◆ SpookStack

a en ee ‘filings: Aarts cP RO ents ead Ava — lA AA ni arama ie tt eae Sn mea — “Aller nema Yo ta ete de ' . anmemils S Suecraseful a eA ———@. “The Philby Conspiracy” is # full-length account of the activities of the three men, written by a team from The Sunday Times of London. For a combined effort, it is un- usually successful. It harnesses a large ee et SDLUUNL or material into a coneréent naria- tive. The authors are sparing in their own judgment, but supply enough facts to let the reader make up his own. It has more drive and more genuine suspense than a dozen concocted thrillers and will undoubt: adlyy.kas the savesnan nf a dnvan wualy PU LAS OVE WL Mee more, “My Silent War” is Philby's own selective . story of his involvement in British espio. hage: how he joined it, how he rose in servy- ice, his near escapes and his fall. He is often fierce in evaluating others, pitiless in ‘writing off thoce ha injured, subtle in what he wants to tell and “what he wants the ‘reader to infer. It is an interesting ac- tivity to compare the man who emerges from his own book with the one who is the subject of the other. One thing he doesn’t do is fully to de- clare his motives. The other book does better. It points out that after turning Communist, like countless others in the thirties, Philby went to Austria in time to _See the Social Democrats destroyed by the Heimwehr. He was in Spain, reporting from Franco’s side, when the Spanish Republic was abandoned by the Western democracies. Unlike others of his age, Philby saw what could happen to the Left in practice, not only in theory. It is almost as if he reasoned that he could do more ‘by clandestinely hea helping Communist power than by identi- . fying openly with @ group that would fall victim to next maneuver of the Fascist legions. . toot, - ee moe