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A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best History & Biography (2014)Master storyteller Ben Macintyre’s most ambitious work to date brings to life the twentieth century’s greatest spy story.
Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War—while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby’s best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world.
But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow—and not just Elliott’s words, for in America, Philby had made another powerful friend: James Jesus Angleton, the crafty, paranoid head of CIA counterintelligence. Angleton's and Elliott’s unwitting disclosures helped Philby sink almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years, leading countless operatives to their doom. Even as the web of suspicion closed around him, and Philby was driven to greater lies to protect his cover, his two friends never abandoned him—until it was too late. The stunning truth of his betrayal would have devastating consequences on the two men who thought they knew him best, and on the intelligence services he left crippled in his wake.
Told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, and based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files, A Spy Among Friends is Ben Macintyre’s best book yet, a high-water mark in Cold War history telling.
Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain’s counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War—while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby’s best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world.
But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow—and not just Elliott’s words, for in America, Philby had made another powerful friend: James Jesus Angleton, the crafty, paranoid head of CIA counterintelligence. Angleton's and Elliott’s unwitting disclosures helped Philby sink almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years, leading countless operatives to their doom. Even as the web of suspicion closed around him, and Philby was driven to greater lies to protect his cover, his two friends never abandoned him—until it was too late. The stunning truth of his betrayal would have devastating consequences on the two men who thought they knew him best, and on the intelligence services he left crippled in his wake.
Told with heart-pounding suspense and keen psychological insight, and based on personal papers and never-before-seen British intelligence files, A Spy Among Friends is Ben Macintyre’s best book yet, a high-water mark in Cold War history telling.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published July 29, 2014
About the author
Ben Macintyre
37 books3,235 followersBen Macintyre is a writer-at-large for The Times (U.K.) and the bestselling author of The Spy and the Traitor, A Spy Among Friends, Double Cross, Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and Rogue Heroes, among other books. Macintyre has also written and presented BBC documentaries of his work.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,231 reviews
July 3, 2016
Like so many students, Philby confused communism with a great levelling, an equality among men. So when recruited at 18 by MI6, he sees it as his opportunity to give Russia a helping hand. To be a spy in Britain at that time, you had to be from a certain background, with the essential confidence of being at the top of the social tree. This is what enabled him to get away with, quite literally, murder, for years. One doesn't question one's friends does one? They are all such decent chaps! Like fuck they were. There was a coterie of them, the Cambridge Five, Philby was one. The others were Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt (a cousin of the Queen Mother) and Donald MacLean. Who the fifth was is a matter of conjecture still.
The book was well-researched and well-written, a thorough biography of the charismatic, fascinating and clever Philby. Charm and good looks are always difficult to accept in a villain. Evil people are not supposed to look like the handsome prince, but Philby did, and that also played a part in keeping suspicion away from him. Much is made of Philby's personal attributes, much of his betrayal of his country, but perhaps not enough of the many people who were killed directly because of his actions.
Anyone who is responsible for a lot of people murdered by the state in their pursuit of a political or religious purpose is evil. Just because he personally didn't shoot the gun or stab with the poisoned umbrella doesn't make him less culpable. Philby a murderer, from a comfortable distance is all.
Nonetheless, it is a very good book indeed. A cabal of spies, espionage and intrigue, a handsome anti-hero, romantic locations... almost the plot of a film.
The book was well-researched and well-written, a thorough biography of the charismatic, fascinating and clever Philby. Charm and good looks are always difficult to accept in a villain. Evil people are not supposed to look like the handsome prince, but Philby did, and that also played a part in keeping suspicion away from him. Much is made of Philby's personal attributes, much of his betrayal of his country, but perhaps not enough of the many people who were killed directly because of his actions.
Anyone who is responsible for a lot of people murdered by the state in their pursuit of a political or religious purpose is evil. Just because he personally didn't shoot the gun or stab with the poisoned umbrella doesn't make him less culpable. Philby a murderer, from a comfortable distance is all.
Nonetheless, it is a very good book indeed. A cabal of spies, espionage and intrigue, a handsome anti-hero, romantic locations... almost the plot of a film.
May 14, 2022
“The word most consistently used to describe Kim Philby was ‘charm,’ that intoxicating, beguiling, and occasionally lethal English quality. Philby could inspire and convey affection with such ease that few ever noticed they were being charmed. Male and female, old and young, rich and poor, Kim enveloped them all. He looked out at the world with alert, gentle blue eyes from under an unruly forelock. His manners were exceptional: he was always the first to offer you a drink, to ask after your sick mother and remember your children’s names. He loved to laugh, and he loved to drink – and to listen, with deep sincerity and rapt curiosity. ‘He was the sort of man who won worshippers,’ said one contemporary. ‘You didn’t just like him, admire him, agree with him; you worshipped him…’”
- Ben Macintyre, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
Harold Adrian Russell Philby – known to friends, enemies, and history as “Kim” – was one of the most infamous spies of all time, and certainly the most notorious one of the Cold War.
Born into privilege, and given his nickname from the titular character in the Rudyard Kipling novel, Philby got a job with MI6 – Great Britain’s foreign intelligence service – just as the Second World War got under way. As a testament to the oafish old-boy’s-club mentality that pervaded England at the time, Philby was given his position without demonstrating any actual facility for the work, and with no deeper background check than the fact that his parents were “good people.” Had any scrutiny been applied, Philby’s dalliance with communism and his recruitment by Soviet intelligence would have been made known.
Such scrutiny was not applied, however, and Philby became a highly placed Soviet mole, feeding intelligence to the Soviet Union, disrupting British and American operations, and sending dozens – if not hundreds – of men to certain death, after tipping off their missions to his handlers.
***
In approaching this story, Ben Macintyre – who has made a nice career as a bestselling espionage historian – had many different angles from which to choose. For instance, he could have written a biography that explored Philby’s duplicitous character, excavating the psyche of a man who betrayed everyone who ever loved him, all in dubious support for a quasi-criminal regime that never loved him back (and which he did not seem to understand, beyond the repetition of slogans and phrases). Macintyre might also have placed Philby into the context of a larger tale of Cold War spying, discussing his tradecraft, the value of the information he provided, and the costs of his lies.
Instead, A Spy Among Friends focuses intently on a single friendship – between Philby and fellow MI6 officer Nicholas Elliot – using this intimate act of treachery as a symbol of Philby’s much-larger deceits. While this necessarily circumscribes the scope – I wanted more background, more detail – it is certainly effective.
***
A Spy Among Friends is a good example of both the virtues and limitations of popular history. On the plus side, it is extremely well-paced, a sleek and streamlined bit of literature that weighs in at less than 300 pages of text, and which places a premium on clarity and emphasis of dramatic highpoints. This is a book that is fun to read. When I set it down, I looked forward to picking it back up, which is not something I can say about every book I read, even the good ones.
From the start, I was hooked. Macintyre sets the stage by teasing a dramatic Beirut confrontation between Elliot and Philby, circles back to give brief bios on both men, then launches into its saga of a friendship gone very sour. The portraiture is not deep, but it makes an impression, so that you remember all the players, even though their motivations remain elusive. Likewise, Macintyre does not delve into the complexities of geopolitics – a standard John Le Carré novel is at least an order of magnitude harder to follow – but you get enough of the basics to understand the underlying mechanics.
On the downside, the elisions start to accumulate, so that I found it hard to proceed without knowing at least a bit more of what lay beyond the margins. The only times I willingly set A Spy Among Friends down is when I had to hop on the internet for amplification.
***
In his preface, Macintyre is upfront about what he is and is not doing. This is an unapologetic narrative history, meaning that he has chosen from among competing alternatives about what happened, and given a single interpretation that feels seamless.
Of course, nothing in history is seamless, especially when that history is almost entirely populated by professional liars. As a consequence, Macintyre’s presentation might not always be the only version of what happened, or even the best.
This is a reality that is faced by many author-historians, but instead of dealing with it, Macintyre mostly ignores it. Though he refers interested readers to the endnotes, A Spy Among Friends avoids the trappings of academia. It uses the “trailing phrases” method of citation, meaning that there are no superscript numbers alerting you to the fact that you might want to flip to the back pages for a reference. Furthermore, despite Macintyre’s promise to the contrary, I found very little discussion in the endnotes about competing sources and theories.
I am sure there is a method to Macintyre’s consistent simplifying, some market research that says people don’t like their pages “cluttered” with citation signals. He is, after all, a bestselling author. I am not. Still, I found it annoying to have to look elsewhere for supplementary material that should have been contained between these two covers.
***
One of the major themes that emerges – perhaps unintentionally – from A Spy Among Friends is the vast differences between the systems of Great Britain and the United States on one side, and the Soviet Union on the other. It would be naïve to suggest that any major party in this ideological conflict was blameless, morally unreproachable, or ethically pure. But in the spy games of the Cold War, the Soviet Union operated with a distinct advantage. This did not come from a sharper intellect, better methods, or a superior governmental arrangement, but because it was a totalitarian regime, while its foes were not.
One of the reasons Philby lasted so long was the lack of hard evidence to convict him in a court of law. Had Philby been caught spying for Great Britain in the Soviet Union, of course, his fate would have been different. Indeed, at the first hint of suspicion, he would have been tortured until he said what his interrogators wanted. Then, unrestrained by concepts such as due process, any trial would have occurred without counsel, without appeal, and with the sentence to be imposed immediately. After that, he would have been shot in the back of his head, his body quietly disposed. This is the system to which he gave his life, and it is a mystery why he chose this cause, this hill.
***
In 1938, E.M. Forster wrote an essay titled What I Believe, in which he famously stated: “[I]f I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend[,] I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” Philby betrayed both. He betrayed everyone he ever met. Aside from his rampant alcoholism, there is very little to indicate that this bothered him in the least.
- Ben Macintyre, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
Harold Adrian Russell Philby – known to friends, enemies, and history as “Kim” – was one of the most infamous spies of all time, and certainly the most notorious one of the Cold War.
Born into privilege, and given his nickname from the titular character in the Rudyard Kipling novel, Philby got a job with MI6 – Great Britain’s foreign intelligence service – just as the Second World War got under way. As a testament to the oafish old-boy’s-club mentality that pervaded England at the time, Philby was given his position without demonstrating any actual facility for the work, and with no deeper background check than the fact that his parents were “good people.” Had any scrutiny been applied, Philby’s dalliance with communism and his recruitment by Soviet intelligence would have been made known.
Such scrutiny was not applied, however, and Philby became a highly placed Soviet mole, feeding intelligence to the Soviet Union, disrupting British and American operations, and sending dozens – if not hundreds – of men to certain death, after tipping off their missions to his handlers.
***
In approaching this story, Ben Macintyre – who has made a nice career as a bestselling espionage historian – had many different angles from which to choose. For instance, he could have written a biography that explored Philby’s duplicitous character, excavating the psyche of a man who betrayed everyone who ever loved him, all in dubious support for a quasi-criminal regime that never loved him back (and which he did not seem to understand, beyond the repetition of slogans and phrases). Macintyre might also have placed Philby into the context of a larger tale of Cold War spying, discussing his tradecraft, the value of the information he provided, and the costs of his lies.
Instead, A Spy Among Friends focuses intently on a single friendship – between Philby and fellow MI6 officer Nicholas Elliot – using this intimate act of treachery as a symbol of Philby’s much-larger deceits. While this necessarily circumscribes the scope – I wanted more background, more detail – it is certainly effective.
***
A Spy Among Friends is a good example of both the virtues and limitations of popular history. On the plus side, it is extremely well-paced, a sleek and streamlined bit of literature that weighs in at less than 300 pages of text, and which places a premium on clarity and emphasis of dramatic highpoints. This is a book that is fun to read. When I set it down, I looked forward to picking it back up, which is not something I can say about every book I read, even the good ones.
From the start, I was hooked. Macintyre sets the stage by teasing a dramatic Beirut confrontation between Elliot and Philby, circles back to give brief bios on both men, then launches into its saga of a friendship gone very sour. The portraiture is not deep, but it makes an impression, so that you remember all the players, even though their motivations remain elusive. Likewise, Macintyre does not delve into the complexities of geopolitics – a standard John Le Carré novel is at least an order of magnitude harder to follow – but you get enough of the basics to understand the underlying mechanics.
On the downside, the elisions start to accumulate, so that I found it hard to proceed without knowing at least a bit more of what lay beyond the margins. The only times I willingly set A Spy Among Friends down is when I had to hop on the internet for amplification.
***
In his preface, Macintyre is upfront about what he is and is not doing. This is an unapologetic narrative history, meaning that he has chosen from among competing alternatives about what happened, and given a single interpretation that feels seamless.
Of course, nothing in history is seamless, especially when that history is almost entirely populated by professional liars. As a consequence, Macintyre’s presentation might not always be the only version of what happened, or even the best.
This is a reality that is faced by many author-historians, but instead of dealing with it, Macintyre mostly ignores it. Though he refers interested readers to the endnotes, A Spy Among Friends avoids the trappings of academia. It uses the “trailing phrases” method of citation, meaning that there are no superscript numbers alerting you to the fact that you might want to flip to the back pages for a reference. Furthermore, despite Macintyre’s promise to the contrary, I found very little discussion in the endnotes about competing sources and theories.
I am sure there is a method to Macintyre’s consistent simplifying, some market research that says people don’t like their pages “cluttered” with citation signals. He is, after all, a bestselling author. I am not. Still, I found it annoying to have to look elsewhere for supplementary material that should have been contained between these two covers.
***
One of the major themes that emerges – perhaps unintentionally – from A Spy Among Friends is the vast differences between the systems of Great Britain and the United States on one side, and the Soviet Union on the other. It would be naïve to suggest that any major party in this ideological conflict was blameless, morally unreproachable, or ethically pure. But in the spy games of the Cold War, the Soviet Union operated with a distinct advantage. This did not come from a sharper intellect, better methods, or a superior governmental arrangement, but because it was a totalitarian regime, while its foes were not.
