Ben Macintyre: A Spy Among Friends. Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. New York: Crown, 2014. 368 pp, ill.
Ben Macintyre has consulted virtually every available source on Kim Philby and selected the best bits for this delightful read. No matter if A Spy Among Friends contains few startling insights – there is always room on the bookshelf for well-written, scrupulously annotated research.
Macintyre does highlight one thing perhaps not widely appreciated, though it was previously pointed out by Graham Greene: Philby was among other things an effective manager, a leader who inspired loyalty in his team because he repeatedly demonstrated loyalty to them. While it’s true that he came from the right social background, that alone does not explain why for decades he was protected by the solidarity of “a chosen brotherhood.” (pg. 185) What’s more telling is that he seems to have been genuinely liked by everyone at MI6, even though they separately loathed each other.
It has long been known that before the war Philby was “a formidable drinker.” (pg. 26) “In a single evening at the Moda Yacht Club [in Istanbul], they [Philby and Burgess] polished off fifty-two brandies.” (pg. 116) With age, though, his ability to cope began to deteriorate. “Philby had always been a high-functioning, sociable alcoholic. He was [by 1952] fast becoming an ill-functioning one with a vile temper.” (pg. 176) “For decades Philby had drunk heavily, but never uncontrollably; henceforth [after the arrest of Richard Blake], he became increasingly volatile and unpredictable.” (pg. 239) Yet this behavior was so much a part of his social class at the time that it was generally considered acceptable if unfortunate. In his final years in Moscow, he used liquor not so much to become convivial as to numb himself.
It has been observed that alcohol loosens the tongue, yet no matter how intoxicated Philby became before disappearing in Beirut, he never gave the slightest hint that he was working for the other side. On reflection, perhaps this is not really so surprising. True, drink will make most people talkative. Burgess and Maclean confessed when they were in their cups, but were not taken seriously. For Philby, though, sobriety did not act as an inhibition.. He believed his own rationalizations so strongly that his conscience gave him little trouble, and his protestations to the contrary seem quite pro forma. The urge to come clean never struck him more than a glancing blow.
Even his stammer, far from being a handicap, rather disarmed people, prompting them to offer him assistance. Numerous reports confirm that he was a brilliant conversationalist. What is more significant, if less noted, was that he was a great listener, with the ability to make you feel he was attending to you alone. All those who are now so quick to condemn the long list of people (including James Angleton) who were taken in by Philby should ask themselves what makes them so sure they would have been immune to his charms if they had known him at his best. Nothing is easier than being wise in retrospect.
While drinking may have been a coping mechanism, his underlying addiction was to “the drug of infidelity.” (pg. 36) Both booze and betrayal were to prove bad for him, though in different ways. Put simply, his life of deception made it impossible for him to trust anyone completely – not his various wives, not his oldest friends, not even his Soviet handlers. The only exceptions were creatures who could not speak. Because he fails to fully comprehend the deeper roots of this lonely man’s feelings for his pet fox, Macintyre finds his grief after Jackie’s death excessive. Philby was attached to him, and to the game of cricket and his bottle of scotch, not simply because these were things that never disappointed, never betrayed him. More importantly, they never could.
Additionally, Philby thought Jackie may actually have been a jackal – hence the name. One wonders if he believed that by studying this animal’s behavior he was gaining unvarnished insight into the deviousness of human behavior. His story, “The Fox that came to Stay,” was published in the British magazine Country Life (Dec. 6, 1962). For background, see Tony Morrison’s blog, where in 2014 he revealed how he introduced Philby to Jackie. http://www.nonesuchexpeditions.com/nonesuch-features/kim-philby-fox/the%20philby-fox.htm
Philby may at times have suffered from having chosen to lead a double life, but I suspect he also took some pleasure in disguising himself without resorting to make-up or masks, simply relying on having the right background, a winning personality and charming conversation. A risk-taker without remotely being a Bond-like adventurer, he enjoyed deciding who would get to know how much of the truth, and which version of it. He must also have relished the opportunity to play God, determining who lived or died without his victims ever suspecting that he was the ultimate arbiter. “Victims?” one imagines Philby saying with Harry Lime – “don’t be melodramatic.”
