Helen Fry
Kim Philby: Spy and Traitor

Helen Fry - Philby: Spy and Traitor

- We’re going to be looking at Kim Philby. I guess one of the most enigmatic spies of the 20th century. And still we can’t get enough of the, “Cambridge Spies.” He was of course part of the,, what is term, The Cambridge Spy Network. And do we really know, I don’t think we still have a full picture of Kim Philby. So what I want to do is unpack some of his life, highlight parts of his life, which I think are of interest rather than go through a whole biopic of him. But he has of course been the subject of a number of books, biographies. I think you’d be hard pressed to get any book on the British Secret Service and of course American intelligence and espionage without seeing Kim Philby’s name in the index. He kind of pops up in all kinds of interesting places. And so I don’t think the last word has been said on him, but I’m not sure that necessarily changes the essence of his story. Next slide please. He has as well being the subject of famously the character Harry Lime in, “The Third Man.” Graham Green’s famous screenplay, “The Third Man,” and the book, which is brilliant. I know it’s slightly different from the film. It’s worth reading the book and actually seeing the film itself if you can because it’s a classic of its time. And we will see shortly with Philby’s time in Vienna that, “The Third Man,” is very much modelled on Harry Lime, is very much modelled on Kim Philby. And although, “The Third Man,” takes place in Vienna at the end of the Second World War, so into the Cold War. Nevertheless, a lot of the scenes, the underground sewers of Vienna where spies are hiding from those that are, you know, they’re on the run. Nothing really has changed from the 1920s and ‘30s. And we’ll see that just how Graham Greene, who was quite close to Kim Philby actually I’m not sure if many people know that they were quite close friends and he actually bases one of his major characters, Fabulous. I just love, “The Third Man.” Next slide please.

There have been a number of Docudramas most recently, “A Spy Among Friends.” Some of you might have seen that on ITVX and on ITV may also be available on the American networks and other international networks by now. But as early as 1971, he was the subject of a BBC drama, “Traitor.” And that character is sort of very loosely based on Kim Philby. And then one that we don’t often think about, “The Jigsaw Man.” This was a, not only a book but that was made into a film given the same title. And there the main character, Sir Philip Kimberly, he’s a former actual head of the British Secret Service who actually defects to Russia. And an interesting twist, and I’m not sure that we can say of course this isn’t true of Kim Philby, but in an interesting twist, Kimberly is given plastic surgery and sent back to Britain on some kind of secret unknown spy mission. So I guess worth digging into the archives and seeing if any of these are available or any of the extra channels. I think it’d be really worth seeing them again. Next slide please. Not least because sometimes they pick up on little bits of detail that we’ve forgotten years later. And that for me as a historian, although we can’t base our work, not at all, on the fictional portrayal of these characters. Sometimes there’s a snippet of detail which can enable us to think, oh, I didn’t think of that kind of line. And then you go and look for the paper evidence, if there is any. And of course, I must say at the very beginning that there has been very little declassified about Kim Philby or in essence really not everything about the, “Cambridge Spies.”

And I’ll come to them shortly. I’m not going to go into each of them individually today, just wanting to focus on Kim Philby himself. Because for me he’s the most fascinating of the, “Cambridge Spies.” And I think that’s just a personal thing. Why is that? I’m not sure I meet others who say no, they’re drawn to Guy Burgess. They find him fascinating or Donald Maclean. But always amongst those, Cambridge Spies, is one of them that seems to attract us for probably unexplained reasons. I have no idea why I continue to be utterly fascinated by Kim Philby over and above the others. It’s totally unexplained. Maybe one day I’ll find out. But of course famously it was Kim Philby that ended John le Carre’s career. David Cornwell was his real name. The late David Cornwell who passed away about a year ago, that great spy, a writer, spy fiction, brilliant, we love his staff. But le Carre, under his old name, was actually working as an intelligence officer in Bond in Germany when he was betrayed to the Russians by Philby it is said. And of course that ends his career. And as a result of that, he goes off and he writes his first spy novel, which becomes an international success. And we still love, don’t we, with the remakes of, “Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy.” Next slide please. So let’s wind back a bit to the sort of the beginning. So Kim of course isn’t his real name that was inspired by Rudy r Kipling’s Kim, but he was born Harold Adrian Russell Philby in 1912. He rises to become a high ranking member of the British Intelligence Services. Most notably MI6, MI6 to remind you is in charge of security abroad for the UK. MI5, largely in charge of security on the home front with occasional need to operate abroad if it’s relevant to their investigations. So primarily then MI6 dispatching agents having contacts all over the world for espionage work.

