Kim Philby: Greatest Liar of All Time?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know – "Kim Philby: Greatest Liar of All Time?"

Release Date: April 15, 2025
Hosts: Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant
Production: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction to Kim Philby

In the episode titled "Kim Philby: Greatest Liar of All Time?", hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant delve into the intricate life of one of history's most notorious double agents, Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby. They set the stage by highlighting Philby's unparalleled ability to deceive, positioning him as arguably the greatest liar and spy of his time.

Early Life and Cambridge Years

Philby's journey begins in India, born in 1912 to a colonialist father, which later influenced his complex identity. Josh notes, “Philby was nicknamed after a Rudyard Kipling story about a street urchin who becomes a spy” (03:08). This moniker foreshadowed his eventual path into espionage. Raised by an Indian nanny, Philby's early life was marked by privilege and education, culminating in his time at Cambridge during the tumultuous early 1930s.

At Cambridge, amidst the Great Depression and the rise of fascism, Philby's sympathies shifted towards communism as a counter to the burgeoning fascist movements. Chuck observes, “Communism became a thing among young Cambridge intellectuals at the time” (04:32), highlighting the ideological battles that shaped his worldview.

Becoming a Soviet Spy

Philby's commitment to communism remained steadfast, even as his aristocratic British peers leaned towards fascist sympathies. This ideological divergence led him to seek ways to aid the communist cause. Josh recounts how a Cambridge professor directed Philby to Austria to combat fascist dictator Engelbert Dollfuss, a mission that catalyzed his deepening involvement with Soviet intelligence.

During his time in Vienna, Philby not only engaged in revolutionary activities but also formed a romantic relationship with Alice Litzy Coleman, another young communist. Their marriage facilitated Philby's escape to England, where he clandestinely met with Arnold Deutsch, a Soviet spymaster known as Otto (09:13). This pivotal meeting marked the beginning of his double life.

Infiltrating MI6

Philby's dual identity thrived as he seamlessly integrated into British intelligence. Chuck highlights, “The Soviets saw him as the ideal recruit because he was an aristocrat with total trust within British society” (06:36). Utilizing his charm and exceptional acting skills, Philby adopted the cover of a journalism career, which provided the perfect facade for espionage. Josh explains, “As a journalist, you can go all over the world, covering events without raising suspicion” (12:14).

His role at the Anglo-German Trade Gazette further solidified his cover, allowing him access to high-level Nazi sympathizers and enabling him to act as a conduit for Soviet intelligence. This strategic positioning was instrumental in Philby's ability to gather and relay crucial information to Moscow.

The Cambridge Five

Philby was not alone in his espionage endeavors. Alongside Donald McLean and Guy Burgess, he formed what would become known as the Cambridge Five—an elite group of Soviet spies who infiltrated British intelligence. Chuck mentions, “They became known as the Cambridge Five, sending more than 10,000 documents during World War II” (23:46), underscoring their significant impact on wartime and post-war intelligence.

Betrayals and Consequences

The hosts discuss how Philby's extensive infiltration led to severe consequences, including the exposure and elimination of key resistance figures. Josh provides a harrowing example: “Members of the Catholic resistance in Germany approached MI6, and Philby relayed their information to the Soviets, leading to their deaths” (24:32).

Philby's ability to maintain his cover allowed him to manipulate intelligence efforts, such as his involvement in Operation Valuable, where British and American plans to overthrow Albania’s dictator were thwarted by his betrayal (14:49).

Exposure and Flight

Despite Philby's meticulous efforts, cracks began to appear in his facade. The release of the Venona decryptions in 1946 played a crucial role in exposing Soviet spies within British intelligence. When a defector named Konstantin Volkov threatened to reveal names, Philby's strategic maneuvering initially kept him safe by orchestrating Volkov’s disappearance (29:06).

However, persistent investigations and mounting evidence eventually led to Philby's exposure. In a crucial moment, Philby absented himself from an interrogation by MI6, knowing that his absence would reveal the existence of additional moles. This act of defiance sealed his fate, forcing him to flee to Moscow in 1963 to avoid prosecution (45:08).

Legacy and Impact

Philby's legacy is twofold. On one hand, he is remembered as a master of espionage and deception, earning high honors from both the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. Chuck notes, “He was awarded the Order of Lenin and featured on a Soviet postage stamp” (47:03), illustrating the complex admiration and condemnation he received.

On the other hand, Philby's actions fostered a deep sense of paranoia within intelligence communities, leading to long-term distrust and the eventual unraveling of other spies like Anthony Blunt. Josh reflects, “One of the big lasting legacies Kim Philby left behind was just utter paranoia” (47:49), highlighting the enduring impact of his betrayal on global intelligence operations.

