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Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 31

121 pages · May 09, 2026 · Document date: Jan 25, 1950 · Broad topic: Intelligence Operations · Topic: Cambridge Five Spy Ring · 113 pages OCR'd
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be avenger stole upon the citadel and destroyed it from withm. Yet both the avenger and the citadel wert largely creations of the samé historical con- dition. The avenger was the son of a British Raj; the citade! was dedicated to the preservation of British power; both had been displaced by the evancscence of the Empire. The sven- ty was ap embittered solitary with the arrogance of a man familiar with the terrain of personal philosophies : the Arabian deserm. He would root out the old fort with the mdifference of the timeless wind, the cunning of the Levantine and the amoral loyalty of Kipling's chosen boy; yet he was still one of them, at war with his own shadow. The avenger would desmoy the past; the citadel would preserve it. Yet it was a past they had in common. In the unequal duel berwern Kim Philby and the British Secret Service, a new dimension is added ro the rela- Honship between the privileged Englishman and the institution which be collectively comprises. Let anyone who derides the notion of the Estab- lishment read this book. I sit back now, the manuscript put away, and reach for the apt phrases of outrage. But none of us is yet equal fo the dimensions of this scandsf Like 8 great novel, and an unfinithed onc at that, the story of Kim Philby bves on in us: it conveys not merely a sense of Participation but of authorship. Scll, listening to our own judgments we can discern in ourselves the social artirudes and opinions which account as much for Philby’s survival 2s for his deter- mination to destroy us. Hardly s war was shed for George Blake: Blake was half 2 foreigner and half a jew. ‘Vassall wes an upstart, Burgess and Macican were psychiatric mists. But Philby, am aggressive, upper-class enemy, was of cur blood and bhunied with our pack; to the very end, be expected and received the indulgence owing to his moderation, good breed- ing and boyish, flirtatious charm. In Our very notion of the ‘Thirties Spies’ there is an implicit confession of weak- ness. "Fhe Thirtics,’ we sey, “The Thirties” were the last lot to care; as if we were 20 fer pest the neck of our fo WEEE SO iar past ihe pear of Sur fational and emotional energy that neither the grouse-moor complacency of Macmillan nor the Pygmy grandeur of Wilson could stir us into becoming petence, Io am uncomfortably cop- scious, inddentally, of the ‘we’: Philby’s is one of those casca which This is the introduction specially The Spy who Betrayed a Generatio force us to defime our own place in society. I suppose by ‘we’ J mean the work) w which I myself vaguely jectual. Philby’s world, but mdoors. This book is massively incompiete, as the authors are the first to edmit. We sbould never forge: the gaps. In this most Marzian of novels, where thesis and antithesis are endemic to alike, it is arguable that even the prin- cipal character is still missing. In the, lives of Burgess, Maclean and Philby shadow : never once do we set his face or consciously bear his name. He is the Soviet recruiter. For these men were recruited. By whom? Between the ages of 19 and 2], it seems, these children of Cambridge were recog- nised, courted and consciously seduced into a lifetime of deceit. By whom? As they grew to manhood, and the youthful dream of an adventurous crusade gave way to the tedium and fears of criminal betrayal, who sus tained them in their faith? Who aer- viced them, paid them? Who trained, welfared, consoled and commanded them? Who kept them in play and taught them the clandestine arts? Whom did Philby mect and when? What were the methods of com tounication? Was. Philby s Photo- grapher,'s radio operatg did be yely on the Pelmanism if namesake? Did Philby in tum recruit others? Did he run them? This was his secret life; it is a secret etill, The street corner, the hurried handover in the cab, the timed dialogue from kiosk to kiosk, those were the moments when the hunter was hunted, and we know tothing of them at all. When a boy of 20 gives himself body and mind to « country be bas Tee eee oe ee A Le LA LF = | FIR, BO Bt) BCD as AAS not deeply studied, to s régime which wwful purges, was a peril w serve; when be remains actively faithful two tha: decision for over 30 years, cheat- ing, betraying end occasionally killing, surely we roust speculate on the nature of his master; no novitiate can last indefinitely without a confessing father. He understood us better than we understood ourselves: was he our feeenreermen > He countryman? He gentlemen: was be himself a gentic- man? He recruited only from Cam- bridge: was be a Cambridge man? Al three recruits would travel far on the reputations of their families alouc: was be too a man of social influence? recruited