s
secret service at home and abroad. In return for his requests Volkov promised
“…data on three Soviet agents…one in the administration of the British
counter-intelligence…”[16]
and “…addresses of NKVD buildings in Moscow, the burglar alarm systems, key
impressions, guard schedules, and a list of all agents in the Middle East…”[17]
For Philby and Russia this was a dangerous proposition. The success of Volkov
to defect would have meant the outing of three of the Soviet Union’s most
important spies and the possible ransacking and bugging of their headquarters
in Moscow. For
MI6 it was a fantastic proposition, they had the opportunity to embrace the
upper hand over the NKVD and potentially keep it forever. Naturally “C”
immediately “…decided to give this delicate matter to one of its most talented
administrators…”[18] As fate would have it
that talented agent was Kim Philby. This was the first of several strokes of
luck that would shape the course of the ‘Volkov Affair’ and give Kim hope that
it could be resolved in his favour. His luck proved to hold but a satisfactory
resolution could not have been found without substantial skill on the part of
our Masterspy.
Upon his approach the embassy in Istanbul
told Volkov that he would have to ask London
for assistance. He knew that some British ciphers had been broken and so
insisted that his request be posted in a secure diplomatic bag. When the bag
arrived on Philby’s desk a week had passed. Thinking on his feet, Kim proposed
that MI6 take the offer seriously and that he should go straight to Turkey
and deal with it. This would allow him to remain in control for the entirety of
the proceedings and dispel any suggestions that he may be culpable for the
failure of the transaction. Unfortunately for Kim, Sir Stewart Menzies had
another agent in mind for the cross continent journey. However, suffering from
a fear of flying, Brigadier Douglas Roberts explained that he would have to
reject the offer as he only travelled long distances by boat. Lady luck had
shone on the double agent once more. Philby now had a window to contact his
control officer and get the news to the NKVD. By the time he began his flight
to Istanbul via Cairo three more days had already passed. By
the time he arrived in Istanbul, via an
unexpected stop in Tunis
and having stalled and perverted the cause of justice as much as possible,
three weeks had passed. Accounts vary on why he was chosen for the assignment
and the details of his behaviour preceding his arrival in Turkey, but this is
inconsequential. No matter how events are dressed up the essential facts remain
the same. Volkov had disappeared by the time Philby tried to contact him in
Istanbul and some time later “…at Lubyanka Volkov confessed and was shot…”[19]
What is important is that one KGB file indicates Philby “…quickly informed his
Soviet control officer in London…”[20]
Without Philby’s quick thinking and well developed plan he would surely have
been revealed and the security of the NKVD would have been under immediate
threat.
The ‘Volkov Affair’ is only one of the many highlighted cases of
defectors who threatened his position in MI6. Years earlier Walter Krivitsky and
Igor Gouzenko had posed individual but equally as serious threats to his career
and the Russian secret service. Nonetheless, the events of August and September
1945 highlight the ability of Philby to grab victory from the jaws of defeat.
His impeccable skill and talent for the role of double agent served him well
for the entirety of his career. Even when he was exiled to Beirut MI6 remained
cautious of him and his motives for not immediately fleeing to Russia.
That being said, even though he housed the ability to deal with threats using
impeccable foresight and skill, this didn’t prevent him being unable to“…ever
feel safe again until 1963 when he was home in Moscow…”[21]
How ironic that it would be his friendship and incriminating link to the
paranoid and bungling Guy Burgess that would seal his premature decline in MI6.
Throughout his career he was able to see off any challenges to his
position and extract the maximum amount of information from his British
employers to give to his Russian masters. When he first went to America
he apparently wanted to impress Bedell Smith by memorising a 20 plus page
document for his scrutiny and comment. Bedell Smith read it once and then had
an extensive discussion with Philby referring to individual numbered
paragraphs. What Philby didn’t tell anyone was that the document “…was a
detailed account of how SIS and CIA would cooperate in the event of war with
the Soviet Union…”[22]
Moments like these contribute to the clear evidence that shows Harold Adrian
Russell Philby to be the greatest spy ever to grace the twentieth century. As
has been shown, his skill and finesse were to the advantage of the NKVD and KGB
from the very beginning of his career in the early 1930s. The value of his
information from three highly important positions in MI6 cannot be brought into
question and it is only a matter of time before the documents held by the Official
Secrets Act quell any alternative suggestions.
[1] John Ranelagh, The Agency, 1986, P.127
[4] S.J. Hamrick, Deceiving the Deceivers, 2004, P.5
[9] Rufina Philby, The Private Life of Kim Philby: Unpublished
Memoirs, 1999, P.248
[10] Phillip Knightley, KGB Masterspy, 1988, P.158
[14] New York Times, October 1967
[15] Phillip Knightley, KGB Masterspy, 1988, P.161
[16] Genrikh Borovik, The Philby Files, 1994, P.238