One of the reasons Philby lasted so long was the lack of hard evidence to convict him in a court of law. Had Philby been caught spying for Great Britain in the Soviet Union, of course, his fate would have been different. Indeed, at the first hint of suspicion, he would have been tortured until he said what his interrogators wanted. Then, unrestrained by concepts such as due process, any trial would have occurred without counsel, without appeal, and with the sentence to be imposed immediately. After that, he would have been shot in the back of his head, his body quietly disposed. This is the system to which he gave his life, and it is a mystery why he chose this cause, this hill.
***
In 1938, E.M. Forster wrote an essay titled What I Believe, in which he famously stated: “[I]f I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend[,] I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” Philby betrayed both. He betrayed everyone he ever met. Aside from his rampant alcoholism, there is very little to indicate that this bothered him in the least.
March 16, 2023
Ben MacIntyre has written a splendid book. His nonfiction story, A Spy Among Friends, is riveting and unputdownable. I know that's not a word, but it should be. Everyone knows about the traitor, Kim Philby, and there have been many books written about his treasonous acts, but this one focuses on his friendship and betrayal of Nicholas Elliott. They were best buddies and colleagues for decades and came from the same elite background, so when the truth came out, no one was as hurt, baffled and destroyed as Elliott.
The one thing that everyone agrees about Philby is that he was charming. He made, and kept, friends easily; men and women flocked to his side and wanted to be part of his golden group, to be in the in-club with this charismatic and brilliant man. Nicholas Elliott was one of his early converts. What no one realized is that Kim Philby was two men. His other side was ruthless, deadly, and without conscience. He would sacrifice anyone to his cause and many good men were tortured and killed because of the secrets he leaked.
How could anyone live this way? The author doesn't answer that question, but he does let you inside the cold and forbidding world of the spy game.
The one thing that everyone agrees about Philby is that he was charming. He made, and kept, friends easily; men and women flocked to his side and wanted to be part of his golden group, to be in the in-club with this charismatic and brilliant man. Nicholas Elliott was one of his early converts. What no one realized is that Kim Philby was two men. His other side was ruthless, deadly, and without conscience. He would sacrifice anyone to his cause and many good men were tortured and killed because of the secrets he leaked.
How could anyone live this way? The author doesn't answer that question, but he does let you inside the cold and forbidding world of the spy game.
May 13, 2017
What a fascinating subject!
This was the first book I've read about a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring, and it was so interesting I plan to read more. Kim Philby worked for British intelligence, but he was secretly sending information to Russia. He defected to the Soviet Union in 1963. (Fun fact: Philby's betrayal inspired some of the novels by John Le Carré.)
In this book, Macintyre focuses on Philby's longtime friendship with another British intelligence officer, Nicholas Elliott. We learn about both of their lives and their spy work, and we see how many times Philby was close to being discovered. One of the themes in the book is that the class system in England helped protect Philby longer than it should have; it was unthinkable that someone with his education and family background could have been a double agent for the KGB. It was interesting that American intelligence officers were more suspicious of Philby than his British counterparts, in part because the Americans weren't as blinded by his class.
I was impressed with Macintyre's reporting in this book and am interested in reading more of his work. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject.
Opening Passage
This was the first book I've read about a member of the Cambridge Five spy ring, and it was so interesting I plan to read more. Kim Philby worked for British intelligence, but he was secretly sending information to Russia. He defected to the Soviet Union in 1963. (Fun fact: Philby's betrayal inspired some of the novels by John Le Carré.)
In this book, Macintyre focuses on Philby's longtime friendship with another British intelligence officer, Nicholas Elliott. We learn about both of their lives and their spy work, and we see how many times Philby was close to being discovered. One of the themes in the book is that the class system in England helped protect Philby longer than it should have; it was unthinkable that someone with his education and family background could have been a double agent for the KGB. It was interesting that American intelligence officers were more suspicious of Philby than his British counterparts, in part because the Americans weren't as blinded by his class.
"I have always operated on two levels, a personal level and a political one. When the two have come into conflict, I have had to put politics first." - Kim Philby
I was impressed with Macintyre's reporting in this book and am interested in reading more of his work. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject.
Opening Passage
Two middle-aged spies are sitting in an apartment in the Christian Quarter, sipping tea and lying courteously to each other, as evening approaches. They are English -- so English that the habit of politeness that binds them together and keeps them apart never falters for a moment. The sounds of the street waft up through the open window, car horns and horses' hooves mingling with the clink of china and the murmured voices. A microphone, cunningly concealed beneath the sofa, picks up the conversation and passes it along a wire, through a small hole in the wainscotting, and into the next room, where a third man sits hunched over a turning tape recorder, straining to make out the words through Bakelite headphones.
The two men are old friends. They have known each other for nearly thirty years. But they are bitter foes now, combatants on opposing sides of a brutal conflict.
Kim Philby and Nicholas Elliott learned the spy trade together during the Second World War. When that war was over, they rose together through the ranks of British intelligence, sharing every secret. They belonged to the same clubs, drank in the same bars, wore the same well-tailored clothes, and married women of their own tribe. But all that time, Philby had one secret he never shared: he was covertly working for Moscow, taking everything he was told by Elliott and passing it on to his Soviet spymasters.
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December 18, 2021This took me forever to read because I found it super stressful. I just don’t know how you could lie to everyone who cared about you for, like, thirty years though since most of the Cambridge spies appear to have raging alcoholics perhaps it did take its toll.
Anyway, this was deeply fascinating to me. Firstly, it’s just amazingly written, balancing what is clearly a fuck tonne of legit research with a genuine storytelling flair. And secondly, as you can tell from the title, it approaches the enigma of Kim Phiby from a unique perspective: that is through the lens of his interpersonal relationships.
In particular his friendship with Nicholas Elliott, a fellow spy and beneficiary of the old boy network. For all it’s a book centred on Philby, Elliott is a fascinating, quintessentially English figure, and the author’s admiration for him shines through the pages. The highlight and indeed the climax of the book is the final confrontation between Elliott and Philby—for it was Elliott who was ultimately sent to confront him and secure his confession.
This meeting, which was actually recorded and is included here mostly intact, begins with an unsurprised Philby and the words “I rather though it would be you.” And I won’t say any more because it would genuinely spoil the pleasure of reading what is just the most English thing I ever encountered. Two spies, old friends, one of them betrayed by the other so utterly and completely, taking tea together, trying to gut each other with politeness.
There was also quite a lot in here that I found sort of … interestingly appalling or do I mean appallingly interesting. The posh boy’s supper club that was the British intelligence service for most of the twentieth century, Nicholas Elliott essentially securing a job in it by asking a friend of his father’s at Ascot. The fact that Philby basically avoided suspicion by being the right sort of chap from the right sort of background. The arrant hypocrisy of Philby’s commitment to communism: orchestrating the deaths of so many people, living at the heart of capitalist tower, cheerfully writing things like “If you have a lot of money, you can organise your life in a rather pleasant way”. And, of course, what came across to me the as overwhelming futility of whatever we spent the Cold War doing.
It did kind of make me want to be Nicholas Elliott though. I mean, not betrayed by my secretly communist best friend to whom I’d spilled all my government secrets. But what a life to have led.
Anyway, this is great. Super absorbing, gorgeously written, a glimpse at hidden and I sincerely hope lost or at least fading world. The deft little character portraits, in particular, never failed to delight me. Here’s an example of one:
Sheesh, I cannot imagine anything better than being described in a story about someone else as rare and remarkable, alluring to some, but faintly sinister...
Anyway, this was deeply fascinating to me. Firstly, it’s just amazingly written, balancing what is clearly a fuck tonne of legit research with a genuine storytelling flair. And secondly, as you can tell from the title, it approaches the enigma of Kim Phiby from a unique perspective: that is through the lens of his interpersonal relationships.
In particular his friendship with Nicholas Elliott, a fellow spy and beneficiary of the old boy network. For all it’s a book centred on Philby, Elliott is a fascinating, quintessentially English figure, and the author’s admiration for him shines through the pages. The highlight and indeed the climax of the book is the final confrontation between Elliott and Philby—for it was Elliott who was ultimately sent to confront him and secure his confession.
This meeting, which was actually recorded and is included here mostly intact, begins with an unsurprised Philby and the words “I rather though it would be you.” And I won’t say any more because it would genuinely spoil the pleasure of reading what is just the most English thing I ever encountered. Two spies, old friends, one of them betrayed by the other so utterly and completely, taking tea together, trying to gut each other with politeness.
There was also quite a lot in here that I found sort of … interestingly appalling or do I mean appallingly interesting. The posh boy’s supper club that was the British intelligence service for most of the twentieth century, Nicholas Elliott essentially securing a job in it by asking a friend of his father’s at Ascot. The fact that Philby basically avoided suspicion by being the right sort of chap from the right sort of background. The arrant hypocrisy of Philby’s commitment to communism: orchestrating the deaths of so many people, living at the heart of capitalist tower, cheerfully writing things like “If you have a lot of money, you can organise your life in a rather pleasant way”. And, of course, what came across to me the as overwhelming futility of whatever we spent the Cold War doing.
It did kind of make me want to be Nicholas Elliott though. I mean, not betrayed by my secretly communist best friend to whom I’d spilled all my government secrets. But what a life to have led.
Anyway, this is great. Super absorbing, gorgeously written, a glimpse at hidden and I sincerely hope lost or at least fading world. The deft little character portraits, in particular, never failed to delight me. Here’s an example of one:
Angleton was a little like one of the rare orchids he would later cultivate with such dedication: an exotic hybrid, a Mexican-Apache-Midwestern English-sounding poet-spy, rare and remarkable, alluring to some, but faintly sinister to those who prefer simpler flora..
Sheesh, I cannot imagine anything better than being described in a story about someone else as rare and remarkable, alluring to some, but faintly sinister...
July 6, 2021
After re-reading Le Carré's Smiley canon last year, I was left wanting to know more about the real Kim Philby, the man who inspired the Bill Hayden character in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. When I selected this book to fill in that background, I had no idea it had been a huge best seller, was on the annual top books lists for the NYT and the WP, and that it was currently being made into a 6 part television series. I can now say that it is worthy of all that attention.
Initially I knew no more about Philby than that he was part of that Cambridge circle of spies for the USSR that included Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, and that he had defected to Moscow. I vaguely wondered whether I was indulging a lurid interest in this obviously sensational story. That may have been my initial motivation, but the book actually offers so much more.
As the title indicates, Ben Macintyre's principal theme is friendship and betrayal. Philby used his innate relaxed charm and his family ties to ingratiate himself with a wide circle of friends in the intelligence communities he was part of in the UK and the US, and to share their confidences with his Soviet handlers. For nearly 30 years. Think about that. What is in the makeup of someone who can deceive their best friend and their spouses about matters of international intrigue for that length of time? We all have inner secrets, some of which we hold close our entire lives, but I'm guessing that for the most part they do not result in an ongoing series of deaths, or in treason.
Macintyre illustrates the sad and extended denouement of the pre-WWII version of MI6, where family ties and school affiliations were the primary qualifiers for employment. The integrity of a well-bred gentleman was never questioned, and a high value was placed on a gift for bonhomie and for holding one's liquor. As with so many artifacts of life before 1939, these qualities came to be of sentimental value only in the new world. The book is also an excellent primer on the extent to which Anglo-American relations in the espionage realm deteriorated dramatically as a direct result of Philby's perfidy.
A super, super read. It may be non-fiction, but Macintyre writes so well that it moves with the pace of fiction.
Initially I knew no more about Philby than that he was part of that Cambridge circle of spies for the USSR that included Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, and that he had defected to Moscow. I vaguely wondered whether I was indulging a lurid interest in this obviously sensational story. That may have been my initial motivation, but the book actually offers so much more.
As the title indicates, Ben Macintyre's principal theme is friendship and betrayal. Philby used his innate relaxed charm and his family ties to ingratiate himself with a wide circle of friends in the intelligence communities he was part of in the UK and the US, and to share their confidences with his Soviet handlers. For nearly 30 years. Think about that. What is in the makeup of someone who can deceive their best friend and their spouses about matters of international intrigue for that length of time? We all have inner secrets, some of which we hold close our entire lives, but I'm guessing that for the most part they do not result in an ongoing series of deaths, or in treason.
Macintyre illustrates the sad and extended denouement of the pre-WWII version of MI6, where family ties and school affiliations were the primary qualifiers for employment. The integrity of a well-bred gentleman was never questioned, and a high value was placed on a gift for bonhomie and for holding one's liquor. As with so many artifacts of life before 1939, these qualities came to be of sentimental value only in the new world. The book is also an excellent primer on the extent to which Anglo-American relations in the espionage realm deteriorated dramatically as a direct result of Philby's perfidy.
A super, super read. It may be non-fiction, but Macintyre writes so well that it moves with the pace of fiction.
September 1, 2020
In 2018, thirty years after Kim Philby's death, a small and uninteresting square was named after him.
The mayor of Moscow formally named the area in November of that year thus keeping, if only faintly and in rather a dull Soviet way, Philby's name alive in his adopted home of latter years.
How Philby came to be a citizen of the USSR (now Russia) living in a uninspiring flat on 500 rubles a month with visitors and movements controlled and monitored is well described in Ben Macintyre's very readable and engrossing book.
Philby was probably the most successful/damaging spy (depending on your view) in the 20th century if not all time. For years he operated at the highest levels of the British Secret Intelligence Service [SIS also known as MI6] and his double agent career spanned from 1934 until 1963 when he was exposed by his long time and good personal friend Nicholas Elliot in Beirut. This after earlier concerns and a case for his treachery were unproven and he was exonerated in 1955.
Philby's upper-middle class life, his schooling and his time at Cambridge University framed his life like many others. He was well educated, well connected, and like those many others seeing the rise of Fascism and Communism following the years of change and economic turmoil that followed the First World War, interested in how his world would be shaped. These early years and the friendships he made influenced him greatly. Being well educated, well connected with the right background, family and accent he was also a solid fit for Great Britain's SIS.
