'PERFECT' BRITISH SPY UNFORTUNATELY, KIM PHILBY WAS A RUSSIAN AGENT ALSO

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600330021-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2000
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: November 20, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
November 200 1967 FOIAb3b
Approved For Release 2001/07/27CFIA75-00149R00
C
Unfortunately, Kim Philby
Was a Russian Agent Also
By . -dcllarrl Rose
A .ti;,eriat Correspondarir
ej the Post-Dispatch
CPYRGHT LONDON, Nov. 20
was almost the perfect British.
spy. He had only one disability.
All the time, see was working
for the Russians too. The story
of his career as a double agent
for East and West is only now
emerging in London, while Phil-
by is living out the autumn of
his career in Moscow.
Phiibv'sbiograthymight
read like a movie thriller, ex-
cept the story is so strange that.
few producers would regard the
story credible, even as fic-
tion. !ht be turned into a
tele-:,;... but the drunken
episc ;es .:.. mn ;s,y love affairs
wow- .n_ it _.isuitable for
family viewing.
A good spy needs b r a ti P. s,
friends, discretion and luck. A
double-agent, working for two
sides r? once, needs at least
twice cheordina r y ration of
;hose qualities. Philby was for-
tunately endowed.
From his birth in 1912 in
India, he was different. As a
youth, he was nicknamed Kim,
after a - half-English, half for-
eign hero in a Rudyard Kipling
story. His father, H. St. John
Philby, then a civil servant
who turned passionately pro-
Arab in World War I. His father
sent him to boarding school in
London. Westminster School, a
lesser version of Eton, was not
only located close to Westmin-
ster Abbey and Parliament, but
also within walking distance of
the headquarters of the British
spy network.
While Kim was at school, l'is
..,er turned Muslim and took
Arab slave girl as an addi-
.,nal wife, with the consent of
is first wife, Kim's mother.
Who's Who, he listed
asses: St. John's Wo"d,
and Mecca, Arabia. In
Donald MacLean, friend
of Kim Philby, was once
head of the British Foreign
Office's American depart-
ment. He was a Russian
agent who fled to Moscow
after being warned by,
Philby.
World War If. while Kim was'
working for the Russians, his
father was accused of acting as
a German agent in the Middle 1
East,
1N 1929, Kim Philby had en-
tercd Cambridge. He resided in
Trinity College, now the college
of the Prince of Wales, but then
a center of left-wing bohemian-
ism. There he met Donald
MacLean and Guy Burgess, two
men later to b e c o m e Soviet
agents. At Cambridge, Philby
took a degree in history with
sufficiently mediocre marks to
as a long-haired intellectual.
By 1934, Philby had witnessed
Naziism at firsthand in Ger-
ti. many,.married an A u s t r I a n
Communist, and joined the
~
F,mmunist Party. For many
C
young intellectuals at this time,
irected British efforts to dis-
German espionage in Par-
upt
ugal, Spain and the Western
editerranean.
A stammer saved him from
cing sent behind enemy 1?nes.
n England, he fought major
att1es on the home front
gainst M.I.6's chief enemy -
.1.5, the British Agency offi-
ially charged with combatting
oreign sties oncrating within
he United Kingdom.
In the 1940s, Philby succeeded
n building M.I.6's empire at
he expense of M.1.5. He here-
)y acquired the loyalty and re-
pect of friends he was later to
teed, when he denied that he
ad been a Russian agent at
his time. P h I I b y also found
time to acquire a second wife, a
'oman with an impeccable so-
cial background.
in 1944, this Soviet double
agent was put in charge of Brit
s h counter-espionage against
Russia, then a wartime ally. In
is new post, Philby was ex-
pected to keep the British gov-
ernment Informed of what the
R u s I a n spy network knew
about British military affairs.
His appointment showed no one
suspected his left-wing under--
graduate views were still ;ignif-
ieant. It also made easy his
second task, supplying the Rus-
sians with details of British in-
telligence.
As the Cold War against Rus-
sia gained pace, Philby's repu-
tation rose. The Russians skill-
fully fed him sufficient informa-
tion about their spying activi-
ties so that he could use this to
ingratiate himself with the Brit-
ish government. In this way,
Philby gained increasing access
to top BrIt1sh secrets, and
These, in turn, he could pasts on
to the Russians. The climax of
his British career came in 1949,
when he was sent to Washing-
ton as liaison officer between
the British Secret Service and
the American Central Intelli-
gence Agency.
PHiLBY'S downfall started In
Washington. CIA men were out-
Fide h.iq let of o!d school con-
a fleeting flirtation with Com-
munisms was normal. Hence,
few kept this left-wing back- .
ground in mind when, in ]936,
Philby was back in Lordon
working for the pro-Hitler An-
glo-German Fellowship. In re-
trospect, it seems that his pro-
Guy Burgess, another
friend of Philby, was an
alcoholic homosexual.who
at one time was second?
secretary of the British
embassy in Washington.
He fled with MacLean.
Approved For Release 2
camouflage, designed to help
l1 i m penetrate British intelli-
rgr-nee on behalt of .his Commu
nist friends.
During the Spanish Civil War,
Philby reported activities from . ,
the side of right-wing General
Franco. In the war, he won a
medal, an expatriate titled Mis-
tress, and a job as war corre-
spondent for The Times of
'London. Throughout his career,
Philby was to use the job of
journalist as a cover for his
spying. He also tested his luck
in Spain. His biggest scoop w's
reporting the d e a t h of three
war correspondents from a sin-
the sole survivor of the blast.
WHEN World War II broke
out, Philby had a modest repu-
tation as a man who knew War
at f i r s t -h and.This, purehis
Cambridge. friends, got him a
job with the British Secret In-
;,l' telligence Service, M.L6. There
, i was no. vrolilent. obtaining a
75-00149R000600330021-0
s curity clearance, for his
d his
i
t
'
on an
at
s repu
f titer
imbridge background meant
t at he was a typical gentle.
perhaps a bit eccentric,
an
,
it then, eccentricities were of-
t useful in spies. ? K
In a popular British phrase,
1 tllby enioyed "a good war."--
: fter drinking his way through
Continued