The later chapters are of even greater interest, relying as they do more on interviews and original research than on previously published accounts. Macintyre’s story of how the old boys’ network functioned makes the system look, at best, agreeably informal, at worst – blind to its own shortcomings. Along the way he displays a wry sense of humor, noting that a certain operation “proceeded with the sort of smoothness that suggested no one in authority was paying adequate attention.” (pg. 199) After the defections of Maclean and Burgess, the hunt for the Third Man intensified, a search which would eventually involve J. Edgar Hoover and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. In Parliament (Macintyre supplies telling excerpts from the debate transcripts), conservative MPs rose to defend Philby, since after all he embodied the establishment, was one of their own.
The highlight came on November 8, 1955, when Philby invited journalists from the world press into his mother’s London apartment. There he read a statement and answered questions posed by Edwin Newman, the NBC journalist. When it was over, he served them all beer and sherry. “The resulting press coverage contained no suggestion that Philby was anything other than an honest, upright government official, brought down by his friendship with a secret communist and now definitively absolved.” (pg. 196) The performance was quite convincing. One of my earliest memories is of my parents discussing this news conference; both of them had their doubts, but finally agreed that no real spy would attract so much attention to himself in this way.
The British double agent Kim Philby during a news conference in London in 1955. Credit Associated Press
Macintyre’s new angle comes from his refocusing our attention on Philby’s relationship with his closest friend – and fellow intelligence officer – Nicholas Elliott. Elliott was perhaps the most likeable member of the well-connected set who enabled Philby to remain undetected, if not entirely unsuspected. Whatever it was that finally convinced him of Philby’s treachery (the theory offered here is not entirely believable), it came as a severe shock to his system. Macintyre describes well how shaken he must have felt at suddenly confronting a truth he had so long and so confidently denied. While the title of this book is A Spy Among Friends, a more accurate one might have been, Intelligence Agents Have No Friends.
The climax comes with the confrontation between these two old hands in a Beirut hotel room. Macintyre actually begins with this scene in the book’s Introduction, then backtracks to tell the history of their friendship, finally returning to the same place some 250 pages later. Relying on transcripts (MI5 had bugged the room), he recreates the charged yet understated atmosphere of this decisive encounter, one characterized by “brutal English politeness” as the two men engaged in a “civilized and lethal” duel over tea, without so much as raising their voices.
Macintyre argues plausibly, though on the basis of circumstantial evidence, that allowing Philby to escape to Moscow with a wink and a nod was the preferred outcome for MI6. This interpretation is supported by Yuri Modin, one of Philby’s Soviet handlers, and indeed by Philby himself, albeit only in retrospect. “I cannot help thinking that perhaps you wanted me to do a fade,” as he wrote to Elliott afterwards. (pg. 280)
Others have noted that this book provides background information for some of John le Carré’s novels. To be specific: two of Philby’s victims – Konstantin Volkov, a Soviet consular official, and his wife Zoya – appear in Tinker Tailor as Boris and Irina. In addition to the names, le Carré changed certain details, for instance moving the locale from Istanbul to Hong Kong, and concentrating more on the wife than the husband, but in general terms the cases are similar. Neither Macintyre nor le Carré makes any mention of this; in his “Afterword,” le Carré says only that in TTSS he “already covered the ground” of the Philby-Elliott relationship. (pg. 297) Elliott told le Carré that Philby had once written from Moscow and suggested a meeting in Berlin or Helsinki (“I’ll meet you any place, any time. And when we do meet, old man, it’s you I want to see, not the police,” as Harry Lime had put it). Elliott’s response was classic: “I wrote back and told him to put some flowers on Volkov’s grave for me.”
As a footnote, let it be said that the passages relying solely on Genrikh Borovik’s The Philby Files (1994) are to be handled with caution, as that book is based on unverifiable sources. (See my review elsewhere on this site.) Also, the “unmistakably Russian” man who appeared at Eleanor Philby’s door in London and declared that he had come from Kim with an invitation to join him in Moscow is not identified; probably he is the same Petukhov (first name unknown) who figures elsewhere in this book and in other sources, such as Borovik’s Philby Files and Rufina Philby’s Private Life of Kim Philby.
For what it’s worth, the British psychologist who evaluated Philby told Elliott to “look for a mother figure.” (pg. 299) Elliott thought of Flora Solomon. While obviously not a documentary, but still based on information from well-informed sources, the movie “The Good Shepherd” suggests that at least for the KGB, “mother” was Angleton.
© Hamilton Beck
hamiltonbeck 