His recruitment and emersion into the SIS along with his beliefs and his friendship with Nicholas Elliot thus start us on the journey that reads like a novel. Whilst significant papers have not been released by the UK Government for public access at the National Archives, Mr Macintyre has done diligent work to create the story. This includes important conversations and access to papers, including those of Nicholas Elliot and John Le Carre, who had a number of conversations with Elliot specifically on Philby). Moreover, there is a long list of sources and further reading to both see how the story has been researched and events/quotes attributed, as well as official documents such as decrypts of some events where Philby was under-surveillance.
The story of Philby, the wider destructive Cambridge spy-ring and the defections and later lives of the spies is well known and easily accessible through internet sites (sadly but perhaps unsurprisingly nothing on MI6's own). What this book does is give the reader a highly readable, well-researched and sourced account of Philby and his friendship with Nicholas Elliot and other MI5, MI6 and US intelligence agencies that exposed Western highly sensitive knowledge and internal secrets that damaged operations, plans and inter-ally trust as well as leading to the deaths of numerous agents and operatives.
At its simplest level Philby was one of the chaps and was trusted because he was one of the chaps.
Highly recommended.
The mayor of Moscow formally named the area in November of that year thus keeping, if only faintly and in rather a dull Soviet way, Philby's name alive in his adopted home of latter years.
How Philby came to be a citizen of the USSR (now Russia) living in a uninspiring flat on 500 rubles a month with visitors and movements controlled and monitored is well described in Ben Macintyre's very readable and engrossing book.
Philby was probably the most successful/damaging spy (depending on your view) in the 20th century if not all time. For years he operated at the highest levels of the British Secret Intelligence Service [SIS also known as MI6] and his double agent career spanned from 1934 until 1963 when he was exposed by his long time and good personal friend Nicholas Elliot in Beirut. This after earlier concerns and a case for his treachery were unproven and he was exonerated in 1955.
Philby's upper-middle class life, his schooling and his time at Cambridge University framed his life like many others. He was well educated, well connected, and like those many others seeing the rise of Fascism and Communism following the years of change and economic turmoil that followed the First World War, interested in how his world would be shaped. These early years and the friendships he made influenced him greatly. Being well educated, well connected with the right background, family and accent he was also a solid fit for Great Britain's SIS.
His recruitment and emersion into the SIS along with his beliefs and his friendship with Nicholas Elliot thus start us on the journey that reads like a novel. Whilst significant papers have not been released by the UK Government for public access at the National Archives, Mr Macintyre has done diligent work to create the story. This includes important conversations and access to papers, including those of Nicholas Elliot and John Le Carre, who had a number of conversations with Elliot specifically on Philby). Moreover, there is a long list of sources and further reading to both see how the story has been researched and events/quotes attributed, as well as official documents such as decrypts of some events where Philby was under-surveillance.
The story of Philby, the wider destructive Cambridge spy-ring and the defections and later lives of the spies is well known and easily accessible through internet sites (sadly but perhaps unsurprisingly nothing on MI6's own). What this book does is give the reader a highly readable, well-researched and sourced account of Philby and his friendship with Nicholas Elliot and other MI5, MI6 and US intelligence agencies that exposed Western highly sensitive knowledge and internal secrets that damaged operations, plans and inter-ally trust as well as leading to the deaths of numerous agents and operatives.
At its simplest level Philby was one of the chaps and was trusted because he was one of the chaps.
Highly recommended.
August 27, 2017
I wasn't even half-way into this book when I knew it was going to be a 5 star read. The author's fluid writing style could make a book about house cleaning compelling! The story of the Cambridge "old school ties" group of brilliant and charming young men who were the shining lights of British Intelligence during the Cold War is in a word....fantastic. They were led by Kim Philby who rose to head Britain's counterintelligence against the Soviet Union when in fact he and they were deeply imbedded agents of the USSR. The book concentrates solely on Philby with some mention of the other men involved.
The world of counter-intelligence is somewhat like a club of very special people or a family who share all their secrets over drinks and long dinners. Various operations and missions were topics of conversation that they mistakenly supposed would stay secret. Everyone trusted each other and Kim Philby was one of the most popular of this group. Little did they know he was passing everything he heard on to his KGB handlers and many people lost their lives or disappeared when these secret missions/operations were foiled based on his information.
I could write pages about this enthralling book but instead, I would recommend that you read it. You will shake your head in amazement at the devious and clever inner workings of such a trusted man who was a traitor to his country. I have the highest praise for this book.
The world of counter-intelligence is somewhat like a club of very special people or a family who share all their secrets over drinks and long dinners. Various operations and missions were topics of conversation that they mistakenly supposed would stay secret. Everyone trusted each other and Kim Philby was one of the most popular of this group. Little did they know he was passing everything he heard on to his KGB handlers and many people lost their lives or disappeared when these secret missions/operations were foiled based on his information.
I could write pages about this enthralling book but instead, I would recommend that you read it. You will shake your head in amazement at the devious and clever inner workings of such a trusted man who was a traitor to his country. I have the highest praise for this book.
December 27, 2022
*** RE-READ as research for the spy portions of my new novel-in-progress, this time with my focus on Angleton rather than Philby ... every bit as good ... in CIA business, who can be trusted? ... nobody
An outstanding read. It is so difficult to believe that Kim Philby got away with his lies and multiple lives for so long, but there it is, he did. It is tempting to admire his skills, except when remembering how many hundreds of others died as a result of those skills, and how many lives of wives and friends were also ruined by him. It is frightening to think that both British and US intelligence were so taken in, and to consider the possibility that other moles are at work today on both sides of the Atlantic.
This is part of the assigned reading for a course my wife and I will be taking at Oxford next month on British spies in fact and fiction. Other reading includes several of LeCarre's novels. The course should be fascinating.
An outstanding read. It is so difficult to believe that Kim Philby got away with his lies and multiple lives for so long, but there it is, he did. It is tempting to admire his skills, except when remembering how many hundreds of others died as a result of those skills, and how many lives of wives and friends were also ruined by him. It is frightening to think that both British and US intelligence were so taken in, and to consider the possibility that other moles are at work today on both sides of the Atlantic.
This is part of the assigned reading for a course my wife and I will be taking at Oxford next month on British spies in fact and fiction. Other reading includes several of LeCarre's novels. The course should be fascinating.
November 8, 2022
almost 4 ☆
Harold Adrian Russell Philby, aka "Kim" Philby, adroitly epitomized these two attributes for several decades. Philby initially worked as a war correspondent during the 1930s before he joined and then quickly ascended the career ladder at the British Secret Intelligence Service (aka MI6). But his true loyalty was to the Communist principles espoused by the USSR for whom Philby had diligently spied since graduating from Cambridge.
For A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, author Ben Macintyre didn't want to present a "straight" biography [which doesn't seem possible anyway as many official documents remain classified]. So Macintyre decided on a chronological narrative which gave substantial weight to Philby's two closest professional colleagues: Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton of the CIA. Both Elliott and Angleton had believed that they had forged a solid friendship with a fellow spy who shared their political values. But Philby was exploiting these relationships for intelligence to pass to his Soviet handlers. A Spy Among Friends is an account of betrayal of wives, friends, and country that resulted in innumerable deaths.
Astonishingly, Philby's success as a Communist spy was attributable to his socioeconomic status as a privileged member of British society. That position enabled his entry into MI6 and it also protected him when suspicions began to be raised. The Security Service (equivalent to the FBI) or MI5 was more determined than MI6 about investigating Philby. And since Philby was a member of the class that believed deep down that they were born to rule Britain, he benefited from a
This was my second nonfiction by Macintyre. While well-written and interesting, this exhibited much less narrative tension than The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War. In the copious amount of name-dropping, Macintyre had also included perhaps too many anecdotes of espionage and special ops from WWII and the Cold War period. This lacked the depth of coverage of my first Macintyre book.
If the reader is a fan of espionage novels, then A Spy Among Friends will also provide interesting fodder for speculation. John le Carré, Ian Fleming, and Graham Greene were all contemporaneous alumni of MI6 and they had drawn upon their earlier career experiences. I had always thought that the James Bond movies were farfetched but apparently they reflected some truths as Macintyre made at least one explicit connection. And as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was published in the 1970s, le Carré had likely been inspired by the Philby affair.
I had listened to the audiobook over a 2.5 week period. While it was easy enough to follow each vignette, the audiobook simultaneously felt a bit disjointed if one only cared to focus on Philby. In this respect, I would recommend the printed edition over the audiobook. Although Macintyre had included possible explanations for Philby's motives, Philby still seemed an opaque character by the end of the book. But regardless, this man had inflicted upon British and American espionage campaigns inestimable damage.
Spies, even more than most people, invent the past to cover up mistakes.
"The privately educated Englishman is the greatest dissembler of earth."
~ John le Carré
Harold Adrian Russell Philby, aka "Kim" Philby, adroitly epitomized these two attributes for several decades. Philby initially worked as a war correspondent during the 1930s before he joined and then quickly ascended the career ladder at the British Secret Intelligence Service (aka MI6). But his true loyalty was to the Communist principles espoused by the USSR for whom Philby had diligently spied since graduating from Cambridge.
Soviet intelligence was playing a long game, laying down seed corn that could be harvested many years hence or left dormant forever. It was a simple, brilliant, durable strategy of the sort that only a state committed to permanent world revolution could have initiated. It would prove staggeringly successful.
[In 1944,] Philby, the veteran Soviet spy, was now in charge of Britain’s anti-Soviet intelligence operations, in a position to inform Moscow not only of what Britain was doing to counter Soviet espionage but also of Britain’s own espionage efforts against Moscow. The fox was not merely guarding the henhouse but building it, running it, assessing its strengths and frailties, and planning its future construction.
For A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal, author Ben Macintyre didn't want to present a "straight" biography [which doesn't seem possible anyway as many official documents remain classified]. So Macintyre decided on a chronological narrative which gave substantial weight to Philby's two closest professional colleagues: Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton of the CIA. Both Elliott and Angleton had believed that they had forged a solid friendship with a fellow spy who shared their political values. But Philby was exploiting these relationships for intelligence to pass to his Soviet handlers. A Spy Among Friends is an account of betrayal of wives, friends, and country that resulted in innumerable deaths.
"On the subject of friendship, I'd prefer to say as little as possible, because it's very complicated." ~ Kim Philby
No one likes to admit they have been utterly conned. The truth was simpler, as it almost always is: Philby was spying on everyone, and no one was spying on him, because he fooled them all.
Astonishingly, Philby's success as a Communist spy was attributable to his socioeconomic status as a privileged member of British society. That position enabled his entry into MI6 and it also protected him when suspicions began to be raised. The Security Service (equivalent to the FBI) or MI5 was more determined than MI6 about investigating Philby. And since Philby was a member of the class that believed deep down that they were born to rule Britain, he benefited from a
... a cultural fault line that predated this crisis, long outlasted it, and persists today. MI5 and MI6 ... overlapped in many respects but were fundamentally dissimilar in outlook... MI6 was more of public school and Oxbridge; its accent more refined, its tailoring better. Its agents and officers frequently broke the law of other countries in pursuit of secrets, and did so with a certain swagger. MI6 was White's Club; MI5 was the Rotary Club; MI6 was upper-middle class (and sometimes aristocratic); MI5 was middle class (and sometimes working class). In the minute gradations of social stratification that meant so much in Britain, MI5 was "below the salt," a little common, and MI6 was gentlemanly, elitist, and old school tie.
MI5 looked up at MI6 with resentment; MI6 looked down with a small but ill-hidden sneer.
Many of Philby’s colleagues in MI6 would cling to that presumption of innocence as an article of faith. To accept otherwise would be to admit that they had all been fooled; it would make the intelligence and diplomatic services look entirely idiotic.
This was my second nonfiction by Macintyre. While well-written and interesting, this exhibited much less narrative tension than The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War. In the copious amount of name-dropping, Macintyre had also included perhaps too many anecdotes of espionage and special ops from WWII and the Cold War period. This lacked the depth of coverage of my first Macintyre book.
If the reader is a fan of espionage novels, then A Spy Among Friends will also provide interesting fodder for speculation. John le Carré, Ian Fleming, and Graham Greene were all contemporaneous alumni of MI6 and they had drawn upon their earlier career experiences. I had always thought that the James Bond movies were farfetched but apparently they reflected some truths as Macintyre made at least one explicit connection. And as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was published in the 1970s, le Carré had likely been inspired by the Philby affair.
I had listened to the audiobook over a 2.5 week period. While it was easy enough to follow each vignette, the audiobook simultaneously felt a bit disjointed if one only cared to focus on Philby. In this respect, I would recommend the printed edition over the audiobook. Although Macintyre had included possible explanations for Philby's motives, Philby still seemed an opaque character by the end of the book. But regardless, this man had inflicted upon British and American espionage campaigns inestimable damage.
Philby's escape from justice was proof of "how clubmanship and the old school tie could protect their own."
October 29, 2018
Unpopular opinion time: This book is one of the most boring books I’ve ever read. I’m including textbooks that I’ve read and reviewed when I say this too.
It pains me to give this book such a low rating because 1) I was recommended this book by my friend Christian and 2) I knew about the subject matter and was interested in learning more. This book is just written in a way that makes it so hard to get into; it wasn’t until about halfway into the book that I got interested yet I still found my interest waning. It’s a shame because Christian mentioned this book “is written differently from other nonfiction books I’ve read in the past,” which made me hope this book would get better. It reminds me of another biography book called “American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee” by Karen Abbott. (I didn’t enjoy that book much either so maybe I should have known better and DNFed this book. Oh well...)
