The Ultimate Power Lust: A British Spy’s Great Betrayal

A book review by Walter Donway of A Spy among Friends: Kim Philby and The Great Betrayal by Ben MacIntye, Crown Publishers: New York, 2014, pp 368.

How can one say that Harold Adrian Russell Philby, known to history by his lifelong nickname, ‘Kim,’ was the most successful spy of the Twentieth Century or perhaps all time—although he is repeatedly awarded that distinction?

The problem is obvious: Spies live by secrecy, evading discovery, but Philby’s treachery—and it was treachery to his country, the free world, and every friend, colleague, family member, and lover he ever had—became known. It is true that by then he had been serving Stalin’s Soviet Union for three decades, passing information that directly doomed thousands of specific individuals to imprisonment, torture, and death. But he was not apprehended and punished; he escaped—to live out his life in communist Russia.

Still, could there not be, in a century of world wars–hot and cold–that ultimately engaged thousands of spies, a spy not known to history at all? A spy who did his work and never was revealed? But such a spy, to match the accomplishments of Philby, would have to have worked for one of the world’s top intelligence services; during Philby’s career, the British M16 (roughly equivalent to the later, imitative American CIA), was the world’s premier spying shop. A spy, to better Philby, would have to have risen to within one position of the head of a major nation’s intelligence service. Readers will recall the mysterious ‘M,’ James Bond’s boss and all-powerful head of M16. The real head of M16 traditionally was referred to as ‘C’—and Philby at one time was next in line for his job.

The hypothetical rival of Philby’s dazzling three-decade performance would have to have been identified, interrogated, and fired from his intelligence service—for overwhelming circumstantial evidence of betrayal—but managed to have been “cleared” and reinstated for another glorious run serving his country—but, actually, the enemy.

Moreover, such a hypothetical rival would have to have served through pivotal, perilous years for his country and much of the world. Kim Philby “served” Britain throughout World War II, and then well into the Cold War, his betrayal first building up the Communist empire that enslaved most of Eastern Europe in the wake of WWII, then promoting and strengthening that empire in girding its loins for its apocalyptic showdown with the remaining free world.

Perhaps there was such a spy, unknown to history; it is difficult to imagine.

This may be viewed as my lead-in to a kind of review of a new book, A Spy among Friends: Kim Philby and The Great Betrayal by Ben MacIntyre (with an afterword by John Le Carre).  MacIntyre, a writer for the Times of London, has specialized in nonfiction accounts of episodes in modern espionage. This is his latest and widely deemed his best. Here, though, I am concerned with a single question raised by this informative and entertaining book.

MacIntyre’s challenge is obvious.  Kim Philby is hailed as the protagonist of the spying career, betrayal, intelligence disaster, and enduring mystery of modern espionage.  One would have thought that the ground had been covered, square foot by square foot, like a crime scene searched for clues by a swarm of policemen.  And that is true. Some new information, it is true, has become available, as files are pried open by time limits or political changes.  But the crucial files of M16, the CIA, and the former KGB have not been opened, so that is not the key to this book. The key, and it is a fascinatingly rich vein of exploration, is the role of friendship—simple (well, very complex) friendship, real friendship based upon real affection, real loyalty.  But also something beyond friendship:  the perhaps unique role of class, social standing, educational background, manners, alcohol, and capacity for male closeness in binding together the privileged classes of Britain, long a source of considerable strength–and of fatal, almost incomprehensible weakness when that bond was exploited and betrayed to attack all the British fraternity cherished.

Surely this is a germane explanation of how much Philby was able to get away with over decades, even when it seemed, to objective observers, that his game was up. No doting father could have been more inclined to trust, forgive, and support Philby than his ‘friends.’

They went back to days at ‘public’ school (meaning in England private, elite preparatory schools), some of them in the harshest Victorian tradition, where very young boys were forced each morning to plunge into an ice-cold pool, were punished by whipping, were subjected to uncontrolled hazing, and, surprisingly often, were bonded for life by traits of character, loyalty, humor, and memory of where they had come from. The process of bonding continued for Kim and his friends at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. All this is well known.