And Philby worked as a double agent until his defection to the Soviet Union in January, 1963. And I’ve seen a debate recently that Philby wasn’t a double agent but a traitor. Now we’re getting into language semantics here, but there is a point and we’ll see that shortly where Philby does work for both British intelligence and Soviet intelligence, probably proper rather than before his defection. So, but there is a move away from the use of calling him a double agent and actually terming him more as a penetration agent. And we’ll come to that term shortly when he’s in start of Vienna and a traitor. So language, it’s very interesting that when I was looking at some of the Kim Philby material years ago, at least a decade ago, he was always branded as a double agent and traitor. But now the language is sort of moving away, which I think is just fascinating in itself. So he served Russian military intelligence, NKVD, it then become, then technically becomes a KGB operative when it changes its name. Next slide please. So he rises pretty high as we’ll shortly see in MI6 and he nearly becomes the head of MI6. See all men so far, heads of MI6 that actually sign their signature with a C in green ink. It’s quite exciting when you see that in the archives and the building, the headquarters here of MI6, not very discreet for a secret organisation, but pretty difficult to get into. In fact, I’ve never been in, I’d love to go in I think, but a fabulous design. I just love it. And it’s so James Bond, isn’t it? And it says something, I think, of the flare and it reflects, I think, the flare and the characteristics of some of those that work for them historically. And I don’t know about today, but behind that sort of mask of secrecy. So Philby is one of the, Cambridge Five. Historians have suggested there may actually be more than five, that’s still ongoing research for some that there could have actually been six or eight, we really don’t know. It could have been so many more.

So he’s technically one of five, but we’ll leave it that there could be more. Donald Maclean, I mentioned Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt. Blunt we’ve seen in some of my lectures before actually becomes master the Queen’s pictures. Queen Elizabeth, the late Queen Elizabeth Second and possibly John Cairncross. People of a mixed view John Cairncross who worked at one point at Bletchley Park during the war. Next slide please. But Kim Philby wasn’t actually born in the UK in Britain. He was actually born in India in the Punjab, which was then of course part of the vast British empire, was part of British India before its independence in 1947. He was the son of Sir John Philby. Sir John Philby is very interesting because he himself had travelled loosely on foreign office work. Whether he was himself involved in intelligence work, it’s a little bit unclear but possible. He was a well-known author and he converted to Islam. I’m not sure whether, you know, it’ll be very interesting for somebody to write a biography of Philby’s father. So John Philby Syngent, sorry, Syngen Philby, sorry. So he actually becomes a member of the Indian Civil Service and later importantly he has the ear of the king of Saudi Arabia, King Ibn Sa'ud. And he’s actually one of his, well his key advisor. So he’s very closely involved in the Muslim world in the Middle East, a fascinating character. Kim Philby doesn’t see much of him, of course. Next slide please. Philby does make it to Cambridge. He studies at Trinity College. He comes out with a degree in 1933 in history and economics. It’s a really important period and some of you will have heard me talk about this before that period in the 1930s and 1933, '34 is particularly interesting, I think’s utterly fascinating for what’s going on.

You have certainly by the late 1920s and into the early 1930s, you have quite a prominent and active communist party of Great Britain here in Britain. And there have been demonstrations. For example, in 1930 they had a major demonstration in Trafalgar Square. There are various organisations and MI5 in charge of security. The security service here in the UK are actually trying to monitor the threat from communism within the UK. And communism is appealing for many reasons because in 1933 of course we’ve got the rapid now rise of Nazi Germany. We’ve got the rise of right wing fascism that’s been building through the 1920s. And by 1933, Philby and his friends politically see that there is no middle ground. Politically, one could argue that in the UK we’re there again today with no middle ground between far left and far right, no choice between communism or Nazism. And Philby had actually visited Germany in 1933 and he was utterly appalled by what he saw and the treatment of the Jews of Berlin. He wasn’t naive enough not to know what was happening on the political stage. News was beginning to sort of filter out, particularly 'cause he had links with newspapers, he had journalistic friends. But to actually be on the ground and see the impact of what had happened, what was happening in Berlin and to the Jewish community, he vowed not to return to Germany. And as far as we know, pretty much he does not return to Nazi Germany any point for the rest of his life, certainly until the end of the Second World War as far as we know.

So Philby will be aligns himself, he’s young, of course a lot of his university friends and graduates are siding along communism because they really have no other choice. But Philby’s got a dilemma, he actually wants to learn German and where can he learn German? Vienna. Next slide please. So he finds himself in Vienna in 1933 and '34. This is a defining moment for him and it’s his tutor at Cambridge, Maurice Dobb, who’s very active with communist in the UK, who actually says to him, “Well, if you’re going to Vienna, I can put you in contact with the underground communist movement. In fact, they have some headquarters in Paris.” So Philby stops via Paris and he’s given a link to contact a woman, a young woman called Litzi Friedmann. She’s working with an underground aid organisation helping the communists. And at this time, even within Austria, you have this tension that’s physically played out on the streets of Vienna. The like of which we didn’t see in the UK, arguably perhaps a snapshot of it with the Cable Street riots in October, 1936, famous East End with the Oswald Mosleys Fascists. But in the 1933, '34 Britain, okay, bubbling under the surface you had communist spies working in and out of various organisations and trying to infiltrate high society. But we didn’t see the same political instability that was meted out on the streets of Vienna. And you had literally physical clashes between the fascists and the communists. The communists, their lives were at risk and the Chancellor Dolffuss actually drove them underground.