This book is hard to classify: it is a biography of perhaps the most famous traitor of the modern era but is written as a series of anecdotes compiled by author Ben Macintyre. To a large extent, the book portrays Kim Philby as a suave, gregarious member of the Old Boy network, taking advantage of his closest friends, especially Nicholas Elliot and James Angleton. In my opinion, there were too many characters, perhaps a tool to deflect attention from the lack of verifiable facts and conversations, such as Philby's admission of guilt to Elliot.
This book was a bestseller and won a literary award (Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography) in 2015. I believe this is a bestseller primarily due to the subject matter as I can see why this story would appeal to readers all across the genres. It is really an unbelievable and unique account of the worldwide spy and intelligence network during and after World War II. It has all the ingredients of the most intriguing spy fiction, and clearly offered much of the context of classics such as John le Carre's 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' which features the intrepid quest behind the scenes to uncover the mole working at the heart of the British intelligence community.
The author, Mr. Macintyre, spent some time in the introduction saying that this would not be a simple restatement of the case of Kim Philby and that it would instead be an examination of Philby as seen through his various friendships. The book achieved neither of these aims very well, firstly because it is a simple restatement of the facts (as we know them) of Philby's secret life, and the hook of the book, being Philby's friendship with Nicholas Elliott, in the end was nothing more than a peg to hang the narrative on.
Also the author took great pains to say that we don't know all of the facts of this case because MI5 and MI6 have never released them but then made his own regular, and sweeping, conclusions based on nothing more than hunches. This would be troublesome in a normal non-fiction narrative and so I'm not sure quite how the author can make concrete statements about what any of these professional dissemblers must and must not have meant; it is dangerous to say the least. I can’t believe that so many seemingly intelligent educated British men were so easily recruited by the KGB to serve the evil purposes of betraying one’s country, choosing communism over freedom, and that some of them continued to serve this purpose even after some of these evils had been widely exposed. It is tragic but in some ways fitting that those spies that sought refuge in Russia rather than face trial in their home country (Great Britain). They might have been “free” but their days were spent as loners trusted by neither country and no doubt hounded by their collective conscience and those they sent to their deaths...or maybe not in the case of Kilby.
Another odd thing was that I didn't count how often Guy Burgess was mentioned but every time he was homosexual. I understand that there were laws about homosexuality in Great Britain during that time, but we didn’t need to be reminded that he was homosexual by having sex with men, had male “servants” he traveled with, and throwing parties showing off his “lifestyle,” etc. I thought constantly mentioning whether someone was or wasn't homosexual was odd. I found someone else noticed this repetition and it made me really glad I wasn’t the only one.
If this was an Audible purchase, I would have returned it before finishing, but thankfully I got a free copy from my local library. This book literally put me to sleep and almost made my husband fall asleep too. I found the final one third of the book most interesting. How he was eventually discovered as a traitor and the outcome of players is what really brought it home (even though I was already familiar with this case I still enjoyed hearing how it all came to an end). Not enough to recommend it but enough for me to say, “Yeah, I guess I can see why some people would like it but it wasn’t for me.”
In summary, this book is overwhelming with information that may confuse a lot of readers, especially if you’re not familiar with the happenings of this case, but it’s mostly factual information. Be aware that we will never fully know all the information due to Great Britain and Russia’s governments “red tape” on these matters. Most information in book is already known or comes from transcripts of interviews and documents turned in by those mentioned in book. If this book interests you give it a shot.
Note: I really struggle with rating this book. Personally I want to give it a 1 star as I feel I won’t remember it and there are more fun options to learn about Kim Philby and the mess he made. I also didn’t learn anything new as I was already familiar with most of this information since I’m a history buff. However, I know many people who read this book may not be familiar with this subject material. This is why I have decided to give it a 2 star rating. After thinking about it, my opinion may be unpopular but it is mine so I might lower my rating in the future.
It pains me to give this book such a low rating because 1) I was recommended this book by my friend Christian and 2) I knew about the subject matter and was interested in learning more. This book is just written in a way that makes it so hard to get into; it wasn’t until about halfway into the book that I got interested yet I still found my interest waning. It’s a shame because Christian mentioned this book “is written differently from other nonfiction books I’ve read in the past,” which made me hope this book would get better. It reminds me of another biography book called “American Rose: A Nation Laid Bare: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee” by Karen Abbott. (I didn’t enjoy that book much either so maybe I should have known better and DNFed this book. Oh well...)
This book is hard to classify: it is a biography of perhaps the most famous traitor of the modern era but is written as a series of anecdotes compiled by author Ben Macintyre. To a large extent, the book portrays Kim Philby as a suave, gregarious member of the Old Boy network, taking advantage of his closest friends, especially Nicholas Elliot and James Angleton. In my opinion, there were too many characters, perhaps a tool to deflect attention from the lack of verifiable facts and conversations, such as Philby's admission of guilt to Elliot.
This book was a bestseller and won a literary award (Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography) in 2015. I believe this is a bestseller primarily due to the subject matter as I can see why this story would appeal to readers all across the genres. It is really an unbelievable and unique account of the worldwide spy and intelligence network during and after World War II. It has all the ingredients of the most intriguing spy fiction, and clearly offered much of the context of classics such as John le Carre's 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' which features the intrepid quest behind the scenes to uncover the mole working at the heart of the British intelligence community.
The author, Mr. Macintyre, spent some time in the introduction saying that this would not be a simple restatement of the case of Kim Philby and that it would instead be an examination of Philby as seen through his various friendships. The book achieved neither of these aims very well, firstly because it is a simple restatement of the facts (as we know them) of Philby's secret life, and the hook of the book, being Philby's friendship with Nicholas Elliott, in the end was nothing more than a peg to hang the narrative on.
Also the author took great pains to say that we don't know all of the facts of this case because MI5 and MI6 have never released them but then made his own regular, and sweeping, conclusions based on nothing more than hunches. This would be troublesome in a normal non-fiction narrative and so I'm not sure quite how the author can make concrete statements about what any of these professional dissemblers must and must not have meant; it is dangerous to say the least. I can’t believe that so many seemingly intelligent educated British men were so easily recruited by the KGB to serve the evil purposes of betraying one’s country, choosing communism over freedom, and that some of them continued to serve this purpose even after some of these evils had been widely exposed. It is tragic but in some ways fitting that those spies that sought refuge in Russia rather than face trial in their home country (Great Britain). They might have been “free” but their days were spent as loners trusted by neither country and no doubt hounded by their collective conscience and those they sent to their deaths...or maybe not in the case of Kilby.
Another odd thing was that I didn't count how often Guy Burgess was mentioned but every time he was homosexual. I understand that there were laws about homosexuality in Great Britain during that time, but we didn’t need to be reminded that he was homosexual by having sex with men, had male “servants” he traveled with, and throwing parties showing off his “lifestyle,” etc. I thought constantly mentioning whether someone was or wasn't homosexual was odd. I found someone else noticed this repetition and it made me really glad I wasn’t the only one.
If this was an Audible purchase, I would have returned it before finishing, but thankfully I got a free copy from my local library. This book literally put me to sleep and almost made my husband fall asleep too. I found the final one third of the book most interesting. How he was eventually discovered as a traitor and the outcome of players is what really brought it home (even though I was already familiar with this case I still enjoyed hearing how it all came to an end). Not enough to recommend it but enough for me to say, “Yeah, I guess I can see why some people would like it but it wasn’t for me.”
In summary, this book is overwhelming with information that may confuse a lot of readers, especially if you’re not familiar with the happenings of this case, but it’s mostly factual information. Be aware that we will never fully know all the information due to Great Britain and Russia’s governments “red tape” on these matters. Most information in book is already known or comes from transcripts of interviews and documents turned in by those mentioned in book. If this book interests you give it a shot.
Note: I really struggle with rating this book. Personally I want to give it a 1 star as I feel I won’t remember it and there are more fun options to learn about Kim Philby and the mess he made. I also didn’t learn anything new as I was already familiar with most of this information since I’m a history buff. However, I know many people who read this book may not be familiar with this subject material. This is why I have decided to give it a 2 star rating. After thinking about it, my opinion may be unpopular but it is mine so I might lower my rating in the future.
November 28, 2014
For Americans, the name "Benedict Arnold" is synonymous with traitor. (Arnold was an officer in the Continental Army with a distinguished combat record during the American War of Independence who later changed sides and fought with the British.) Taken in the larger context of the Cold War, the same can be said for Harold Adrian Russell Philby - aka Kim Philby.
Philby was one of those men of Britain's interwar generation hailing from a privileged class who, upon graduating from Oxford or Cambridge, were expected to make their mark upon the world and lead it. In Philby's case, as the son of a distinguished, eccentric and distant father, he learned early how to ingratiate and endear himself with people. In his early 20s, Philby became a convert to Soviet Communism and devoted his life in service to the Soviet Union. What is remarkable in Philby's case is how he was able for close to 30 years to live, in effect, two lives. The one of an urbane, witty, charming, and suave Englishman (who rose to the highest ranks of Britain's MI6, which is analogous to the CIA) --- coupled with that of a Soviet spy --- a mole --- who faithfully served Moscow Centre by compromising a whole host of Allied/Western espionage operations dating from the Second World War to the early 1960s (when he defected to Moscow).
In reading this book, I was amazed at how the British "old boy network" operated in terms of both promoting and protecting its own in its intelligence services (MI5 and MI6). The following observations made by the author I found both interesting and startling ---
"... Philby's life developed a pattern of duality, in which he consistently undermined his own work, but never aroused suspicion. He made elaborate plans to combat Soviet intelligence, and then immediately betrayed them to Soviet intelligence; he urged ever greater efforts to combat the communist threat, and personified that threat; his own section worked smoothly, yet nothing quite succeeded."
"During the war, the Bletchley Park decoders had enabled Britain to discover what German intelligence was doing. Philby's espionage went one better: he could tell his Soviet handlers what Britain's spymasters were intending to do, before they did it; he could tell Moscow what London was thinking."
This is a book that provides the reader with "a chilling examination of how far anyone can ever really know another human being."
Philby was one of those men of Britain's interwar generation hailing from a privileged class who, upon graduating from Oxford or Cambridge, were expected to make their mark upon the world and lead it. In Philby's case, as the son of a distinguished, eccentric and distant father, he learned early how to ingratiate and endear himself with people. In his early 20s, Philby became a convert to Soviet Communism and devoted his life in service to the Soviet Union. What is remarkable in Philby's case is how he was able for close to 30 years to live, in effect, two lives. The one of an urbane, witty, charming, and suave Englishman (who rose to the highest ranks of Britain's MI6, which is analogous to the CIA) --- coupled with that of a Soviet spy --- a mole --- who faithfully served Moscow Centre by compromising a whole host of Allied/Western espionage operations dating from the Second World War to the early 1960s (when he defected to Moscow).
In reading this book, I was amazed at how the British "old boy network" operated in terms of both promoting and protecting its own in its intelligence services (MI5 and MI6). The following observations made by the author I found both interesting and startling ---
"... Philby's life developed a pattern of duality, in which he consistently undermined his own work, but never aroused suspicion. He made elaborate plans to combat Soviet intelligence, and then immediately betrayed them to Soviet intelligence; he urged ever greater efforts to combat the communist threat, and personified that threat; his own section worked smoothly, yet nothing quite succeeded."
"During the war, the Bletchley Park decoders had enabled Britain to discover what German intelligence was doing. Philby's espionage went one better: he could tell his Soviet handlers what Britain's spymasters were intending to do, before they did it; he could tell Moscow what London was thinking."
This is a book that provides the reader with "a chilling examination of how far anyone can ever really know another human being."
May 4, 2014
How amused and flattered the infamous British traitor Kim Philby would be to discover he is again the subject of fascinated scrutiny in his home country and in America fifty years after his defection to Moscow. Ben MacIntyre has managed to reignite interest in Philby by presenting the most rounded and detailed picture yet of this uniquely talented and duplicitous man with the use of newly declassified material from MI6 files.
Kim Philby rose within the ranks of British Intelligence and gave secrets to the Soviets during WWII and at the beginning of the Cold War. The outwardly charming diplomat was responsible for the deaths of possibly hundreds of covert agents working in British interests. The especial charm he radiated may have come from his “flashes of insecurity beneath his debonair exterior, the unpredictable stammer…his intellectual curiosity…and his old-world manners.” [Yuri Modin] But reading about a man whose great skill was “charm” falls strangely flat without access to the man himself; it is a little like trying to describe the performance of a great actor. In order for the reading audience to really understand how this man escaped censure for so long, we need to see the man in action.
Fortunately, Macintyre seems to have understood this and the publication of his book in Britain was accompanied by a two-part BBC documentary showing essential photographs and a (too short) video clip of Philby’s 1955 demurral of his involvement with earlier defectors Burgess and Maclean. Macintyre calls the videotaped press conference a “virtuoso performance” revealing a master of duplicity and misdirection, yet he shows us only a fraction of its contents. The November ’55 press conference is apparently still used as a MI6 training tool: “a master class in mendacity.”
One other audio record of Kim Philby we know exists: Philby’s debriefing in 1963 Beirut by his longtime friend and colleague, Nicholas Elliott. We need to hear, not just read, this interview in order to make our own assessment of Philby’s extraordinary charm and manipulative skill, but that debriefing is still being withheld by MI6.
For these reasons, Macintyre’s description of Philby’s legendary rise within the ranks of British Intelligence is incomplete and two-dimensional, despite the fulsome detail that is far more exciting than any fiction. It still boggles the mind that Philby was allowed the access he was; only his particular personality can explain that access. People who knew Philby often used the same words to describe Philby’s effect on people, which only serves to further occlude our vision of the man and his talent. Like the story of the blind man and the elephant, this biography catches some truths but the reader has the disconcerting feeling that the man himself has once again absconded with his secrets intact.
One could argue that good nonfiction cannot answer every question but is successful if it impels a reader to avidly seek out additional materials in the subject area. By this standard, MacIntyre’s book succeeds admirably. While at first I was entranced by MacIntyre’s concurrent descriptions of Philby’s work for British Intelligence and his work for the Soviet Comintern, by the end of MacIntyre’s book I had more questions than answers about Philby and the reaction to him in Britain. MacIntyre also, in order to propel the narrative I suppose, was a bit sketchy with dates. I needed some basic scaffolding to support my queries.