Those closest to Philby over his entire life, who advanced him, supported him, and aided him in the darkest moments, were friends from ‘school.’ What of Philby as a friend?  The reports come from throughout his life, across the world, men and women alike:  Kim Philby was the most charming, intimate, tender, loyal, convivial colleague, friend, lover, and father one could wish. None contradicted this. Everywhere he went, he made and used friends by being  charming, intensely interested in them, beautifully mannered, endless convivial—and loyal (up to a point!).

His longest-lasting friend, Nicholas Elliott, who joined the British secret service with Philby, worked with him, was promoted with him, and loved him (non-sexually) for decades, came to his defense when he was virtually exposed (Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean, two key members of the “Cambridge” communist spy ring, had defected to Moscow, tipped off in the nick of time by Philby), fired in disgraced, and for more than a year kept under close surveillance—but never prosecuted because all evidence was circumstantial.  Elliott and others in M16 managed to have Philby publicly exonerated, reinstated, and assigned to a critical spy post in Beirut—where Philby resumed sending all information, including from friendly drinking bouts with Elliott, of course, to his Soviet masters.

From 1934 to 1963, then–29 years–Philby worked for British intelligence but spied for the Soviet Union. And, after 1951, when he resigned under intense suspicion, he served more than 10 additional years, until 1963, as an active M16 agent–and traitor–despite individuals, especially in M15, charged with protecting the security of the secret service, convinced that the star of M16 was committing treason. For most of this interval of his “rebirth” as a spy, Philby worked in Beirut, Lebanon, digging out information on the volatile Middle East for both London and Moscow. Of course, he reported to Moscow all that was confided to him about British and American intelligence activities.

He had been alcoholic for decades, but in a way that permitted him to carry out his dual role, satisfying both M16 and the KGB; but toward the end, he slipped into nonstop, blackout drinking. It accelerated into disaster when a spy within British intelligence, George Blake, unknown and unrelated to Philby, was exposed, tried, and sentenced to 42 years in prison for fingering some 400 agents of the British working in Soviet East Germany.

Philby’s exposure finally came because a woman, a fellow communist in the 1930’s, Philby had tried to recruit for Moscow. She had declined, but been sympathetic.  Only some three decades later did she decide to reveal what she knew—because she was a devout supporter of Israel and angered by what she saw as Philby’s anti-Israel bias in his reporting for the Economist (Philby’s cover job for his Beirut spying). Her memory of one long-ago but specific attempt at recruitment for Moscow reopened the entire Philby investigation—and some other things fell into place.

Almost incredibly, M16 permitted Nicholas Elliott to fly to Beirut to confront his oldest friend and hero and extract a confession.  He was authorized to offer Philby a full pardon—and secrecy—if Philby confessed to spying up to 1949!  Why till 1949?  Because that is when Philby was sent to Washington as M16 liaison with the CIA; if Philby had still be spying, then, M16 would be obligated to turn him over for CIA questioning—and that would blow the promised pardon and secrecy. It was both understandable and incomprehensible! A charade cooked up by a fraternity accustomed to manipulating everything to bring ‘reality’ into conformity with their wishes.

George Blake, who confessed not long before this time, got 42 years in prison.  Philby would get a full pardon plus protection of his reputation, if he told all. All spying from 1949 to 1963 would be as though it never happened!  Philby remained “one of us” to the old boys who defined the ethos of M16; Blake, an Egyptian Jew from Holland, never really had ‘fit.’

Elliott traveled to Beirut in a righteous fury, swearing he must refrain from killing Philby; but Philby, floating on a tide of alcohol, his nerves shattered, seemed to play Elliott. A limited, partial confession; a nice dinner for four at an exclusive Beirut restaurant; a slightly larger confession, still revealing few if any Moscow secrets; and another pleasant dinner.

It seemed to give Philby time to send a pre-arranged signal to Russian intelligence. He was spirited away to Moscow, leaving Elliott, Philby’s own wife and ther children in Beirut—and leaving M16 to admit, excruciatingly publicly, that the greatest known traitor in modern history had been negotiating with one of its top agents, but, somehow, had slipped away to Moscow. Almost certainly, M16 opened the door as wide as possible and hoped Philby would go. The evidence seems overwhelming, and the argument that it was a mistake is preposterous. Bringing him back for trial had a political price tag that the British establishment was not prepared to pay.