Where did they hide? In the sewers of Vienna. That whole imagery of Graham Greene’s third man, and they’re living down there, they need clothes, they need food, they need support. And one of those people who was supporting, and I’m going to come back to this chat, fascinating guy, Eric Gedye. He was a well-known British journalist working for the Times Newspaper, he worked for a number of newspapers, but at one point for the Times Newspaper and then freelance. In this period, in '33, '34, he is working in Vienna. He’s travelling in and out of Austria, into Czechoslovakia, into surrounding countries, bringing back eyewitness accounts of what he sees. He was not very popular with Hitler. He was on one of Hitler’s sort of target lists and certainly was if well did, Austria was annexed by Germany. So Eric Gedye was one that Adolf Hitler didn’t like, he didn’t like his journalism. But there was one man in London who always insisted on reading Gedyes reports. And that was Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill of course in the early 1930s is about a decade, just about eight years off becoming British Prime Minister. But he always trusted and waited for Gedye’s reports because they seem to be different from what else he was hearing. And Gedye receives a knock on the door one day and Philby asks him for clothes to help with the underground network for those that are hiding underground, they actually need clothing, as I said, food supplies. But he also needs fake documents, fake passports to help smuggle some of those communists out of the sewers of Vienna over the border. And Philby can move around quite freely because he has a British passport. He becomes a really close friend of Eric Gedye.

And Eric Gedye, and I will come back to this, was a close friend of Thomas Kendrick. Some of you will have heard my lectures before on Thomas Kendrick, one of MI6’s most senior spy masters in Europe, was stationed in Vienna at this time in the 1920s and '30s. He, Eric Gedye was an agent passing intelligence to Kendrick. Kendrick was undercover as a British passport control officer running huge spy networks. It’s a very close chain, you know, one step away and I’ll come back and raise a few questions a bit later about that. So Thomas Kendrick, his role in Vienna was to map the Soviet Spy Network and which he successfully did in the 1920s to monitor the Soviet threat across much of Eastern Europe. And Gedye was one of his main agents, undercover as a British journalist. He did journalism of course, but he was also actually working for Kendrick loosely then for MI6. But when Philby gets to Vienna, and this is where his, it takes his life on a completely new direction, different direction, he fell in love with Litzi and they had this kind of passionate, very quick romantic love affair, but it was very, very passionate and he was hellbent on marrying her, which he did. He married her in the town hall in Vienna in February, 1934. He’s been in Vienna a year now supposedly learning German. And in April, 1934 he decides it’s too dangerous. Litzi’s Jewish and it’s getting too dangerous. We’ve got refugees coming in, flooding into Austria, into Vienna from Nazi Germany in 1934 with all the political unrest. It was believed that Adolf Hitler could annex Austria in 1934. And the only reason he didn’t was because Mussolini mussel his troops.

The what later became the Allies mussled in on Mussolini and he actually moved troops to the Brenna Pass and put pressure on Hitler. And basically Hitler did not invade Austria in 1934, which all the intelligence was showing it could be moving or was moving in that direction. Now we know that only buys four years of time for the Austrians. But Philby is reading the scene and thinking I’ve got to get Litzi out and madly in love with her. He’s been helping the communists. They both have and he actually takes her to London. Next slide please. Just a little bit about Gedye very briefly before we wind back to Philby. So Gedye was actually a close colleague of Kendrick in the first World War. They both served together in British Army uniform. In the 1920s and '30s, Gedye is now a journalist, as I said, hugely respected by the future Prime Minister Winston Churchill. He’s a master, huge amount of political information. He was first a journalist in Berlin before 1933, but, as I said, he when his visit to Berlin during the Nazi period, he hated it. Absolutely hated it. What he saw. And he realised looking forward that Vienna would become a really important centre. A centre where he could pick up, whether it would be spies, working undercover refugees, coming in and out with information, interesting pieces of information that would be fascinating for his journalistic articles, but also for his officers, his intelligence Officer Kendrick. Some of Gedyes newspaper articles are available in the Imperial War Museum. There is a couple of boxes of his archive in the Imperial War Museum if anyone’s interested in London. And he asks for a transfer to Vienna and his editor says, “No.”

