◆ SpookStack

known as “phe stockbrokers,” who gave the Service its connection with White's Club, one of London's most exclusive men's clubs, This notorious Maison stands at the center of any picture of the wartime secret service, And it epitomizes the rougish, dilettante quality of MI-6, of which the rest of Whitehall, and especially the embroyonic professionals of MLS, were to become in- creasingly contemptuous over the next decade. Most of the top brass be- Jonged there, including Sir Steward Menzies, the MI-6 chief until 1951 and the model for lan Fieming's fic- The etiquette of the time tional security chief “M.* was to leave Menzie alone with his personal assistant when they were together, since it was understood that ithey were “running the secret service or something,” White’s provided, too, a fertile source for emergency wartime recruits, on the basic English principle that if you could not trust your club, who could you trust? As for Menzies himself, one former subordinate re- ealls: “He wags terrifying to befause he acted instinct. He a single case , yet he often ith the answer.” ee LSpiohage Kimr-Philpy became part of Section Five of MI-6 which was responsible for counter-espionage, or more exactly, spying on the Ger- man spies. Through per- Sonal contact supplied by his old colleague Guy Hur- gess, Philby became head of the Iberian subsection, *PhITDy just did not have the contacts to get that sort of job on bis own,” sald one of his colleagues. “I know it was Burgess who rang up someone and got him in.” The Iberian subsection’s theater was a vital one. Spain was a neutral, friend- ly to Germany, and provided the perfect base for opera- tions against Britain's com- munications keystone, Gi- braltar. Portugal was friendly to Britain, but Portuguese Mozambique was the center of German espionage operations in southern Africa. It was in this connection that Philby sent Malcolm Muggeridge to Lourento Marques and Graham Greene to Slerra Leone. As a boss, Philby was a quick success. He possessed both grasp and human sym- pathy, faculties which evi- dently won him intense per- sonal loyalty. This was to be a feature of his entire career, and it is with an al- most unspeakable sense of irony that associates recall the word whith they always felt summed him up: “in- tegrity.” “You didn't just like him, admire him, agree with him,” says one man who saw him often from the war until his defection. “You worshipped him." Ry 1042 twa years attar syau, Wh Years arter coming in, Philby was firm- ly established #5 one of Menzies' very best men. But by early 1944 Philby was getting bored by the limitations of the ITherian subsection. It was then that Menzies -asketl Philby, just a few months before D-Day, to re- ’ vive the defunct counter- espionage operation against ao * Seng! nwa J tome ett asked.” —_~4_- cee co Sa ts Poa : the Soviet Union. To Philby, this must have seent@d- the. ultimate opporiunity,, and also to represent the ultl- mate folly of the men above him. Philby’s appointment is a measure of the blind faith in him on the part of his superiprs, whose own repu- tations had been aided by -Philby's work. Had Philby’s early Communist experience been forgotten? Had it been oblitergied irom the record by his excellent perform- ance? Or was it, just con- eeivably, noted and, in a mo- ment of supreme political naivete, ignored? The aging colonel who was the sole incumbent of the inactive Soviet section was pensioned off, and P| by moved in to build an em- pire which, within 18 months, occupied an entire floor and employed more than 100 people. Within two years, the section had ac- cumulated a vast store of in- formation on Communists in Western countries, front or- ganizations and the other now-familiar stuff of Cold War counter-espionage. And Kim Philby had acquired the confidence of his staff. + “He could get them to de = for him,” one of them has recalled, This witness remembers that everyone there came from a strict security back- the tradition. was that office desks should be locked at night. But Kim broke that tradition as he broke 50. many others. “Don't worry about that,” he said, cround where rigid epi Hock them up Later.” “I didn’t like to do it,” this witness now says, “but he was so charming that I couldn't refuse anything ha a |