To fill in some of the holes in my understanding, I found the gossipy 1980 history by Douglas Sutherland, The Great Betrayal: The Definitive Story of Blunt, Philby, Burgess, and MacLean, a useful addition to MacIntyre’s since it came at the material from a different angle, and gave me a more solid understanding of the thinking in MI5 and -6.
That MI6 did not react to Philby’s betrayal in the way we might expect--by jailing Philby, for instance—was something I needed to understand more fully. Sutherland’s analysis was “that under no circumstances could we have afforded to put [Philby] on trial. He was a man of immense ambition, hungry for power and with a mental dexterity which made him a very formidable character…he might have convinced a jury that he was the innocent victim of a witch hunt…” MacIntyre makes the point that the spy agencies in Britain couldn’t go through a drawn-out trial revealing the vast amount of damage Philby had wreaked upon them. So they stood by and let him defect to Moscow.
Sutherland’s account helped me to grasp that in those days the British government had a completely different reaction than the average citizen might expect to the discovery that some of their intelligence agents were spies. In some ways those defections, identified by former KGB Controller Yuri Modin in his book My Five Cambridge Friends: Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt, and Cairncross by Their KGB Controller, shaped the government we have and the people we are today. Loss of faith by government, and in government are two different things. Kim Philby, charismatic British traitor, had something to do with both.
Another thing I needed to understand after reading MacIntyre’s history was what spies actually do. I believe MacIntyre expects us to already understand this and he is not going to be the one to reveal any real secrets. The spies in this book don’t act like my idea of spies, and the government that uncovers them doesn’t act like any government I’ve known. These spies spend a great deal of time drinking and carousing with other spies, and everyone seems to know who they are. The only ones that appear to use spy craft are those acting as double agents. And our drunken spies don’t reveal anything either, according to MacIntyre, except to each other.
Yuri Modin ran five British spies for only a short time (1948-1951) but he is frank in what makes a successful spy: “I know from experience that a high IQ should never be the main criterion for recruiting the average secret agent…On the other hand, certain other qualities…are absolutely essential for a spy…he should have a childish, gleeful, mischievous side to his nature…I also believe that a good intelligence agent should have a strong political awareness. [A good agent will] possess physical and moral strength…being in good physical shape will help him stand up to all kinds of peculiarly nasty pressures…[and] will help him to view problems with complete clarity…” Philby was a long-term penetration agent working in Soviet interests, “probably the best ever.”
MacIntyre also points out the insular world of spies at the time shared the common vocabulary of public schools, private clubs, and high-born parents. Many simply could not conceive that ‘one of their own’ could or would deceive them so completely for so long. I expect that has changed now.
This is a blood-curdling story of deception and intrigue, one that must be read alongside the documentary. It is an unsettling, but essential read.
An advance of this title was sent to me as part of First Reads from librarything.com and Netgalley.com. The advance does not have photographs, but I understand the hardcopy, when it is released in the United States in July 2014, will have pictures of the personalities featured in this book.
Kim Philby rose within the ranks of British Intelligence and gave secrets to the Soviets during WWII and at the beginning of the Cold War. The outwardly charming diplomat was responsible for the deaths of possibly hundreds of covert agents working in British interests. The especial charm he radiated may have come from his “flashes of insecurity beneath his debonair exterior, the unpredictable stammer…his intellectual curiosity…and his old-world manners.” [Yuri Modin] But reading about a man whose great skill was “charm” falls strangely flat without access to the man himself; it is a little like trying to describe the performance of a great actor. In order for the reading audience to really understand how this man escaped censure for so long, we need to see the man in action.
Fortunately, Macintyre seems to have understood this and the publication of his book in Britain was accompanied by a two-part BBC documentary showing essential photographs and a (too short) video clip of Philby’s 1955 demurral of his involvement with earlier defectors Burgess and Maclean. Macintyre calls the videotaped press conference a “virtuoso performance” revealing a master of duplicity and misdirection, yet he shows us only a fraction of its contents. The November ’55 press conference is apparently still used as a MI6 training tool: “a master class in mendacity.”
One other audio record of Kim Philby we know exists: Philby’s debriefing in 1963 Beirut by his longtime friend and colleague, Nicholas Elliott. We need to hear, not just read, this interview in order to make our own assessment of Philby’s extraordinary charm and manipulative skill, but that debriefing is still being withheld by MI6.
For these reasons, Macintyre’s description of Philby’s legendary rise within the ranks of British Intelligence is incomplete and two-dimensional, despite the fulsome detail that is far more exciting than any fiction. It still boggles the mind that Philby was allowed the access he was; only his particular personality can explain that access. People who knew Philby often used the same words to describe Philby’s effect on people, which only serves to further occlude our vision of the man and his talent. Like the story of the blind man and the elephant, this biography catches some truths but the reader has the disconcerting feeling that the man himself has once again absconded with his secrets intact.
One could argue that good nonfiction cannot answer every question but is successful if it impels a reader to avidly seek out additional materials in the subject area. By this standard, MacIntyre’s book succeeds admirably. While at first I was entranced by MacIntyre’s concurrent descriptions of Philby’s work for British Intelligence and his work for the Soviet Comintern, by the end of MacIntyre’s book I had more questions than answers about Philby and the reaction to him in Britain. MacIntyre also, in order to propel the narrative I suppose, was a bit sketchy with dates. I needed some basic scaffolding to support my queries.
To fill in some of the holes in my understanding, I found the gossipy 1980 history by Douglas Sutherland, The Great Betrayal: The Definitive Story of Blunt, Philby, Burgess, and MacLean, a useful addition to MacIntyre’s since it came at the material from a different angle, and gave me a more solid understanding of the thinking in MI5 and -6.
That MI6 did not react to Philby’s betrayal in the way we might expect--by jailing Philby, for instance—was something I needed to understand more fully. Sutherland’s analysis was “that under no circumstances could we have afforded to put [Philby] on trial. He was a man of immense ambition, hungry for power and with a mental dexterity which made him a very formidable character…he might have convinced a jury that he was the innocent victim of a witch hunt…” MacIntyre makes the point that the spy agencies in Britain couldn’t go through a drawn-out trial revealing the vast amount of damage Philby had wreaked upon them. So they stood by and let him defect to Moscow.
Sutherland’s account helped me to grasp that in those days the British government had a completely different reaction than the average citizen might expect to the discovery that some of their intelligence agents were spies. In some ways those defections, identified by former KGB Controller Yuri Modin in his book My Five Cambridge Friends: Burgess, Maclean, Philby, Blunt, and Cairncross by Their KGB Controller, shaped the government we have and the people we are today. Loss of faith by government, and in government are two different things. Kim Philby, charismatic British traitor, had something to do with both.
Another thing I needed to understand after reading MacIntyre’s history was what spies actually do. I believe MacIntyre expects us to already understand this and he is not going to be the one to reveal any real secrets. The spies in this book don’t act like my idea of spies, and the government that uncovers them doesn’t act like any government I’ve known. These spies spend a great deal of time drinking and carousing with other spies, and everyone seems to know who they are. The only ones that appear to use spy craft are those acting as double agents. And our drunken spies don’t reveal anything either, according to MacIntyre, except to each other.
Yuri Modin ran five British spies for only a short time (1948-1951) but he is frank in what makes a successful spy: “I know from experience that a high IQ should never be the main criterion for recruiting the average secret agent…On the other hand, certain other qualities…are absolutely essential for a spy…he should have a childish, gleeful, mischievous side to his nature…I also believe that a good intelligence agent should have a strong political awareness. [A good agent will] possess physical and moral strength…being in good physical shape will help him stand up to all kinds of peculiarly nasty pressures…[and] will help him to view problems with complete clarity…” Philby was a long-term penetration agent working in Soviet interests, “probably the best ever.”
MacIntyre also points out the insular world of spies at the time shared the common vocabulary of public schools, private clubs, and high-born parents. Many simply could not conceive that ‘one of their own’ could or would deceive them so completely for so long. I expect that has changed now.
This is a blood-curdling story of deception and intrigue, one that must be read alongside the documentary. It is an unsettling, but essential read.
An advance of this title was sent to me as part of First Reads from librarything.com and Netgalley.com. The advance does not have photographs, but I understand the hardcopy, when it is released in the United States in July 2014, will have pictures of the personalities featured in this book.
December 11, 2014
Superlative! Difficult read, complex and astonishing lives. This book and author has put me into what I'm going to call my Covert Phase of reading. Once I read almost nothing but Russians for a year, and wonder if that is going to happen with another genre so many decades later. And I didn't even see it coming. This stuff is outstanding non-fiction. And also reveals far more historical perception and actions than most current publication, most of which are 75% spin and slant. This method is superior, both for theory analysis and for factual passage recounting historical occurrence in exact chronology. History is related "true" within context of that era's "eyes". It is about context, not just personality or event.
"In Britain Philby had been too British to be doubted: in Russia he was too British to be believed."
That's at the end of this book, but only in Kim Philby's last "home" place. What a read! Complex, emotional, intricate meshing of family, deep friendship, loyalties of school and association from boyhood, and an ultimate shared inner circle of their culture- just one window, ALL of those things, context entwined into this true tale.
Oh, and dare I mention, that the Russia of 2014, has this man's picture upon an edition of their postage stamp.
Btw, I think you should read the Afterward by John Le Carre first. And be prepared to study those notes at the end, as well. IMHO, this would be even harder at Kindle read stride and form. I used the end notes, reread passages, and flipped those paper pages quite a bit. This read is daunting and not for the faint hearted for comprehensive associations/ connections needed. You won't find lovely or lyrical preciousness here in this reading. You will find the deepest of emotions and tensions. Torrents of liquor and more marriages and infidelities than easily tractable, oh, you will find those. Coupled in great majority within the highest quality living spaces, amidst glamorous, top connected and costly establishments too. Our two main protagonists, best friends and the smartest, most charming, and witty fellows upon more than a few continents almost always travel and live in wondrous surroundings.
Also it is genius, absolutely genius, in the method of relating this complex scenario. Telling the "what" from the inside out, as the tale of two friends, THEIR history. So that the "why" and "how" of this telling, becomes secondary and understood to its grim, grim reality as a by blow. Masterly. Who would know you more? Doesn't the friend of 40 years understand you? Doesn't the husband of a decade know the wife, or doesn't she know he?
This man, Kim Philby, grasped an ideologue concept before he was 21 years of age, and in such a way- that all else in his entire lifetime was secondary to its perceived goal. That is terrifying to me.
The most popular, loved, and celebrated! An individual of hilarious stories and most belly laughed jokes of the moment. Never dull, never unkind, never unappreciative. And at the same time he was sending hundreds at a time to their certain deaths. Just count the numbers of individuals from the Volkov connection alone that had their entire family, down to second cousins- "disappear" into the gulags. 60 million from Stalin years alone, and these close associations looked upon as unfortunate sacrifices for the "better" Communist society that would eventually follow? What a psyche!
Elliot too. The last 50 pages of this book is beyond mesmerizing. 6 star level. How do you process this kind of duplicity? Especially if you are so superior at nuance yourself? And Eleanor? What choices in that ending? She sure was more intrepid than sane in her eventual decision, IMHO.
But finally, the most intriguing principle in all of this, is how the initial party or politico ideology bought solidly in such a whole piece, can and will impart rationalizations to this degree far beyond any logic or truth of outcomes. Scary, scary stuff. Highly visible today too. In fact, it's wearing several more hats. Insane rationalizations out of a belief system that is seemingly universal, religious, and/or lovingly with "empathy" based.
Plus the continual blindness of 3 separate severe occasions, each nearly a decade apart too, when Philby's was an obvious involvement. Philby was culturally "examined" and found safe and supremely handy for future trust because of his societal and intellectual fit.
This man in end results negated the entire positive output of British M15, M16 information from 1944-57. That's 100's to 1000's of humans who toiled undercover and in organizational structure for nil. Plus the deaths of 1000's goes on Philby's plate, as well. And then for 5 more years, it was at least partial negation result for his birth country's knowledge, because of his "work".
"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friends, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. Such a choice may scandalize the modern reader, and he may stretch out his patriotic hand to the telephone at once and ring up the police. It would not have shocked Dante, though. Dante places Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circle of Hell because they had chosen to betray their friend Julius Caesar rather than their country Rome."
-E.M. Forster, 1938
Dante would need another whole tier for Philby in hell. He betrayed both elements with a lifelong smile and side joke. What level of familial hate and self-identity of cored contempt could fuel such a life. Deciding before he was 21 to follow a dedication to an ideology over everything closest to him.
Beyond those sublime psychological elements, you have insight in this non-fiction to Graham Greene, numerous other English inner circle of the time. From the histories of the women spies, secretaries, wives, and journalists of the copy, the discussion could be hours too. Choices? Could some have been that blind to the occupations? Lots of discussion fodder for serious book groups. This is not light reading.
"In Britain Philby had been too British to be doubted: in Russia he was too British to be believed."
That's at the end of this book, but only in Kim Philby's last "home" place. What a read! Complex, emotional, intricate meshing of family, deep friendship, loyalties of school and association from boyhood, and an ultimate shared inner circle of their culture- just one window, ALL of those things, context entwined into this true tale.
Oh, and dare I mention, that the Russia of 2014, has this man's picture upon an edition of their postage stamp.
Btw, I think you should read the Afterward by John Le Carre first. And be prepared to study those notes at the end, as well. IMHO, this would be even harder at Kindle read stride and form. I used the end notes, reread passages, and flipped those paper pages quite a bit. This read is daunting and not for the faint hearted for comprehensive associations/ connections needed. You won't find lovely or lyrical preciousness here in this reading. You will find the deepest of emotions and tensions. Torrents of liquor and more marriages and infidelities than easily tractable, oh, you will find those. Coupled in great majority within the highest quality living spaces, amidst glamorous, top connected and costly establishments too. Our two main protagonists, best friends and the smartest, most charming, and witty fellows upon more than a few continents almost always travel and live in wondrous surroundings.