One forward please. That’s it, that’s it. His editor says, “No.” And so he resigns and takes the risk of becoming freelance in Vienna. And he later, as we know you can read about this in my new book, “Women in Intelligence,” he and his future wife become very important at the heart of the special operations executive in MI and MI6. Next slide please. So what do we have? We have, so I posing a question here for you to think through in your own mind, was it a pure coincidence really, that Gedye turns up in Vienna the same time that Kendrick is there? And Kendrick arrives in 1925, Gedye arrives there in 1925 and is there until he’s thrown out by, pretty much by the German occupation in March '38. Did Gedye receive an allowance from SIS Secret Intelligence Service or MI6 at this time? So he’s not going to risk becoming a freelance journalist with very little or no income. So was he on the payroll of MI6? Might never know, and he figures very closely in Kendrick’s circle of friends. So he’s very much mixing in the world of MI6. and his task, Gedye, in the 1920s is to monitor and into the '30s is to monitor the communists. What are they doing? What are their political activities? What kind of movements, developments? What are they planning? And so basically it’s just collecting information and monitoring them. Next slide please. Peter Wright, who wrote in his book, “Spycatcher,” famously wasn’t allowed to be published in the UK because of the supposed sensitivities that that they might reveal. He wrote that Litzi Friedman.

So Philby’s wife first wifey, Litzi Friedmann was almost certainly the person who recruited Philby to the Soviet cause. So let’s be absolutely clear that in 1933 until his marriage in February, 1934, Philby is touching edgy. He knows Eric Gedye. He’s kind of in contact with him potentially we’ve got British intelligence following him, we don’t know. Is he loosely working for British intelligence? Again, we don’t know. But he’s not a Soviet agent or penetration agent at this point. He’s not recruited by the Soviets until April, May, 1934. So whatever happens before 1934, April '34 doesn’t change what comes next. Which I think is pretty standard. Next slide please. Yuri Modin, he was a controller for KGB controller for the, Cambridge Five, said, “Contrary to received opinion.” He wrote several years back, “it was neither Guy Burgess nor one of our own agents who lured Philby into the toils of the Soviet espionage apparatus, it was Litzi.” So his wife. So in the early days when there was even less known about Philby than we know now, it was believed that he’d been lured into spying for Russia through Guy Burgess or one of the other, Cambridge Five, or maybe it was one of the other agents that we don’t know about, but actually Yuri Modin says, “No it was actually through his wife Litzi.” Next slide please. And Philby later recalled, it becomes so famous later of course that he becomes, he’s on one of the Russian stamps, he recalled of this meeting that that’s a turning point of his life and it takes place. I forgot it’s a bit later. June, 1934, the actual meeting on the park bench in Regents Park. He said, “Litzi came home one evening and told me that she had arranged for me to meet a man of decisive importance. I questioned her about it, but she would give me no details. The rendezvous took place in Regents Park.

The man described himself as Otto.” So Philby ever knew him as Otto. “I discovered much later from a photograph in MI5 files that the name he went by was Arnold Deutsch. I think he was off Czech origin.” Actually, Arnold Deutsch he doesn’t know Arnold Deutsch was actually born in Vienna. So now Arnold Deutsch’s file has, well one of them, I don’t think they’re all there. Arnold Deutsch’s file has now just in the last couple of years been released into the National archives. So when I started my research, it hadn’t been declassified. But all this time in the early years that Philby’s working for Soviet intelligence, he does not know whose Otto’s real identity is. And it’s only when he stumbles later across an MI5 classified file, he had access to classified files that he actually saw that his real name was Arnold Deutsch, next slide please. And I want to introduce another really interesting character, Edith Suschitzky, Jewish, of course whose brother Wolf Suschitzky. I had wonderful time interviewing him before he passed away. Wolf Suschitzky of course became very famous in cinematography and photography subject to an honour by the British Academy. Well his sister Edith, which went on to marry Alexander Tudor-Hart as well see, she’s instrumental because Edith Suschitzky, Suschitzky her maiden name, grew up in Vienna. She becomes a very important photographer in her own right and there are attempts to recover her story and her work. In fact, Philby’s granddaughter Charlotte has written a fabulous sort of novel around the relationship between Edith Tudor-Hart as she becomes and her grandfather Kim Philby and it’s called, “Edith and Kim.”

So do have a look at that. It came out a couple of years ago. “Edith and Kim,” is the name of the novel and she’s worked on declassified files and kept very, very close to the truth, she says. So Genrikh Borovik who in the early days was one of the few that had access to Soviet archives and they’re still quite difficult to get hold of, said that, “Edith Tudor-Hart recommended Litzi and Philby in 1934.” She was already working for the Soviets. Next slide please. Edith Suschitzky Tudor-Hart, she herself was a communist agent and Soviet agent, as I said, born in Vienna. She already knew Litzi and Arnold Deutsch and they mixed, she mixed with Litzi in Vienna, occasionally. And Litzi introduced her to Kim Philby. And once they come to England, Edith is the one that says Philby’s wife, Litzi, there’s someone he really needs to meet. She actually marries English communist sympathiser I believe from memory it’s 1933 again in Vienna, Alexander, Dr. Alexander Tudor-Hart who’s a professor at Cambridge. She moves between Vienna and the UK and finally once she’s married him, she’s granted a British passport as Litzi Friedmann, now as Litzi Philby. She was granted a British passport even though of course they were very active communists and both Edith and her husband Alexander are being tracked by MI5 from at least 1930. And in 1930 she’s involved in that demonstration I mentioned in Trafalgar Square. So I’ve actually worked on both of their MI5 files, which have now been declassified. I mean it’s fascinating stuff listening into their conversations.