So what was it with Philby?  What motivated him betray his country, his social class, his family, his colleagues, and his splendid friends—and send to capture, torture, and death thousands of men and women who had the courage to battle the Soviet empire—men and women he exposed to the Soviets after he had planned the very activities that put them at supreme risk?

Damnably, there is almost no information on what actually moved Philby. Barely 17 when he went up to Cambridge, he became a convert to Marxism. That was not unusual for the times. At Oxford and Cambridge, a commitment to socialism or communism—including revolutionary communism—did not have to be hidden. Fascism was on the rise in Europe and many, many among the British upper class saw fascism as the only potent, determined opposition to the Marxist onslaught. The more intelligent, educated, and ‘humanitarian’ saw communism as the diametrical opposite and the only answer to the fascism. After all, when Philby and his friends, just down from Cambridge, joined the secret service, their commitment was to stem the rise of Hitler.

Finishing at Cambridge with a good academic record, Philby openly approached one of the dons and asked how he might serve the cause of world communism. His mentor referred him to someone in the Comintern, who referred him to someone in Soviet intelligence. Just like that. And he was contacted, in England, by an agent of Soviet intelligence who recruited him and, it turned out, recruited an entire spy network from talented young men at Cambridge, including not only Philby, but Anthony Blount, MacLean, and Burgess—the core of the Cambridge communists, the greatest publicly known disaster that ever befell a nation’s intelligence service.

But Philby, of course, consistent with his mission for the Soviet Union, quickly put his communism behind him—and everyone was agreeable to dismissing his Cambridge days as youthful idealism. Thereafter, for decades, there is scant record of any statement of his views on communism or the Soviet Union. He simply did not discuss it—for obvious reasons. True, at every turn in his career, when faced with painful risks and choices, he did claim to have invoked his loyalty to the Soviet Union as his motivation. We know this chiefly from what he wrote later from the safety of his refuge in Moscow.

It is scarcely credible. Philby, by any account, was highly intelligent, ethically sensitive, and deeply informed about world politics. And yet, his undented loyalty to Moscow, to the communist ideology, survived the Hitler-Stalin Pact, the revelations of Stalin’s crimes, and the brutal enslavement of Eastern Europe; he opined that the goodness of the communist system would outlive erratic personalities. He sent hundreds of young men to their deaths in M16/CIA plots for infiltration and subversion of Soviet Albania (dubbed “Operation Invaluable”) and, with cold irony, later said he only could ‘guess’ what fate awaited these enemies of his beloved Soviet system. Nothing changed his mind; nothing deterred him; and, it is clear, he seldom if ever challenged the convictions of his college years. He made his commitment to the Soviet Union at age 18 and there is no evidence he examined it again in light of decades of observing the communist system in action.

Philby’s passion seemed to be not ideology but friendship. And yet, he lied to, and betrayed, every single friend—unless you count his Soviet “handlers.” And, the longer and more loyally a friend stood by him—Nicholas Elliott above all—the more disastrous, for them, when he finally defected. He didn’t care.

What did he care about? Supposedly, the classless society of Marxism, which, as the historically determined future, would sweep away the class-conscious British Empire. And yet, at every stage of his life, Philby was the exemplar of the privileged Englishman. You could not name a single aspect of the life he actually lived–education, manners, dress, clubs, pipes, cuisine—nothing—that was not steeped in class consciousness.

Safely in refuge in Moscow from all he had betrayed, Philby said nothing to indicate any remorseful second-thoughts and nothing, as he lived out his life in the drear of Communist Russia, to cast doubt on communism as the ideal to which all might look forward. He could not do so, of course; he was a pampered prisoner of the KGB. But in no other context did he ever express doubt about the ideal for which he gave his life.

He published a book under KGB auspices considered a worthless source; he brought his wife to Moscow, though Elliott tried desperately to dissuade her; then, he conducted an affair with Donald MacLean’s wife and his own wife left for good; he married a 20-year younger Polish woman and reportedly was happy. He died in Moscow in 1988, a hero, with many decorations.

It is striking to me that in MacIntyre’s probing account, which creates a devastatingly real portrait of Philby’s life, and careful perspectives on his possible motives, there is not a single mention of the role of power.

