ESPIONAGE ON DISPLAY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600330003-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 9, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 2000
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: December 29, 1967
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For RA% 7(T7~767CIA-RDP75-00149R00060033000'3-0
ESPIONAGE - ?
CPYRGHT
On Display Altur years ot silence and secrecy as
the most important British spy the Rus
sians have ever owned, Harold Philby
has begun compensating by becoming
teomething of a celebrity. Exposed only
after he flod to Moscow in 1963, "KIm'
Philby has since become the protagonist
of a half-admiring, half-shocked ava-
lanche of serialized articles in every
major London newspaper. In the past
three months, the British press has lit-
erally feasted on his exploits, as re-
vealed to "Our Own Correspondent"
by his 24-year-old son (in London), his
third wife (in Tunisia), and former col-
leagues (sometimes identified only as
"X") on practically every continent ex-
cept Antarctica. Last week Philby went
on display 'in Moscow, almost in the
manner of the czar's crown jewels.
Chain-smoking Russian Pamir filter
cigarettes, he threw a candlelight din
ner for correspondents of the Daily
Express, at which he blithely denounced
such Western institutions as "the ex-
pense-account lunch and the English
Channel" He poured vodka, wine and
brandy at the Minsk Hotel and "a num-
ber of restaurants" for- a visiting sci
I ence correspondent from London's Sun-
day Times. And, most satisfying of all, I
1 Moscow's own Izvestia ran a front-
1 age interview with him appropriately I
itled: "Hello, Comrade Philby."
Easy Time. Between the caviar and
ognac, Philby managed to sandwich in
few new fascinating revelations about
is past activities. He had worked, he
laimed, with such unheralded British
pies as Novelist Graham Greene ("he
orked in intelligence") and the late
1 an Fleming ("he was aide to the direc
or of naval intelligence"). Furthermore.
Ieming's James Bond "had an easy
ime of it: Bond's only worries were
ay holidays and amorous intrigues."
s for himself, Philby modestly admit-
cd that, as chief of British Intelligence
perations in Washington in 1951, he
ad personally thwarted a CIA plot to
verthrow the Communist government '
f Albania. How? Simply by letting
oscow in on a CIA airlift of "several.
undred saboteurs" who were parachut.
d into the country. They were, he
aid, "greeted in a proper way." .
In his new role as Hero of the Rev-
fution, Philby also revealed that he i
as written an 80,000-word manuscript.;
1 illuminating my position as a spy." j
o far, no London newspaper has dared
uy his work: The Sunday Times, which
as interested, was dissuaded by a threat
f prosecution under the British govern-
ent's Official Secrets Act. In view of
e lack of buyers, Philby proposed to.
and over his masterwork for free if
CPYRGHT British would agree to release Peter
Viet -spies now serving 20-year terms
Approved For Rel 4 ,T a prec led. '1Fhe tisri h turned'
V