Not worse in listening to conversations at some meetings, but primarily opening their posts, and just tracking their movements. Next slide please. So we’ll come back to Kim Philby himself. So he goes on during the 1930s to actually enlist in School of Slavonic Languages. Now he’s moved beyond German. He wants to learn Russian and it’s an interesting choice because now he’s had that meeting on the bench with Arnold Deutsche Regents Park. And nobody knows of course that this is the case, but he’s suddenly taken an interest and wants to learn Russian. And he’s aided then by his father’s own contact Syngen Philby. Syngen, who says to him, you know, you’ll have your university education at Cambridge. You can get a job in the foreign office or in intelligence services. He has in mind a sort of diplomatic role for his son. And so he kind of encourages him through the steps, the known steps, the old boys network that was working at that time. But of course Philby wasn’t really any good at Russian, you know, he just couldn’t get a hang of the language. And that’s when he took on a job as a journalist in what was then called the World Review of Reviews. Next slide please. But let’s see, Philby there, kind of passionate relationship was kind of short lived really. They separated not long after they were in England together they did remain friends and remained in touch. They formally divorced in 1946. And in February '37, Philby travels to Seville in Spain and now he’s working for the Times Newspaper. And at this point Spain is in the grip of the Spanish Civil War. You’ve got Franco’s fascist pretty much with the upper hand and he’s sent there to cover the political turbulence.

So he is now kind of on the other side rather than watching the communist, he’s now tasked with keeping an eye on what’s going on in Spain and in particular to get quite close to Franco. Next slide please. And he is now working for both Soviet and British intelligence, it’s believed. And if you look at various books on British intelligence, Soviet British Secret Service, the dates for when he joins MI6 do vary from as early as '37 to as late as 1940. So it’s a little bit of a kind of muddying of the waters there. So exactly when he joins MI6, but he is writing fictitious letters for the Russians to this alleged girlfriend, Mlle Wasl Dupont in Paris. But of course they’re coded letters so that’s how he’s kind of sending the intelligence out of Spain. Next slide please. But these are, excuse me, it’s very hot in London. As I’m sure you’re aware. These are very, very dangerous times because nothing much has changed today has it? Because one of his handlers who named Pierre shot in Moscow the same year in 1937 during one of Stalin’s purges. And then his next handler, Boris Bazarov, he shot two years later again in another of Stalin’s purges. Well his particular task, espionage task for the Russians is to assist ultimately to provide enough intelligence, enough information to assist in their assassination of Franco. So the Russians have a plan to assassinate Franco. And so his things to get very close to Franco, to see where the vulnerable points in Franco’s security and to recommend ways that the Russians can get close to him and to Franco’s staff. Look for the the weak links in his security. He’s just got to wait and not dissimilar from the day of the jackal plot, isn’t it?

This assassination of the French president of Frederick Forsyth. Fascinating parallel themes. Next slide please. And his handler reported to Moscow. Interestingly though devoted and ready to sacrifice himself, Philby does not possess the physical courage and other qualities necessary for this assassination attempt. So originally it’s believed that they were priming him possibly to carry out the assassination, but his hands are already assessed. Philby’s character and said he’s not up to this. He might pass this information but he is not up to this assassination. Next slide please. And then something interesting happens in December '37, which brings him really close to Franco and that is that a Republican shell hits just in front of the car where Philby’s travelling with a number of journalists. Three of those journalists actually died and he survives. And Franco’s pretty impressed actually with his heroism. He comes to the attention of Franco and Franco awards him the Red Cross of Military Merit. And this proved very helpful because he’s now got access to the close circle of Franco. Franco’s interested in him and access to fascist circles. And Philby later writes, “After I’d been wounded and decorated by Franco himself I became known sort of like a celebrity in Spain. I became known as the English decorated by Franco and all sorts of doors opened to me,” he said. So he’s becoming very valuable now to Soviet intelligence. Next slide please. So we’ve got in this mix of Philby making huge progress in Spanish Civil War Walter Krivitsky, Krivitsky I beg your pardon.