Also it is genius, absolutely genius, in the method of relating this complex scenario. Telling the "what" from the inside out, as the tale of two friends, THEIR history. So that the "why" and "how" of this telling, becomes secondary and understood to its grim, grim reality as a by blow. Masterly. Who would know you more? Doesn't the friend of 40 years understand you? Doesn't the husband of a decade know the wife, or doesn't she know he?
This man, Kim Philby, grasped an ideologue concept before he was 21 years of age, and in such a way- that all else in his entire lifetime was secondary to its perceived goal. That is terrifying to me.
The most popular, loved, and celebrated! An individual of hilarious stories and most belly laughed jokes of the moment. Never dull, never unkind, never unappreciative. And at the same time he was sending hundreds at a time to their certain deaths. Just count the numbers of individuals from the Volkov connection alone that had their entire family, down to second cousins- "disappear" into the gulags. 60 million from Stalin years alone, and these close associations looked upon as unfortunate sacrifices for the "better" Communist society that would eventually follow? What a psyche!
Elliot too. The last 50 pages of this book is beyond mesmerizing. 6 star level. How do you process this kind of duplicity? Especially if you are so superior at nuance yourself? And Eleanor? What choices in that ending? She sure was more intrepid than sane in her eventual decision, IMHO.
But finally, the most intriguing principle in all of this, is how the initial party or politico ideology bought solidly in such a whole piece, can and will impart rationalizations to this degree far beyond any logic or truth of outcomes. Scary, scary stuff. Highly visible today too. In fact, it's wearing several more hats. Insane rationalizations out of a belief system that is seemingly universal, religious, and/or lovingly with "empathy" based.
Plus the continual blindness of 3 separate severe occasions, each nearly a decade apart too, when Philby's was an obvious involvement. Philby was culturally "examined" and found safe and supremely handy for future trust because of his societal and intellectual fit.
This man in end results negated the entire positive output of British M15, M16 information from 1944-57. That's 100's to 1000's of humans who toiled undercover and in organizational structure for nil. Plus the deaths of 1000's goes on Philby's plate, as well. And then for 5 more years, it was at least partial negation result for his birth country's knowledge, because of his "work".
"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friends, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. Such a choice may scandalize the modern reader, and he may stretch out his patriotic hand to the telephone at once and ring up the police. It would not have shocked Dante, though. Dante places Brutus and Cassius in the lowest circle of Hell because they had chosen to betray their friend Julius Caesar rather than their country Rome."
-E.M. Forster, 1938
Dante would need another whole tier for Philby in hell. He betrayed both elements with a lifelong smile and side joke. What level of familial hate and self-identity of cored contempt could fuel such a life. Deciding before he was 21 to follow a dedication to an ideology over everything closest to him.
Beyond those sublime psychological elements, you have insight in this non-fiction to Graham Greene, numerous other English inner circle of the time. From the histories of the women spies, secretaries, wives, and journalists of the copy, the discussion could be hours too. Choices? Could some have been that blind to the occupations? Lots of discussion fodder for serious book groups. This is not light reading.
May 21, 2023
It's staggering how incompetent MI5 and MI6 appear to be in every account of the Cambridge spy ring. It seems blindingly obvious in hindsight that Kim Philby was a Soviet agent. Macintyre seeks to explain his ability to remain uncaught due to friendships, an old boy's club that overlooked not only obvious signs and red flags, but accepted drinking binges and unsound moral behaviour in the very place where they should have been least accepted. A fascinating look at human behaviour and weakness.
August 16, 2023
Am citit istoria MI6 de Gordon Corera. Asa că știam în linii mari povestea lui Kim Philby și a grupului de la Cambridge. Cu toate acestea, lectura a fost captivantă.
Ben Macintyre este un povestitor excelent.
Ben Macintyre este un povestitor excelent.
March 16, 2014
Ben Macintyre is a great writer and, in this latest book, he has turned his attention to Kim Philby – one of the Cambridge Spies. Historically, this book may not offer much that is new, but it does tell the story from a different viewpoint ; that of his friendships, most notably with Nicholas Elliott. In other words, this is not really a straight-forward biography of Philby, but focuses on his personality and on the Old Boy network that enabled him to evade detection for so long. The book begins with the meeting between Philby and Elliott in Beirut in January, 1963, with Elliott confronting his former friend about his betrayal of his country and trying to obtain a confession. He must certainly have felt betrayed personally too, as he had done much to protect Philby from earlier suspicions by MI5 – defending and helping him when he was in difficulty.
This fascinating account looks at the early life of both men, their meeting during WWII and their career in the Secret Intelligence Service. Kim Philby was, from the beginning, a Soviet agent. Along with the Cambridge Spies; Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross, he was so successful that his Soviet spymasters suspected him of being a double agent. As well as being a close friend of Elliott, he also became the mentor of James Jesus Angleton, an American and one of the most powerful spies in history. The Old Boy network which had brought both Elliott and Philby into the intelligence service meant that while agents were secretive outside of their immediate circle, they were horribly indiscreet within it, trusting on bonds of class and social networking to protect them.
During this book, we read of Elliott’s and Philby’s career, and personal life, including the jaw dropping appointment of Philby as head of the Soviet Section. As the Second World War ended and the Cold War began, Philby was able to inform Moscow of exactly what Britain was doing to counter Soviet espionage and, indeed, their own espionage efforts against Moscow. There is no doubt that Philby’s actions were an odd mix of defiant belief in the Soviet Union and an inability to take responsibility for his own actions. His passing of information to his Soviet masters led to many people losing their lives. Yet, despite his own reluctance to finally defect to Russia (he called himself a ‘Russian’ but lived there as an almost stereotypical Englishman) he was insistent that he had carried out instructions out of a (misguided) loyalty and was seemingly untroubled about the, often terrible, consequences. Also, although he was constantly loyal to Russia, he rarely spoke of politics. It was as though, having decided on his beliefs, he simply put them out of his mind and stayed true to them, despite any conflicting, or disturbing, evidence – such as the disappearance of successive Soviet spymasters that he looked up to and respected.
As Kim Philby’s life descended into the drama of defection, Macintyre asks whether he was, in fact, allowed to escape. Would his possible trial been such an embarrassment to the British government that he was simply given the chance to leave? However, the real core of this book is his friendship with Nicholas Elliott and the two men are almost given equal space. Angleton comes to the fore when Philby is in the States, and is important to the book, but the central relationship was Philby and Elliott. Personally, I found this a really interesting read and there is an enjoyable afterword, written by John le Carre. It is impossible to defend Kim Philby for his actions, but his story – both personal and as a spy – are certainly larger than life. If you have read anything by Ben Macintyre before, you will know that this is a not a dry and academic account, but reads almost like a spy novel. If you were not aware that it is factual, you would assume that this astonishing account was pure fiction – but it is certainly a riveting read and another well written and entertaining book from the talented Ben Macintyre.
This fascinating account looks at the early life of both men, their meeting during WWII and their career in the Secret Intelligence Service. Kim Philby was, from the beginning, a Soviet agent. Along with the Cambridge Spies; Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross, he was so successful that his Soviet spymasters suspected him of being a double agent. As well as being a close friend of Elliott, he also became the mentor of James Jesus Angleton, an American and one of the most powerful spies in history. The Old Boy network which had brought both Elliott and Philby into the intelligence service meant that while agents were secretive outside of their immediate circle, they were horribly indiscreet within it, trusting on bonds of class and social networking to protect them.
During this book, we read of Elliott’s and Philby’s career, and personal life, including the jaw dropping appointment of Philby as head of the Soviet Section. As the Second World War ended and the Cold War began, Philby was able to inform Moscow of exactly what Britain was doing to counter Soviet espionage and, indeed, their own espionage efforts against Moscow. There is no doubt that Philby’s actions were an odd mix of defiant belief in the Soviet Union and an inability to take responsibility for his own actions. His passing of information to his Soviet masters led to many people losing their lives. Yet, despite his own reluctance to finally defect to Russia (he called himself a ‘Russian’ but lived there as an almost stereotypical Englishman) he was insistent that he had carried out instructions out of a (misguided) loyalty and was seemingly untroubled about the, often terrible, consequences. Also, although he was constantly loyal to Russia, he rarely spoke of politics. It was as though, having decided on his beliefs, he simply put them out of his mind and stayed true to them, despite any conflicting, or disturbing, evidence – such as the disappearance of successive Soviet spymasters that he looked up to and respected.
As Kim Philby’s life descended into the drama of defection, Macintyre asks whether he was, in fact, allowed to escape. Would his possible trial been such an embarrassment to the British government that he was simply given the chance to leave? However, the real core of this book is his friendship with Nicholas Elliott and the two men are almost given equal space. Angleton comes to the fore when Philby is in the States, and is important to the book, but the central relationship was Philby and Elliott. Personally, I found this a really interesting read and there is an enjoyable afterword, written by John le Carre. It is impossible to defend Kim Philby for his actions, but his story – both personal and as a spy – are certainly larger than life. If you have read anything by Ben Macintyre before, you will know that this is a not a dry and academic account, but reads almost like a spy novel. If you were not aware that it is factual, you would assume that this astonishing account was pure fiction – but it is certainly a riveting read and another well written and entertaining book from the talented Ben Macintyre.
August 6, 2014
I read A Spy Amongst Friends by Ben Macintyre all the way through to the last page of the bibliography. Actually, I read the two pages after that. It's what you do when you can't bear for the story to end. And I already knew the end of this story, but I knew just enough to not know much at all. Really excellent book. Writing non-fiction which has more dazzle and suspense than any novel is a gift. To do it over and over as Mr. Macintyre has done is just pure talent.
I researched James Jesus Angleton for my last book, The Kennedy Endeavor, and knew he was a broken man-- just one 'among the friends'. If you want to understand the depths of despair that one human being can cause another without causing them the slightest physical blemish--this is the book. Maybe the worst thing is to murder someone's soul.
I researched James Jesus Angleton for my last book, The Kennedy Endeavor, and knew he was a broken man-- just one 'among the friends'. If you want to understand the depths of despair that one human being can cause another without causing them the slightest physical blemish--this is the book. Maybe the worst thing is to murder someone's soul.
December 22, 2014
(for a more in-depth look at what I think about this book, feel free to journey on over to the nonfiction section of my online reading journal).
I'll post my review of this book here because LibraryThing and the publishers sent me this edition, but I have to make a sort of embarrassing confession: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher, but couldn't get started on it right away so I set it aside to be picked up later. When I was ready to read it, which was like 2 weeks ago, I went to find it, and it was nowhere. It had just disappeared. I looked through each and every bookshelf and each and every book to find it (which in my case, is like looking for a needle in a haystack), and it didn't turn up. I went to find one on Amazon and to my horror discovered that the book is not scheduled for publication until July. Then I went into full-on panic mode because I had committed to reading this for LibraryThing's early reviewers' program for April so I bought a new, UK copy of A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Considering the pound to dollar conversion rate, I ended up paying about $40 for my stupidity. But I will say this: it was worth every penny I spent on it and more.
A Spy Among Friends, which is, in Macintyre's words, "not another biography of Kim Philby," ... "less about politics, ideology and accountability than personality, character, and a very British relationship that has never been explored before." Macintyre notes also that the "book does not purport to be the last word on Kim Philby," but rather "it seeks to tell his story in a different way, through the prism of personal friendship..." and his work succeeds on every possible level: impeccable research, the very-well developed investigation of Kim Philby's dual character, and frankly, despite the fact that it's nonfiction, it reads like a highly-polished, top-tier espionage novel, making it reader-friendly for anyone at all interested in the subject.
Macintyre's account brings new life to this very old and well-covered story: he sets Philby's story among friends, most notably Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton (who had met Philby in London at the age of 24, and for whom Philby right away became "an elder-brother figure), who ultimately became an ultra-high ranking member of the CIA. Both men trusted Philby implicitly and both refused to believe that he was a spy the first time he came under suspicion after the defections of Maclean and Burgess. As Macintyre examines the respective careers of the three high-level spies, their social interactions, their proximity to each other over the course of their work as spies, and their ties to upper-class British society with its private clubs, the best schools, etc., he also establishes how easy it was for the trusted Philby to carry away much highly-secret information and hand it over to his Soviet contacts. As Macintyre notes, one of the "weaknesses" within the intelligence community was how natural it was to trade information, since agents are not able to share it with anyone outside of their small circle. Philby, a big drinker, boozed it up with Angleton, for example, during lunches in Washington DC when after being transferred there as MI6 chief (selected by Angleton himself); Angleton and Philby exchanged info while drinking bourbon, eating lobster, and having cigars at the end. In one particular Albanian operation that ended in possibly hundreds of deaths, Macintyre notes that "Lunch at Harvey's restaurant came with a hefty bill." Philby's relationship with Elliott was one of even stronger ties and a stronger long-term friendship; Elliott would have never in a million years banked on Philby, with whom he shared his secrets, as putting those secrets to "murderous use."
Throughout this entire book, Macintyre focuses on Philby's "two faces," his dual nature as a "double-sided man," where "One side is open to family and friends and everyone around them,..the other belongs only to himself and his secret work." As much as friends and family thought they knew him, the real truth was that
"Philby was spying on everyone, and no one was spying on him, because he fooled them all."
Among other things, Macintyre also examines the effects on the friends and family left in the wake of Philby's betrayals, the divisions between MI5 and MI6, and the results in human terms of Philby's work in passing along info to the Soviets.