only rocruuteé on by John le Carré for Philby: , Bruce Page, David Leitch, and be did nothing which at that time was against the Law of the land. whoever he was? Or are there, atoong the surviving contemporarics of Bur- gets, Maclean and Philby, men whom he unsuccessfully approeched? This is but one of numberiess questions provoked by this brilliant but neces- sarily imcomplete account of the Paley story. Philby may wish to enlighten us but probably never will: the Russian apparatus of bureaucratic sanction is even more lugubrious than our own: and though be is avid for praise, be is not yet ready to redefect. I do not much believe in the poli- neal motive of Kim Philby; but I am sure that the British Secret Service kept it alive as po other environment could have done. The British Intelligenc: world described bere is apolitical. Once entered, it provides oo further opportunity for spiritual development. The door that clanged behind the new entrant protected him as much free Aumscif as from reality. Philby, once employed, met spies, conundrums, technique; be had said goodbye to controversy. Such political opinions as sustained him were the opinions of his childhood. The cleaner air of the outside world would have blown them sway in a year. Instead, be took into thy soundless shrine of the secret the formed j of bis iar ania a ee al memories of ‘his father, Vienna and Spain, and from there on, simply ceased to develop. He was left with a handful of clichés whose application had ceased in 1931. Similarly, the would long have passed for idiotic in the outside world; in the secret world it passed for real. Thus, in the same secret place, under the same secret wee the eee AF Li. ok. WA, LAle SLL US AL quarry were sheltered from the changing frosts of reality. Citadel and avenger, both unnaturally protected, were fight- ing out the battles of the thirties. For this reason, the early life of Kim Philby i2 doubly important: al} Kim's life was early. uplicity for Kim Philby was something of a family tradition. However Philby reacted to his eminently disteste- ful father, whether be wished to destroy or outshine him, of merely to follow in his footsteps, be could hardly fail, in the outposts where they lived, inherit many of his characteristic, A little king in bis desert palaces, S1 John The fnemy within! Phillip Knightley, a 312-page examination of the whole intriguing story. Publishée tomorrow ly André Deutsch at 30s., it is the Book Society Choice for March, in Britain, and Book of the Month Club choice in the United States FosEiahpeshad SFEESEGAy RecA RE SSEEEACE RSE cP RRUT APE EREEARERE tempt for his superiors in London; the loyalties be preached were at beat dynastic; st worm they constinmed a doctrine of militant arrogance. St John hintec!f was a man of unrecon- ciled and wilful paradox, be wes an empire man, o decider, a builder, a collector of intelligence in the best Lawrence mystic, a solitary adventurer capable of violence and rapacity. He wes also a salesman, dealing in con- the reat. Metapborically, St John was the man who brought Cadillacs to the reverse market, be sald off oi] conces- sions to the Americans, = From bis father, Kim acquired the neo-Fascist instincts of a slightly berserk English gentleman; from bis father, the Establishment’s easy trick dressing them in the ciothes of a higher cause; from his father the car- tographer’s memory; for be no more forgot a word or a gesture than another man forgot the way bome; from his father the scholar’s perception which enabled him to keep track of his own complicated treachery. And he could hardly fail, when his father delivered him over to the Establishment for his education, to-fec] alrcady thet be was trained in the y camp. Like Kipling’s boy, one feels, he was already waiting for the cal]: “Ji was intrigue, of course — he knew that much, he had known ali evil since he could speak — but what he loved was the game for its own sake-the stealthy prowl through the dark gullies and lanes . . .” 1 dream in mad moments - but anything is possible between those two ~ that St John recruited his own son for service aguing the “missionaries a ee er es costes erent re WaHe men of BMH Gipet: , against the soh town-dwellers of Whitehall ignorant of real men’s ways. He did not, of course; but if Be had laboured all his life to create in Kim the irresistible chemistry of the boy's later betrayal, be could aot have donc much more. Kim prowled the edges of the Establishment as his namesake stalked the back-streets of Lahore: “in headlong flight from bousetop to housetop under cover of the hot dark”. For the Philbvs strode from meak to tt 2aluvye silos Ae Pe peak, and fools lived in the valley. Through his father, moreover, as a spy: a0 cforticss faniliariry with the quarry. Through his father, and the education which his father gave him, be experienced both as a victim and asa practitioner the capacity 3)» [21 ¢ | |
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