He defects via Paris in 1937. He actually is brought to the UK and interrogated by one of the foremost, I won’t say anymore 'cause it’s in my women’s book. But foremost female interrogator of MI5. Fascinating. So Walter Krivitsky, he’s decided to defect, he’s walked in an embassy in France, in Paris and he publishes in 1938 Stalin’s Secret Service. He, himself, is interviewed as I said, and he’s claimed at the time that at least two Soviet intelligence agents have penetrated the foreign office in London. And that a third Soviet agent, British Soviet agent, is working as a journalist for a newspaper in Spain. Next slide please. Now that should have sent alarm bells ringing but there is no connection with Philby at this time. Possibly this female interrogator has her suspicions and when Philby ends up working alongside her for a short time, he moves her sideways 'cause he thinks she’s going to uncover who he really is. But look at this, the following year in Washington, Walter Krivitsky was shot. Another one. Next slide please. July '39 we have the buildup to the Second World War. We know it’s coming, we don’t know exactly when, but we are just a couple of months away in fact. And Philby returned to the Times office in London. And with the outbreak of war just for the outbreak of war, that pact between Germany and the Soviet Union to divide Poland actually shocked Philby. So for all his communist beliefs, he’s actually shocked that the Soviet Union would now make a pact with Nazi Germany for all that he’s seen on the streets of Berlin. And he decides to cool his relationship with his handlers. In fact, he doesn’t sit, he loses contact with his handler for a number of years. And at the outbreak of the war he’s offered a job in the war office. And then he’s transferred to, I believe it was actually to beuly, if I’m not mistaken, the special operations executive training centre in the south coast of England in Hampshire. Next slide please. SOE is going to set Europe ablaze. He’s part of the training programme helping to train recruits, but he hates it.

He absolutely hates working for SOE and he asks for a transfer. By September, 1941 he’s working for section five of MI6. Section five of MI6 at this time was responsible for counterintelligence but specifically for offensive. So I actually, not defending your stuff but actually actively going on the counterintelligence against any known threat. In this case he was to monitor communism and he was put in charge of the whole of the Iberian Peninsula from within London. So covering Spain and Portugal, Spain and Portugal are both interesting. The Abwehr, the German Secret Service were military intelligence service, were active in Spain, particularly in Madrid. Lisbon had spies coming and going, arguably the centre of espionage in the Second World War and all kinds of double agents and spies going on in Lisbon. And he’s now in charge of all of MI6’s intelligence that’s coming out that region. And then the following two years, his responsibilities have expanded and he’s now got the intelligence field right across North Africa. North Africa of course surrender in May '43 to the Allies and then Italy in the summer of '43, that campaign. So he’s now responsible for a massive area of intelligence for MI6. And if you think in the back of your mind that at this time he is working for Soviet intelligence. And at this time James Jesus Angleton, again very interesting character later becomes head of the CIA. He kind of becomes a bit suspicious of Philby but nothing’s really done. He’s got a kind of sixth sense and something’s not quite right about Philby. Next slide please.

And then comes another defection in August '45 of Konstantin Volkov. He’s a Russian agent at the NKVD. He’s actually requesting political asylum in Britain. And what does he do? Well, he wants a large sum of money. But in return he says he can offer names. Again, pretty much matching almost identical to what Walter Krivitsky gave up. Two Soviet agents are inside the foreign office and one who was of course in Spain as a journalist is now in counter-espionage in MI6’s office in London. But look, Philby was actually given the case because he’s in charge of the whole of that area of the Russian desk, effectively communism and counter-espionage. He’s given the case of Volkov to look into the evidence, look into and as a result of that, of course he told his controller that everything’s okay and you know there isn’t a mole inside counter-espionage in London and there certainly aren’t two Soviet agents in the foreign office. And his controller then he told his controller, his Russian controller and the Russian controller travelled slowly to Istanbul. And Volkov, eventually, it’s a very complex situation but he was eventually taken by the Soviets. I believe he’s the subject of the spy swap. Next slide please. By 1947 there’s more for Philby when he’s appointed head of British intelligence for Turkey and he’s posted to Istanbul interestingly in the Second World War. Eric Gedye the journalist, was working for SOE and MI6 out of Istanbul, very interesting kind of area. And what was he doing then? He’s overseeing British agents who are working with the Turkish security services. So again, he has now in access to new information. Next slide please. He’s also involved in the Albanian debacle. So you have allegedly that he’s planned to infiltrate a group of emigres into Soviet Armenia or Georgia and he’s managed two of the recruits but they are shot as they go over the border. Next slide please.

But then you have the Albanian situation, Colonel David Smiley, potentially another character who’s inspired John’s Smiley of smiley people who knows. And he had been prepared or was prepared to liberate Albania from Haxha forces. And if you are interested in this, I suggest you kind of read around it if you can, because I don’t have time to go into any of this in any detail. If I ever get to write my Philby book, I think we’ll have several lectures on each of these fascinating periods of his life. So Smiley actually trained Albanian commando. Some of them were former Nazi collaborators and those commanders were to go back in to liberate Albania because the British were actually with the CIA MI6, with the CIA and his joint operation. Were going to liberate Albania in support of the former King, King Zog and King Zog had hidden in Britain in the Second World War. He’d been forced to flee during the Second World War. And from 1947 then they infiltrated the southern mountains in support. It was the first of three missions which were overland from Greece that has succeeded. The head of MI6 himself disapproved of the whole operation. But most of the infiltrators in the other operation were actually caught by the Albanian Secret Service or the security service. And it’s always said that they did so just don’t forget, Albania is communist, the Hoxha forces of Communist. It said that Kim Philby betrayed this operation in Albania. And so those that were infiltrating that went in, they never had a chance and they were all captured and killed. Next slide please.