And yet, we know that the worst betrayals of humanity—and I reach for that broad phrasing advisedly—the greatest crimes against humanity—have been motivated by power lust. Yes, the justification almost always has been ideological, some noble cause—but the motive power of great achievers of evil has been the lust for power over others, limitless political power.

A famous Oxford don, C.S. Lewis, author of “The Chronicles of Narnia” and other books, in a brilliant lecture in 1944, spoke of the enticement to upper-class English minds (he had mentored so many) of the ‘inner ring.’ This is the thesis that for Englishmen bred to class and privilege, the ultimate fascination and attainment was the ‘inner ring.’ To attend Eton includes one in an inner ring. To attend Oxford or Cambridge encircles one in another inner ring. Within those institutions there are exclusive and highly prized inner rings. Later, to become a member of White’s or the Athenaeum Club narrows the old-school ring. And so it goes.

In pre-WWII England, the secret service was the inner ring.  Many talented Oxbridge graduates did not aspire to wealth in the investment world of ‘the City.’ They aspired to leadership in the global British Empire, where decisions were made about the lives of others, often millions of others. That meant politics, certainly, but, in a sense, the intelligence services were still more ‘inner.’ For example, many exploits of M16 were secret from the political establishment. There are examples of exploits prohibited in advance by the prime minister, but still carried out by M16 because, well, those in the inner ring had to act for England. And rarely, even if the exploit blew up, and some did, spectacularly, was the responsible M16 officer set back in his career.

And so, the English schoolboy, warmed by inclusion, penetrating ring after ring of exclusivity—to be sure not without effort!—always was asking:  what next? In the English secret service, one was prohibited from informing anyone, even his or her spouse, of the nature of one’s employment. You were merely “foreign service.” But in your club or fashionable bar or on country weekends, over drinks—the consumption of alcohol seems at times the dominating element of this entire world—you discussed the secrets of the fate of the Empire with those, and only those, in the inner ring.

The servants of M15 and M16 were not all wealthy men. With their connections, they could have achieved far greater wealth in other fields. Money simply was not the medium of exchange in the world of boys brought up already assuming wealth and privilege, accustomed to it as a ‘given.’

For Philby and others who gave their lives to betrayal of their country, there was yet another ring, the inmost of all: to dedicate yourself to serving the coming world power. Not, as others were, the seemingly impervious British Empire of the present, but the next, rising, at-present-despised, but one-day-triumphant empire of the international proletariat. Philby knew all about this ultimate inner ring, but, of course, could not divulge his secret even to his closest colleagues, best friends, wife, or children. He alone was in the know; they were on the outside.

He was privy to the ultimate ‘inner ring.’ Seduced from his earliest years by the warm affirmation of ‘belonging,’ the secret satisfaction of being where what was really important was decided, he had come to wield ultimate power. Every day, he was deciding the future of those around him. Yes, he genuinely cared for them, enjoyed them, even loved them; but he alone was deciding their future. While they were busily committed to, and exalting, in their creation of what they believed to be their future, Philby, on their behalf, was preparing their real future.

It was not the power of an Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. It was subtle, inner. It was private in the best tradition of English upper-class reticence and smug exclusiveness.

Philby never browbeat or threatened others. He seldom raised his voice. If he despised someone, then his triumph was to get along with them, deceive them, and use them.  At this, he was a master. His was the power of deciding their future, the future of their children and their entire world. And none knew it. In this ultimate inner ring, the future of everyone was being decided and prepared.

And only Kim Philby knew it.

About the Author: Walter Donway

Walter Donway has written and edited for Savvy Street since its inception in 2014. His essays and interpretative commentaries on breakthrough books have dealt with philosophy, politics, literature, science, history, psychology, and personalities. His new novel, "Retaking College Hill,” became Amazon’s #1 bestseller in political fiction. This year, the Atlas Society published his Pocket Guide to The Fountainhead and Romanticism Reborn--essays on the Romantic movement in literature and its 20th Century revival in Ayn Rand's novels. His collections of essays and short stories and his "Collected Poems" are available on Amazon. He lives in East Hampton with his wife, Robin.