A Spy Among Friends is extremely well written, and even though it's a work of nonfiction, the story kept me on edge up until the last minute. In fact, one of the most eye-opening sections of this book is at the point where Philby's been outed in 1963, and Nick, Philby's biggest supporter, takes it upon himself to be the one to get him to confess. If this conversation hadn't been recorded, one would think it was the work of a master spy novelist. Then, when Macintyre has written his last word, the reader comes upon a short, but wonderful afterword by John LeCarré that the reader should absolutely not miss. In fact, anyone who's even remotely interested in Kim Philby, or anyone who has enjoyed Macintyre's previous work should not miss this book -- it is simply stellar.
I'll post my review of this book here because LibraryThing and the publishers sent me this edition, but I have to make a sort of embarrassing confession: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher, but couldn't get started on it right away so I set it aside to be picked up later. When I was ready to read it, which was like 2 weeks ago, I went to find it, and it was nowhere. It had just disappeared. I looked through each and every bookshelf and each and every book to find it (which in my case, is like looking for a needle in a haystack), and it didn't turn up. I went to find one on Amazon and to my horror discovered that the book is not scheduled for publication until July. Then I went into full-on panic mode because I had committed to reading this for LibraryThing's early reviewers' program for April so I bought a new, UK copy of A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. Considering the pound to dollar conversion rate, I ended up paying about $40 for my stupidity. But I will say this: it was worth every penny I spent on it and more.
A Spy Among Friends, which is, in Macintyre's words, "not another biography of Kim Philby," ... "less about politics, ideology and accountability than personality, character, and a very British relationship that has never been explored before." Macintyre notes also that the "book does not purport to be the last word on Kim Philby," but rather "it seeks to tell his story in a different way, through the prism of personal friendship..." and his work succeeds on every possible level: impeccable research, the very-well developed investigation of Kim Philby's dual character, and frankly, despite the fact that it's nonfiction, it reads like a highly-polished, top-tier espionage novel, making it reader-friendly for anyone at all interested in the subject.
Macintyre's account brings new life to this very old and well-covered story: he sets Philby's story among friends, most notably Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton (who had met Philby in London at the age of 24, and for whom Philby right away became "an elder-brother figure), who ultimately became an ultra-high ranking member of the CIA. Both men trusted Philby implicitly and both refused to believe that he was a spy the first time he came under suspicion after the defections of Maclean and Burgess. As Macintyre examines the respective careers of the three high-level spies, their social interactions, their proximity to each other over the course of their work as spies, and their ties to upper-class British society with its private clubs, the best schools, etc., he also establishes how easy it was for the trusted Philby to carry away much highly-secret information and hand it over to his Soviet contacts. As Macintyre notes, one of the "weaknesses" within the intelligence community was how natural it was to trade information, since agents are not able to share it with anyone outside of their small circle. Philby, a big drinker, boozed it up with Angleton, for example, during lunches in Washington DC when after being transferred there as MI6 chief (selected by Angleton himself); Angleton and Philby exchanged info while drinking bourbon, eating lobster, and having cigars at the end. In one particular Albanian operation that ended in possibly hundreds of deaths, Macintyre notes that "Lunch at Harvey's restaurant came with a hefty bill." Philby's relationship with Elliott was one of even stronger ties and a stronger long-term friendship; Elliott would have never in a million years banked on Philby, with whom he shared his secrets, as putting those secrets to "murderous use."
Throughout this entire book, Macintyre focuses on Philby's "two faces," his dual nature as a "double-sided man," where "One side is open to family and friends and everyone around them,..the other belongs only to himself and his secret work." As much as friends and family thought they knew him, the real truth was that
"Philby was spying on everyone, and no one was spying on him, because he fooled them all."
Among other things, Macintyre also examines the effects on the friends and family left in the wake of Philby's betrayals, the divisions between MI5 and MI6, and the results in human terms of Philby's work in passing along info to the Soviets.
A Spy Among Friends is extremely well written, and even though it's a work of nonfiction, the story kept me on edge up until the last minute. In fact, one of the most eye-opening sections of this book is at the point where Philby's been outed in 1963, and Nick, Philby's biggest supporter, takes it upon himself to be the one to get him to confess. If this conversation hadn't been recorded, one would think it was the work of a master spy novelist. Then, when Macintyre has written his last word, the reader comes upon a short, but wonderful afterword by John LeCarré that the reader should absolutely not miss. In fact, anyone who's even remotely interested in Kim Philby, or anyone who has enjoyed Macintyre's previous work should not miss this book -- it is simply stellar.
January 29, 2017
Just fascinating!
I listened to the audiobook and was completely hooked from start to finish.
How Kim Philby was able to fool all his friends, family, MI6, and the CIA is amazingly depicted in this nonfiction account. His betrayal for many years as a double agent for the KGB took everyone by shocking surprise. Wonderfully told was the intricately weaved story of the Cambridge 5. A spy ring of British upper class students graduating to MI6 and then turning to the KGB under the misunderstood idealism of communism.
I couldn't get enough. This book left me wanting to know more about Philby and MI6.
I listened to the audiobook and was completely hooked from start to finish.
How Kim Philby was able to fool all his friends, family, MI6, and the CIA is amazingly depicted in this nonfiction account. His betrayal for many years as a double agent for the KGB took everyone by shocking surprise. Wonderfully told was the intricately weaved story of the Cambridge 5. A spy ring of British upper class students graduating to MI6 and then turning to the KGB under the misunderstood idealism of communism.
I couldn't get enough. This book left me wanting to know more about Philby and MI6.
November 29, 2017
I have read several of Ben Macintyre's books recently and have become convinced he is the go to author on all things related to the history of British Intelligence and Special Operations. In this narrative he tells the story of one of if not the highest Soviet double agent in MI6's history, Kim Philby.
The author traces Philby's career from his initial political dissatisfaction of the British upper crust life while a student at Cambridge University through to his defection in 1963. He along with several of his friends, including Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and Donald MacLean - known as the Cambridge Five, are recruited by the Soviets while students at Cambridge in the 1930s. He subsequently joins British Intelligence (MI6) before WW II and spends the war both fighting Germany and suppling Moscow with everything he knows that the British are doing, esp on the Iberian Peninsula. After the war he eventually rises to head MI6's counter intelligence operation and later becomes the liaison for MI6 with the CIA.
It is after the war that the story really pick up. Philby continues to advance in MI6 while at the same time continues to pass everything he knows on to the KGB. This leads to several disasters, including the rounding up and eliminating British Agents attempting to infiltrate in to Albania, the complete destruction of those in East Germany who would help the Western cause among other things.
By the early 1950s British Intelligence knew they had a problem, but they could not accept that the problem could be one of their people. The author does a good job of exploring the culture of British Intel and the assumptions that went with it. At the time to be a member of MI6, one had to be of the right class - upper middle or above, attend the right schools, know the right people etc. If one did this, it was assumed that they were the right sort and the checks and balances that are common in modern intel agencies just were not done.
This not just the story Philby, but also his closest friend, Nicholas Elliot, who joined MI6 at roughly the same and rose through the ranks with him. Unlike Philby, Elliot was one of the "good" guys, but had a blind spot for Philby. As the search for the leak began to focus on Philby, Elliot was his staunchest defender. He just couldn't believe that a person of Philby's upbringing could be a Soviet Agent. Even after everyone was convinced Philby was the Mole, Elliot defended him. When Philby was finally forced to resign from MI6 he maintained his friendship with Elliot with Elliot eventually recruiting him to work for British Intel in Lebanon. It is Elliot who takes Philby's confession in 1963 just prior to his defecting to the USSR. After taking down Philby's confession, the author speculates that Elliot allowed Philby to defect and gives a decent circumstancial case for that.
In addition to Elliot, the author looks at the relationship Philby had with the American intel agent, James Angleton. Angleton is portrayed as almost as disbelieving of the charges against Philby as Elliot. The author speculates that as a result of the Philby affair, Angleton who rose to be in charge of Counter Intelligence at the CIA, almost destroyed it with his constant search for moles. According to the author, Angleton was finally forced to retire in 1975, in part because of his constant witch hunts.
All in all this is an excellent look at both the culture of MI6 that allowed someone like Philby to rise to such heights and what every day intelligence work is about. I would rate this 4.25 stars if GR allowed, so I've rounded it down. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the Intel game.
The author traces Philby's career from his initial political dissatisfaction of the British upper crust life while a student at Cambridge University through to his defection in 1963. He along with several of his friends, including Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and Donald MacLean - known as the Cambridge Five, are recruited by the Soviets while students at Cambridge in the 1930s. He subsequently joins British Intelligence (MI6) before WW II and spends the war both fighting Germany and suppling Moscow with everything he knows that the British are doing, esp on the Iberian Peninsula. After the war he eventually rises to head MI6's counter intelligence operation and later becomes the liaison for MI6 with the CIA.
It is after the war that the story really pick up. Philby continues to advance in MI6 while at the same time continues to pass everything he knows on to the KGB. This leads to several disasters, including the rounding up and eliminating British Agents attempting to infiltrate in to Albania, the complete destruction of those in East Germany who would help the Western cause among other things.
By the early 1950s British Intelligence knew they had a problem, but they could not accept that the problem could be one of their people. The author does a good job of exploring the culture of British Intel and the assumptions that went with it. At the time to be a member of MI6, one had to be of the right class - upper middle or above, attend the right schools, know the right people etc. If one did this, it was assumed that they were the right sort and the checks and balances that are common in modern intel agencies just were not done.
This not just the story Philby, but also his closest friend, Nicholas Elliot, who joined MI6 at roughly the same and rose through the ranks with him. Unlike Philby, Elliot was one of the "good" guys, but had a blind spot for Philby. As the search for the leak began to focus on Philby, Elliot was his staunchest defender. He just couldn't believe that a person of Philby's upbringing could be a Soviet Agent. Even after everyone was convinced Philby was the Mole, Elliot defended him. When Philby was finally forced to resign from MI6 he maintained his friendship with Elliot with Elliot eventually recruiting him to work for British Intel in Lebanon. It is Elliot who takes Philby's confession in 1963 just prior to his defecting to the USSR. After taking down Philby's confession, the author speculates that Elliot allowed Philby to defect and gives a decent circumstancial case for that.
In addition to Elliot, the author looks at the relationship Philby had with the American intel agent, James Angleton. Angleton is portrayed as almost as disbelieving of the charges against Philby as Elliot. The author speculates that as a result of the Philby affair, Angleton who rose to be in charge of Counter Intelligence at the CIA, almost destroyed it with his constant search for moles. According to the author, Angleton was finally forced to retire in 1975, in part because of his constant witch hunts.
All in all this is an excellent look at both the culture of MI6 that allowed someone like Philby to rise to such heights and what every day intelligence work is about. I would rate this 4.25 stars if GR allowed, so I've rounded it down. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the Intel game.
April 26, 2015
This reads like a novel. Yes, there are some factual errors. Yes, some of the dialog must have been invented. But, it's stunningly good.
May 8, 2018
A Spy Among Friends was a New York Times Bestseller, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book, an Amazon Best Book of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, and Entertainment Weekly’s Best Spy Book of 2014. It definitely deserves all the accolades it has received!
Kim Philby was a member of Britain’s upper crust. His father was an advisor to Ibn Saud, the first monarch of Saudi Arabia. His mother came from an upper crust family as well. Kim was handsome and intelligent. He had impeccable manners and oozed charm. He inspired loyalty in both his male and female friends. Everyone he met seemed drawn to his magnetic personality. Philby also was a dedicated Communist since his university days at Eton and Cambridge in the 1930’s.
When Philby expressed an interest in becoming an intelligence officer for MI6 during the years preceding World War II, no one ever questioned his credentials. His family history insured that he would be welcomed into the “old boy network” that comprised the MI6 staff at that time.
While working there, he met and became close friends with Nicholas Elliott whose upper class background was similar to Philby’s. They socialized and shared the secrets of their jobs as they rose to higher level positions within the agency. When the United States established their Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA) during World War II, Philby helped train the new agents in the art of spycraft. During this time Philby met and befriended a young James Angleton who became a top intelligence officer and later became head of the CIA. The three men shared intelligence secrets and plans for their countries’ activities during and after the war as Communism became a threat and the Cold War began.
For twenty years Kim Philby was able to pass classified information to Moscow. His intelligence information was invaluable. During that time, countless numbers of agents and operatives lost their lives as a result of Philby’s treachery.
This book sheds light on the inner workings of counterintelligence agencies and the operatives who dedicate their lives to this type of work. Author Ben Macintyre’s meticulous research using letters, papers, interviews, and intelligence files brings to life the events surrounding the greatest betrayal in espionage history.
I received this book from Goodreads quite awhile ago and have been remiss in posting my review! But thank you to Goodreads, Random House, and author Ben Macintyre for giving me the opportunity to read this fascinating book!
Kim Philby was a member of Britain’s upper crust. His father was an advisor to Ibn Saud, the first monarch of Saudi Arabia. His mother came from an upper crust family as well. Kim was handsome and intelligent. He had impeccable manners and oozed charm. He inspired loyalty in both his male and female friends. Everyone he met seemed drawn to his magnetic personality. Philby also was a dedicated Communist since his university days at Eton and Cambridge in the 1930’s.
When Philby expressed an interest in becoming an intelligence officer for MI6 during the years preceding World War II, no one ever questioned his credentials. His family history insured that he would be welcomed into the “old boy network” that comprised the MI6 staff at that time.
While working there, he met and became close friends with Nicholas Elliott whose upper class background was similar to Philby’s. They socialized and shared the secrets of their jobs as they rose to higher level positions within the agency. When the United States established their Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the CIA) during World War II, Philby helped train the new agents in the art of spycraft. During this time Philby met and befriended a young James Angleton who became a top intelligence officer and later became head of the CIA. The three men shared intelligence secrets and plans for their countries’ activities during and after the war as Communism became a threat and the Cold War began.
For twenty years Kim Philby was able to pass classified information to Moscow. His intelligence information was invaluable. During that time, countless numbers of agents and operatives lost their lives as a result of Philby’s treachery.