And of that operation, their McIntyre actually quotes Kim Philby. This Kim Philby is said to have said, “The agents we sent into Albania were armed men intent on murder, sabotage and assassination. They knew the risks they were running. I was serving the interest of the Soviet Union. And those interests require that these men were defeated to the extent that I help defeat them, even if it caused their deaths. I have no regrets.” So you’ve got Philby in charge of the most important intelligence for MI6 working really on the side of the Soviet Union and prepared to betray his own side and his own own agents going in for the Soviet cause. Next slide please. 1949, Philby moved to Washington and he becomes first secretary to the British Embassy. It’s a very interesting period that in America, I don’t actually necessarily want to focus on this at the moment, but just to say it gives us a level of just how high he’s risen because he’s now overseeing urgent as I’ve put there, urgent top secret communications between the intelligence services CIA and MI6 between the United States and London. So now we’ve doubled his threat if you like, because not only can he pass secrets from London on British intelligence, he’s now got the highest secrets of American intelligence. And furthermore, it was his job to liaise with the CIA, “To promote more aggressive Anglo-American intelligence operations.” So to look at more cooperation in Anglo intelligence or Anglo-American intelligence.

So he now knows he has the heads up on future operations, but Angleton still is suspicious of him. I’m not sure why Angleton wasn’t more vocal. Next slide please. But Teddy Kollek, Teddy Kollek’s, fascinating. Would love to do more research. Next slide please. Teddy Kollek is Austrian of course had fled Vienna in the mid 1930s, now known to have been a former agent of Mossad, the first mayor of Jerusalem in the state of Israel. And he recognised Philby Kollek, Teddy Kollek recognised Philby from his pre-war days in Vienna. Fascinating, isn’t it? And he saw Philby and tonne together and he’s assuming that Angleton had turned Philby back again as a triple agent, but he was totally wrong. Next slide please, then disaster for Philby because in 1951, May '51 saw the defection of two of his colleagues, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean to Moscow. And that automatically compromised Philby. He’s got to be quick thinking now because the light’s going to be shining on him as well. And at this point, for years there was no absolute confirmation where Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean were, they knew that they just disappeared and defection assumed to have been in Moscow. But the confirmation took several years to come through. Guy Burgess of course hadn’t intended to affect, he’d only intended to drive Donald Maclean to the port and Donald Maclean said to right you are no, you are coming too. Burgess was never happy in Moscow, was he? Philby is subjected to interrogation by MI5 as the third man. Are you the third man?“ And it causes his resignation from MI6. Next slide please. Gordon Corera, fabulous journalist and he’s written on the British Secret Service and on Signals intelligence. I highly recommend you Google Gordon Corera. His works are absolutely brilliant. He wrote, "Soviet penetration of British Intelligence services may have been more serious than officially admitted.” And that might still be true.

We just don’t know. Next slide please. So Philby took up journalism and he struggles, but he’s no longer at this point in contact with Russian intelligence after 1951 and it’s in 1955 in the autumn of '55, the foreign then foreign secretary, of course he becomes Prime Minister Harold McMillan says, “In the House of Commons in Parliament. I have no reason to conclude that Mr. Philby has at any time betrayed the interest of his country or to identify him with the so-called third man if indeed there was one.” So he’s cleared by Harold McMillan. Next slide please. And the famous press conference a month later or just a few weeks later when Philby faces those cameras, and I think I’m pretty sure you can get a clip of this on YouTube, it is extraordinary that he stands there in front of the cameras and when asked the questions he said, “I’ve never been a communist.” “When did you last speak to a communist?” “Years ago that I actually knew who was a communist.” The words to that effect. So he blatantly lies in front of the cameras. Next slide please. And then he sent on further newspaper coverage in the Middle East. He’s sent to Beirut and there he’s working for the Observer and the Economist. And extraordinarily he’s been taken back on by MI6 after all that has happened in suspicions that they, I guess couldn’t prove anything against him. And this now provided a cover again for his work for MI6. But it’s another defection and Anatpliy Golitsyn in 1963 that actually kicks the ball rolling again because Golitsyn actually claims that Harold Wilson, British Prime Minister was actually working for Soviet intelligence. It’s a hugely complex area during the Cold War.

