The Third Man
The havoc he wreaked stretched far and wide
The coded telegram from London to Moscow was short and direct. "We have recruited the son of an Anglo agent, adviser to Ibn-Saud, Philby." The reference was to one Harold A. R. Philby, a recent Cambridge graduate the Soviets had enlisted to spy on his pro-fascist father, an adviser to Saudi Arabia. But in "Kim" Philby, who signed up for the job in 1934, the Soviets got a prize far bigger than they had ever imagined. Over a spying career that lasted 30 years, Philby recruited other Soviet agents from the British establishment and gave away thousands of state secrets. In the process, he caused dozens of deaths. "Philby was truly evil, truly sinister," says Bruce Thompson, a history lecturer at the University of California-Santa Cruz. "He was a traitor without any scruples."
Philby was indeed the most ruthless and methodical of the members of the Cambridge Spy Ring--five young men at Cambridge University whom the Soviets tasked with penetrating the British intelligence services. Philby was particularly well positioned: He was in charge of Soviet counterintelligence, a liaison to the CIA in Washington, and even a onetime top candidate to become the head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. Only the paranoia of Joseph Stalin, who feared the Cambridge Five were triple agents, prevented Philby from doing more damage.
All of the Cambridge Five--the others were Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross--were communists; they believed that the Soviet Union was a stronger bulwark against fascism than Depression-era Britain. But the five were also sexually rebellious, a characteristic the Soviets adroitly used in their recruitment. Burgess and Blunt were gay; Maclean was a confused bisexual; Cairncross and Philby were promiscuous heterosexuals. "They were all rebels against the conservative conventional sexual mores," says Christopher Andrew, author of The Sword and the Shield, a book about Soviet espionage. "[The Soviets] told them that fascism and sexual repression are different sides of the same coin."
Though egotism and youthful rebellion helped push him toward spying, Philby's commitment to communism was genuine. In his autobiography, he argues he did not betray his country so much as he stayed loyal to his ideals. Graham Greene, the English novelist and Philby's friend, said, "He was serving a cause, not himself." Unlike most spies, the Cambridge Five took little Soviet money.
Wooing secrets. Philby's success was driven by his duplicity, cleverness, and charisma. He used his considerable charm to woo women--including four wives--and to win the trust of his superiors and the secrets of his counterparts at the CIA. He was not a great intellectual, but he performed coolly under pressure and could analyze information from many perspectives.
During World War II, all of the Cambridge Five penetrated either the British Foreign Office or the intelligence services, giving the Soviets--then allies--secrets that the British and Americans were withholding. Cairncross, for example, gave Moscow information about a weakness in German tanks that helped the Soviets prevail in the pivotal Battle of Kursk. Spying for an ally who was fighting a common enemy may have been morally ambiguous, but the spy ring's Cold War espionage on behalf of Stalin's totalitarian state was not.
Philby's influence on the Cold War could be direct, such as when he sabotaged Anglo-American operations, but it was subtle, as well. In 1945, Philby told the Soviets that Elizabeth Bentley, an American working for the communists, had turned herself in to the FBI and had become a double agent. The Soviets quickly shut down their American spies, frustrating the FBI's attempts to substantiate Bentley's accusations of a large Soviet espionage network in the United States. Three years later, upset that the FBI had not caught any spies, Bentley brought her story to a newspaper. By that time Stalin wasn't Uncle Joe anymore, and Bentley's accusations led to hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee. But that is where the hunt ended."The reason they didn't catch anyone was Philby," says Kathryn Olmsted, the author of Red Spy Queen, a biography of Bentley. "We are starting to realize Philby played a critical role in destroying her credibility."
Philby also had to protect himself. In 1945, a Soviet intelligence officer, Konstantin Volkov, offered to defect and give up the names of Englishmen spying for Russia. The offer was sent to London in a diplomatic pouch. When Philby, then working as head of the Soviet counterintelligence desk, opened the communique, he realized that Volkov was offering to out him. "I stared at the papers rather longer than necessary," Philby wrote in his memoir. Soon after, Volkov was taken to Moscow by Soviet agents and killed.
Countless other deaths have been blamed on Philby. Stationed in Istanbul in 1946, he assigned British agents to penetrate the Soviet Union and then told his communist masters who was coming and when. The Soviets promptly murdered the agents. "He could get large numbers of people killed," Thompson says, "and did it with relish." Yet Philby's most important operational success came when he derailed a British and American plan to try to roll back the Iron Curtain. In December 1949, America and Britain helped arm a group of anticommunist eastern Europeans to lead an insurgency into Albania, a starving country that seemed ready to shake off Stalin. Philby, based in Washington, helped plan the attack--and ensured its failure. He tipped the Soviets; Albanian communists ambushed the insurgents. "It was a total disaster," said Gene Poteat, a retired CIA intelligence officer. "Every single agent was captured . . . all thanks to Kim Philby."
Although Philby could sabotage covert operations, the Soviets ignored much of what he provided because Stalin feared the Cambridge ring was feeding him misinformation. "The Soviets didn't imagine anyone could penetrate British intelligence so well," says Phillip Knightley, Philby's biographer. "They were paranoid. In Philby's case, a lot of material he provided was never read."
Mole hunt. In 1951, Americans decoded a five-year-old Soviet cable and discovered that there was a mole sending their secrets to Moscow. Maclean, who had suffered a nervous breakdown and was drinking excessively, was among the suspects. When Philby learned about the discovery, he had Burgess arrange for Maclean to escape. The Soviets made Burgess flee, too, casting suspicion on Philby. The Americans demanded his removal, but the British defended him. Philby returned to England, where he was publically accused of being "The Third Man." After Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan rose to his defense, he was sent to Beirut to work as a field agent. But the game would soon be up. In 1963, a British agent confronted Philby in Lebanon with irrefutable evidence that he was a spy. Philby confessed, then stole away on a Soviet freighter.
By that time 50 years old, he went to Moscow thinking he was a high officer in the KGB; when he arrived he found he was just a grunt. Many in the KGB still suspected he was a triple agent. Philby professed to journalists that he had an abiding belief in communism but was disillusioned with its everyday reality. He died in 1988, three years before the collapse of the Soviet Union." He must have seen the truth," says Thompson, "because he drank himself to death."
Ironically, Philby's greatest victory for the Soviets came with his exposure. No two powers had ever shared more intelligence than Britain and America during and after World War II. But after Philby, the CIA would never again confide in the British so completely. "Philby succeeded in sowing distrust," Andrew says. "And that was his aim."
This story appears in the January 27, 2003 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.