Notable Quotes

• Josh Clark (03:08): “Philby was nicknamed after a Rudyard Kipling story about a street urchin who becomes a spy.”
• Chuck Bryant (06:36): “The Soviets saw him as the ideal recruit because he was an aristocrat with total trust within British society.”
• Josh Clark (12:14): “As a journalist, you can go all over the world, covering events without raising suspicion.”
• Chuck Bryant (23:46): “They became known as the Cambridge Five, sending more than 10,000 documents during World War II.”
• Josh Clark (24:32): “Members of the Catholic resistance in Germany approached MI6, and Philby relayed their information to the Soviets, leading to their deaths.”
• Chuck Bryant (47:03): “He was awarded the Order of Lenin and featured on a Soviet postage stamp.”
• Josh Clark (47:49): “One of the big lasting legacies Kim Philby left behind was just utter paranoia.”

Conclusion

Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant provide a comprehensive exploration of Kim Philby's life, emphasizing his extraordinary ability to deceive and the profound ramifications of his espionage. From his privileged upbringing and ideological shifts at Cambridge to his high-stakes maneuvers within MI6 and eventual exposure, the episode offers an in-depth look at one of history's most infamous double agents. Philby's story serves as a cautionary tale about trust, loyalty, and the far-reaching consequences of betrayal within intelligence communities.

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Transcript

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Jerry]

With T Mobile no Trendspotter has to deal with Trendspotty service because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service support in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption. Required card has no cash access and expires in six months. Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is the podcast. As just mentioned, we call it Stuff youf Should Know. And by the way, we should say to any new listeners, we're not saying you should already know this stuff, so don't be hostile toward us about that. We're saying we think you should know this because it's so interesting. We want to tell you about it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we could have changed the name of the show to things that you might find interesting, but then again, you might not as well. But that doesn't have a ring.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, there's no implied dummy in the title of our podcast. Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no. We are the dummies.

[Josh Clark]

So I'll tell you somebody who wasn't a dummy as far as it comes to being a world class liar, maybe England's greatest liar ever. It was a spy from The World War II beginning early cold War era named Harold Kim Philby. And if that name rings a bell, well, just sit back and enjoy this episode on a British Spy. If you don't know who Kim Philby is, sit back and enjoy this episode on a British spy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Your voice is going up like you were gonna say something else. Is that it?

[Josh Clark]

I just wanted to replicate it perfectly.

[Chuck Bryant]

So Big thanks to Dave who helped us with this. But Dave also wanted us to shout out, and we want to shout out a book by Ben McIntyre, a spy among Friends, Colon, Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. And also a miniseries that I have not watched that I think I probably will now. A six parter on Amazon, MGM called A Spy among friends from 2023 starring the winsome Guy Pearce.

[Josh Clark]

Oh yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

As Kim Philby or Harold Adrian Russell Philby as he was born in India in 1912 because his dad was a colonialist. I can never say that word right.

[Josh Clark]

I think you nailed it. Philby, Kim. He was nicknamed Kim because there was a Rudyard Kipling story, a book I think, about a street urchin raised on the streets of India who becomes a spy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Isn't that crazy?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it really is.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because he got this nickname as a kid, like before he knew he was going to be a spy.

[Josh Clark]

Right. He wasn't out in there like we're going to call you Kim from now on. Yeah, he grew up to be a spy and he was nicknamed after a boy who grew up to be a spy. So it is pretty interesting. But everyone called him Kim Philby and he was born in India in 1912. His, his dad was a colonialist, like you said. His sympathies actually lay with India and he eventually quit the service and went to become, I think an advisor to the King of Saudi Arabia, eventually.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow. Well, at any rate, he was born to a well heeled family. His parents were gone a lot. He was raised by his Indian nanny. He went to Cambridge. So he was sort of on that track of not, you know, royalty or anything, but probably aristocracy, you could say. And when he went to Cambridge, it was the early 1930s, pretty, pretty rocky time. The Great Depression was happening. And that's when the fascists, especially in Germany and Italy, saw their sort of opportunity, when people were wrecked by poverty, to step in and start controlling things.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So communism became a thing among young Cambridge intellectuals at the time. And communism was viewed as the antidote to fascism, which was on the rise at the time in the late 30s. And the reason I was like, why? I don't understand that, because my geopolitics is seen through the view of an 80s American kid who lived through the end of the Cold War. Yeah, but communism is all about class and social equality. One of the defining characteristics of fascism is a rigid hierarchy. So of course the aristocracy of Great Britain would be fully on board with a kind of ideology that said, yes, you're at the top you deserve to be at the top, you should stay at the top. And so the aristocracy at the time definitely had sympathies with the Nazis because of their fascist leanings. And that did not sit well with these young Cambridge intellectuals who had bought fully into communism as a, as the ideology to spread throughout the world.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it was especially a way for kids to rebel against what their parents loved, which is a classic thing that kids and teenagers and young adults do. And in this case, like you said, these young Cambridge elites were like, hey, Communism is where it's at. Forget this. I was about to say patriarchy, but it was really everybody, the upper class altogether. And you know, as far as Philby is concerned, he didn't. He wasn't out there calling for a revolution or anything and let's go burn it down. He apparently never officially joined the Communist party, but he was a communist through and through, like up until the very end. He was very committed to it. Something he did not grow out of like his parents had probably hoped he would.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, out of all of the Soviet spies in the UK at the time, he was probably the most committed communist.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And as you'll see, there were plenty of chances to go a different way. And he never did.