Very dangerous time as we know during the Cold War. Not a hot war, but desperate, no less dangerous. And Golitsyn starts laying suspicions on Philby. Next slide please. And Philby’s, arguably one of his closest friends, Nicholas Elliot was sent, he’d been to Beirut recently as an MI6 officer. He was sent back to Beirut. And these are the famous scenes you see in these dramas. And most recently in the drama series, “A Spy Among Friends,” that he’s stationed. So he’s sent back to Beirut where he’s previously been stationed to actually get Philby to confess to what he’s done. And there’s a tape recording made and when Philby opens the door, he kind of says, “Well I was expecting you.” So Philby, we probably knew that ultimately they would catch up with him. Next slide please. And Elliot, his close, close friend says to him, “I once looked up to you, Kim. My God how I despise you now I hope you have enough decency left to understand why.” So he feels utterly betrayed by his friend Philby. Next slide please. And in that very well the conversations… Next previous slide please, sorry. Yes. So Philby actually confirms to him, “Yes, I’m been spying for Russia.” But he asks for a delay in his interrogation. He is about to go out to dinner one evening and his wife’s expecting him to join him for the evening. But of course on that fateful evening, he doesn’t turn up at the dinner, he doesn’t turn up again to meet his friend Elliot. And he never gives that other interrogation report. 23rd of January '63, he vanishes from Beirut not to be seen outside Soviet Russia again. He escapes on the Dolmatova via Odessa. And it has sometimes been postulated that MI6 allowed him to get away. That Elliot perhaps knew that if he gave him enough warning or gave him that extra delay from interrogation, that he would defect.

Maybe MI6 did not want all of this stuff to come out, all of the dirty washing to come out. Wouldn’t it just be easier if he quietly slipped into Russia? Next slide please. And disappeared. And of course we still ask those questions, why did he defect? Next slide please. I’m going to finish in the next five minutes or so because his life in Moscow was far from easy as any of them had found. And yes, he spent time writing his memoirs, “My Silent War.” But he was not promoted within Soviet intelligence. He was not made a colonel in the KGB. He was only paid 500 rubles a month. And they were watching him all the time. He was as good as under house arrest of course, famously he did, he missed England. But famously he did get his Times newspaper every day. Graham Greene, his friend Graham Greene, paid him one last visit and I dunno if you know this, but he said to Philby asked him to re-defect and Philby says, “No, my life is here.” So Philby died in Moscow in 1988 and was given a hero’s funeral. Next slide please. So there remains for me a number of unanswered questions. Why did be marry Litzi? To protect her? Perhaps he was just in his youth, madly in love. But they married in Vienna as I’ve said in February '34. And that marriage certificate was issued at the British Embassy. How you know, the British Passport Office actually gave Litzi her British passport once she’d married Philby. How had Kendrick Thomas Kendrick, MI6’s man in Vienna missed them? Did MI6 not notice after Philby was recruited? Because after all, Litzi, I now know from my research was being tracked by MI6 and MI5. MI5 as she was to step into the UK and MI6 as well. We know that. Next slide please. I’d just like you to move on one please. One more. Thank you.

Because Litzi’s wife at the time was head of the international organisation for aid to revolutionaries the IOAR and the man on the right hand corner there at the top is Thomas Kendrick in Vienna. He had mapped the whole of the Soviet network and agents working undercover. He most certainly would not have missed Litzi who was head of the IOAR. How likely is it? He was so good. He was damn good at his job. And Gedye, I come back to Gedye knew Litzi and Philby. And I’ll leave you hanging there with this kind of who else was in Vienna at this time? Hugh Gaitskell and Ian Fleming. Fascinating Hugh Gaitskell for those of you who are not sure was actually picked to be the next labour prime minister in the 1960s before Harold McMillan, sorry Harold Wilson and Gaitskell died in mysterious circumstances in January. I believe it was January '63 of, well it was said it was lupus autoimmune, which probably was, but there are conspiracy theories that he’s been bumped off potentially because he then, you know, they could put in, the Russians could put in Harold McMillan as their guy in Downing Street. I don’t know what evidence there is for that. Next slide please. So if you are interested in more in that early period of Philby, I’ve written quite a bit and I’m quoting myself, which I don’t normally do. In my book, “Spy Master” in which I’ve written, “Philby’s greatest asset was his ability to convince people that he was who he purported to be, even if it was a cover. And in this respect, he succeeded for the rest of his life, even after he defected to the Soviet Union in 1963.” Next slide, please. I suppose that’s why I remain fascinated by him. This is his grand military funeral in the Soviet Union. Why I get, is it why I remain fascinated by him?

There are so many interesting stages in his life. Can we really untangle the truth of what really happened? Next slide, please. Because he has been dubbed the greatest Soviet penetration spy, the greatest spy that the Soviets had that ever penetrated British intelligence. And a photograph of his tombstone in Moscow there. Although he was never happy in Moscow, he nevertheless died knowing that communism was falling, that the Soviet Union was breaking up. He died in 1983. And so that’s, you know, incredible period when he all that he lived and died for really is actually crumbling. Next slide please. And so I leave you with this fabulous drama. It’s a very complex drama, but if you know the history well, I think you’ll enjoy this four five part drama, can’t remember how many now, parts are to it, Damian Lewis, absolutely fabulous. “A Spy Among Friends,” which I think is now available on the networks. And it’s a really kind of gritty, makes you feel that you’re there. It’s not a fantastical portrayal. It’s a very real, gritty portrayal of that world. So in the meantime, until I write my book one day, you never know I’d love to do that. Or until the next Philby drama, keep reading around the subject and I think we’ll always be enthralled. And will we ever know the truth about the, “Cambridge Spies” or Kim Philby? Thank you.