This book sheds light on the inner workings of counterintelligence agencies and the operatives who dedicate their lives to this type of work. Author Ben Macintyre’s meticulous research using letters, papers, interviews, and intelligence files brings to life the events surrounding the greatest betrayal in espionage history.
I received this book from Goodreads quite awhile ago and have been remiss in posting my review! But thank you to Goodreads, Random House, and author Ben Macintyre for giving me the opportunity to read this fascinating book!
July 14, 2016
This is labelled as a bestseller but I struggled to really get into it. The first half of the book is so full of names and details about each person mentioned that it was hard to keep track of what was going on. It felt disjointed and it wasn't easy to see how all the facts and people hung together. There was too much information about some seemingly irrelevant figures that confused the main story. In short, it wasn't especially readable and I nearly gave up.
I'm glad I finished it as the second half was much more coherent and focused more on the two or three main characters and honed in on Philby, the master spy who committed the great betrayal.
I believe this is a bestseller primarily due to the subject matter as I can see why this story would appeal to readers all across the genres. It is really an unbelievable and unique account of the worldwide spy and intelligence network during and after the second world war.
I found it especially hard to believe that so many seemingly intelligent educated British men were so easily recruited by the KGB to serve the evil purposes of communism and that some of them continued to serve this purpose even after some of these evils had been widely exposed.
It is tragic but in some ways fitting that those spies that sought refuge in Moscow rather than face trial in Britain, ended their days as loners trusted by neither country and no doubt hounded by their collective conscience....or maybe not.
The language wasn't as bad as I have read in other books recently but there is enough swearing for me to comment on it. There is no graphic violence although numerous deaths. There are a few sexual jokes/references but nothing graphic.
Some readers might enjoy this if you can make it past the boring first chapters to get more of a grip on the story and characters for the latter ones.
I'm glad I finished it as the second half was much more coherent and focused more on the two or three main characters and honed in on Philby, the master spy who committed the great betrayal.
I believe this is a bestseller primarily due to the subject matter as I can see why this story would appeal to readers all across the genres. It is really an unbelievable and unique account of the worldwide spy and intelligence network during and after the second world war.
I found it especially hard to believe that so many seemingly intelligent educated British men were so easily recruited by the KGB to serve the evil purposes of communism and that some of them continued to serve this purpose even after some of these evils had been widely exposed.
It is tragic but in some ways fitting that those spies that sought refuge in Moscow rather than face trial in Britain, ended their days as loners trusted by neither country and no doubt hounded by their collective conscience....or maybe not.
The language wasn't as bad as I have read in other books recently but there is enough swearing for me to comment on it. There is no graphic violence although numerous deaths. There are a few sexual jokes/references but nothing graphic.
Some readers might enjoy this if you can make it past the boring first chapters to get more of a grip on the story and characters for the latter ones.
June 9, 2021
The #1 lesson in spycraft? Never trust anyone. Ever. Never.
Not only is this an in-depth chronicle of the Philby spy scandal in Britain, but it also documents the development of the espionage agencies in Britain and the United States before WWII. The recruitment of British spies early on was based on a flimsy background check, personality traits and, more importantly, whether or not the subject belonged to the inner circle of British privilege, aristocracy, and the good ol’ boy network. Kim Philby passed with flying colors. If you were a member of this inner “club”, espionage secrets were freely traded.
Philby’s eventual downfall was complicated and manipulated by MI6’s coverup. At least, that’s what we are led to believe.
Not only is this an in-depth chronicle of the Philby spy scandal in Britain, but it also documents the development of the espionage agencies in Britain and the United States before WWII. The recruitment of British spies early on was based on a flimsy background check, personality traits and, more importantly, whether or not the subject belonged to the inner circle of British privilege, aristocracy, and the good ol’ boy network. Kim Philby passed with flying colors. If you were a member of this inner “club”, espionage secrets were freely traded.
Philby’s eventual downfall was complicated and manipulated by MI6’s coverup. At least, that’s what we are led to believe.
September 21, 2014
I was thoroughly engrossed in this book, beginning to end. It provided insight into the behind-the- scenes working of those we entrust with our most important political and military secrets. Harold “Kim” Philby (1912-1988) during the 1940’s and 50’s was an officer in the U.K. secret intelligence service (MI6). All the time he was spying for the Soviet Union remitting many damaging Anglo-American secrets to Moscow. Hundreds died because of his treachery.
Ben Macintyre tells the story of Kim Philby a member of the British upper class. His father was linguist who became an advisor of King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Philby became a Communist while at Cambridge University. He married Litzi Friedman a Communist of Hungarian Jewish descent. It is claimed she was the one to recruit him as a Soviet spy. Macintyre suggest that although Philby was a sincere Communist, the impelling motive for his treachery was conceit. Cheating people made him feel clever. He betrayed anti-Soviet insurgents in Albania, Georgia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia and Ukraine, causing many deaths. The KGB defector Anatoly Golitsyn provided information against Philby in 1962. He made a confession and then escaped to Russia in 1963.
Ben Macintyre was a journalist with the Times of London. He conducted an enormous amount of research and found new sources of information in the office diaries of MI5’s deputy Chief Guy Liddell which became available in 2012. The book ends with an afterword by John le Carrie who worked in MI6 during the same time as Philby. The book reads like a spy novel but it is a solidly researched true story. I read this as an audio book downloaded from Audible. John Lee does an excellent job narrating the book.
Ben Macintyre tells the story of Kim Philby a member of the British upper class. His father was linguist who became an advisor of King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Philby became a Communist while at Cambridge University. He married Litzi Friedman a Communist of Hungarian Jewish descent. It is claimed she was the one to recruit him as a Soviet spy. Macintyre suggest that although Philby was a sincere Communist, the impelling motive for his treachery was conceit. Cheating people made him feel clever. He betrayed anti-Soviet insurgents in Albania, Georgia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia and Ukraine, causing many deaths. The KGB defector Anatoly Golitsyn provided information against Philby in 1962. He made a confession and then escaped to Russia in 1963.
Ben Macintyre was a journalist with the Times of London. He conducted an enormous amount of research and found new sources of information in the office diaries of MI5’s deputy Chief Guy Liddell which became available in 2012. The book ends with an afterword by John le Carrie who worked in MI6 during the same time as Philby. The book reads like a spy novel but it is a solidly researched true story. I read this as an audio book downloaded from Audible. John Lee does an excellent job narrating the book.
April 16, 2014
How on earth did he get away with it for so long?!
Ben Macintyre's latest book answers this question and more in an accessible, enjoyable and informative way.
Philby's deceit of MI6 is well known, but the book details more the deceit of his friends and particularly his friend and colleague in SIS, Nicholas Elliot.
I find the The Philby case and indeed the whole of the Cambridge 5 fascinating in that the "old boy network" of MI6 just couldn't comprehend that that one of their own (i.e of their class & upbringing) would spy for another country, which led to Philby being able to continue for so long.
A fascinating read for anyone interested in espionage, the cold war and political motivation.
Ben Macintyre's latest book answers this question and more in an accessible, enjoyable and informative way.
Philby's deceit of MI6 is well known, but the book details more the deceit of his friends and particularly his friend and colleague in SIS, Nicholas Elliot.
I find the The Philby case and indeed the whole of the Cambridge 5 fascinating in that the "old boy network" of MI6 just couldn't comprehend that that one of their own (i.e of their class & upbringing) would spy for another country, which led to Philby being able to continue for so long.
A fascinating read for anyone interested in espionage, the cold war and political motivation.
January 29, 2018
One lasting benefit of not paying attention in school history lessons is that I can read books like this without already knowing the ending. And this is a really good one: Kim Philby and Nicholas Elliott are fascinating characters, and their story reads like a fictional spy thriller - although 38 pages of notes and bibliography say otherwise. This is my kind of history book - educational, entertaining, and effortless.
August 25, 2014
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!
How’s this for knowing how to organise your material? Ben McIntyre’s book opens with the confrontation between Kim Philby, MI6 agent and of course Soviet spy, and Nicholas Elliot, one of Philby’s closest friends and now the man sent to Beirut to break him. Ten years earlier, when suspicions of spying had first attached themselves to Philby, it was Elliot who was his strongest defender. As the decade went on, Elliot remained Philby’s champion and staunchest supporter. It was Elliot who actually got Philby paid work again from MI6. But now the evidence was there to really prove the betrayal and so it was Elliot’s job to confront Philby and get his full confession. We open then with a scene then of unparalleled tension. This is a confrontation that most dramatists would sell their first born child to create, or at least sacrifice a number of fingers – but this also a confrontation which actually happened.
From there McIntyre flashes backwards to look at the younger Philby and Elliot. Two men with similar school lives (one went to Westminster, the other Eton), identical university (Cambridge, of course) and then both using the old school tie and connections to get themselves into MI6. McIntyre really captures this very English (and English of a certain class) whirl of the secret service, bringing Wartime and post-War MI6 to life as he captures the natures and personalities of these two men. One swore his life to the crown and country and is determined to beat the Communist menace; the other is outwardly exactly the same, but underneath so utterly and disgustingly duplicitous. The former can’t see the latter’s flaws, as how could a man with the same education, background and membership of all these clubs possibly be a spy? It just wouldn’t be British.
Philby comes across as a contemptible human being. The reader is informed again and again as to his incredible charm, but we also know what he was really up to and that level of sheer betrayal becomes skin crawling. Even though most people reading this book will know the broad outlines of the story, the average reader is still going to wish that Philby’s incredible luck fails and that he’ll be caught much, much sooner. The average reader is going to be frustrated with the old boy’s network letting him get away with so much, keeping defending him even when the evidence piles up, just because he went to the right school and had the right people. So many men and women died and so many lives were ruined because of Philby, and it’s incredible that even after he was revealed and forced to defect, he still considered himself a great friend to those he betrayed.
In a way the book’s focus does echo its protagonists’ belief that they are the chosen ones. That because of their education and their old school scarf, they are good eggs and know what’s what. Those from a lower class and not members of the right clubs are inferior in the eyes of Philby and Elliot and MI6, and seemingly in the eyes of the book as they rarely intrude into the narrative. Okay, it would be extraordinarily hard to write a book about Kim Philby without focusing on Kim Philby; while Elliot, through the force of his personality and the fact it was he who actually confronted Philby, forces himself to be a major part of the story. But one could ask: where’s Dick White’s story? Dick White was a former MI5 man who first confronted Philby, remained absolutely convinced of his guilt, and was head of MI6 when he was finally exposed? Where’s his tale? The tale of the man who was right all along, but just didn’t have the same pedigree as the others.
I quibble though. I raced through this book and in reality wouldn’t change a page of it.
How’s this for knowing how to organise your material? Ben McIntyre’s book opens with the confrontation between Kim Philby, MI6 agent and of course Soviet spy, and Nicholas Elliot, one of Philby’s closest friends and now the man sent to Beirut to break him. Ten years earlier, when suspicions of spying had first attached themselves to Philby, it was Elliot who was his strongest defender. As the decade went on, Elliot remained Philby’s champion and staunchest supporter. It was Elliot who actually got Philby paid work again from MI6. But now the evidence was there to really prove the betrayal and so it was Elliot’s job to confront Philby and get his full confession. We open then with a scene then of unparalleled tension. This is a confrontation that most dramatists would sell their first born child to create, or at least sacrifice a number of fingers – but this also a confrontation which actually happened.
From there McIntyre flashes backwards to look at the younger Philby and Elliot. Two men with similar school lives (one went to Westminster, the other Eton), identical university (Cambridge, of course) and then both using the old school tie and connections to get themselves into MI6. McIntyre really captures this very English (and English of a certain class) whirl of the secret service, bringing Wartime and post-War MI6 to life as he captures the natures and personalities of these two men. One swore his life to the crown and country and is determined to beat the Communist menace; the other is outwardly exactly the same, but underneath so utterly and disgustingly duplicitous. The former can’t see the latter’s flaws, as how could a man with the same education, background and membership of all these clubs possibly be a spy? It just wouldn’t be British.
Philby comes across as a contemptible human being. The reader is informed again and again as to his incredible charm, but we also know what he was really up to and that level of sheer betrayal becomes skin crawling. Even though most people reading this book will know the broad outlines of the story, the average reader is still going to wish that Philby’s incredible luck fails and that he’ll be caught much, much sooner. The average reader is going to be frustrated with the old boy’s network letting him get away with so much, keeping defending him even when the evidence piles up, just because he went to the right school and had the right people. So many men and women died and so many lives were ruined because of Philby, and it’s incredible that even after he was revealed and forced to defect, he still considered himself a great friend to those he betrayed.
In a way the book’s focus does echo its protagonists’ belief that they are the chosen ones. That because of their education and their old school scarf, they are good eggs and know what’s what. Those from a lower class and not members of the right clubs are inferior in the eyes of Philby and Elliot and MI6, and seemingly in the eyes of the book as they rarely intrude into the narrative. Okay, it would be extraordinarily hard to write a book about Kim Philby without focusing on Kim Philby; while Elliot, through the force of his personality and the fact it was he who actually confronted Philby, forces himself to be a major part of the story. But one could ask: where’s Dick White’s story? Dick White was a former MI5 man who first confronted Philby, remained absolutely convinced of his guilt, and was head of MI6 when he was finally exposed? Where’s his tale? The tale of the man who was right all along, but just didn’t have the same pedigree as the others.
I quibble though. I raced through this book and in reality wouldn’t change a page of it.
January 21, 2015
Incredible true story about a master spy who had a tremendous impact on operations in British, American, and Soviet intelligence. Graham Greene, John Le Carre, and Ian Fleming all knew him personally, and surely he inspired something in their future spy novels. This is a story that's been told before, this man is a legend, but the author is able to dig deeper into declassified documents and notes Le Carre took from Eliot decades earlier.
I listened to the audio read by John Lee who has such an old fashioned voice. It worked for this book.
I listened to the audio read by John Lee who has such an old fashioned voice. It worked for this book.
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