[Josh Clark]

No, for sure. So he was at Cambridge and he met with a professor. And with this professor, he said, hey, I really want to help communism, you know, spread throughout the world. What can I do? What is a young aristocratic Cambridge grad do to help communism? And this professor said, I've. So in Vienna right now they're battling the communist comrades are battling a dictator named Engelbert Dollfuss. And Dollfuss is a fascist dictator. And you can go to Austria and help. I don't know how, but just go to Austria and figure it out. And he did.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he was like, oh, I was thinking a letter campaign or something, but sure, I'll go to Austria and fight a ruthless dictator. While he was there, he went to Vienna, lovely town by the way, one of my favorites in Europe. He fell in love with a woman named Alice Litzy Coleman, who was another young communist. They became co revolutionaries and they hooked up also in a more romantic way, hugging and kissing, that kind of thing. And Dollfuss, the fascist dictator said, all right, we gotta get rid of these communists and we'll do so by whatever means we need to. And that Litzy woman was on that list. She was pretty well known, or well known as far as the insider fascist dictators go. And they said, all right, we gotta get outta Here they realized the writing was on the wall, so they got married, they fled to England. And in London, he finally, Kim Philby got in touch with a real Soviet operative at a secret meeting in Regent park that was arranged by one of Litzy's communist friends. And it was game time. It was on from that point forward.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So this real life communist was a Czech academic who was undercover for the Soviets as basically a spy master. His name was Arnold Deutsch, or at least that's what he told people. I guess it's where Germany comes up in this one. His code name and what he used to communicate with people was Otto. Otto. Apparently he was huge on security. He would make Philby take like three taxis at least before they would meet. And this guy was like, okay, I can do something with you. You're like an aristocratic. You're a member of the upper crust of British society. And right now, the upper crust of British society is if you're from them, you have total trust across the board. Let's take advantage of that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he was pretty ideal for that position, but he was like, how good of an actor are you, though? Cause that's what really matters if you're gonna get into this. And Philby said, well, let's just say this one day Guy Pearce is gonna play me in a streaming series.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he was like, what does that mean? That makes no sense at all. He said, okay, I'm a pretty good actor and a good actor will eventually play me. He's really gotta fall into this part, you know, in such a perfect way that obviously no one's gonna find out. That's the ultimate goal of being a mole, is to be a great liar. And he was really, really good at it. One of the things he had to do, though, was find a job as cover. And he's like, the perfect job for this would be a journalist.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But one other thing he had to do too, was he had to become, at least outwardly, what he despised the most, which was the quintessential English aristocrat.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Right wing.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. Right wing. Fascist sympathies that aren't particularly well hidden. Super conservative. Very loyal to the British crown. Yeah. Essentially everything you think of when you think of like a guy wearing a bowler hat in the forties in Great Britain, carrying an umbrella on his forearm. Right. Like, he did not like these people. And yet he. He now entered their world where he would stay essentially as a mole for years to come. And, I mean, it's. I don't really sympathize with him because of who he was and what a traitor he was.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But I, I do sympathize with him in the idea of having to live your life like that, around people you despise and have to pretend like you like them for years on end or that you are one of them for years on end. That had to definitely be rough on the old soul, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. You know, here's the thing I never thought about. Seen so many stories on this kind of thing. We've read so many books and seen so many movies about double agents and people, you know, lying for cover. But I always think about like, oh, yeah, to live that lie and to keep that up. That must be hard. Until we did this episode, I never thought about how hard that would be to just like, be sleeping with the enemy, essentially full time. And like all your friends, all your social circle, everything that comes out of your mouth, like, has to be the thing that you hate the most.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's incredible. I never considered how hard that would be.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So you said that he was told he needed a J O B.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

And he became a journalist.

[Chuck Bryant]

J O U R N A L I S M Right.

[Josh Clark]

That was his job. And the reason why it was such a great profession for him is that you can go all over the world as a journalist and you're just like, yeah, I'm covering the running of the bulls. So here I am. Or this is. This Olympics is amazing, isn't it?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Oktoberfest, let's do it.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Nobody's gonna question why you're in this country. Cause you're covering something that. That's one thing. Another thing too is if you are covering like elite people, you're kind of considered a member of the club just in and of itself. Right. So people let their guard down around you because you're an aristocrat, you're one of them. They know you won't say the things that they are saying off the record.

[Chuck Bryant]

You won't print those in the paper, but you could sell them to the Soviets.

[Josh Clark]

That's exactly right. So he gathered all sorts of off the record secrets and all this stuff from interviewing people at the highest echelons of power that they were sharing with him because he was one of them. He was just turning right around and giving it to the Soviets, like you said. So his career as a journalist to start out was a great choice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it's just further reinforced the more he does it because he's not printing that stuff. So you're like, oh, Philby can really be trusted because I told him all this off the record stuff and he's not printing it. This guy's great.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So to sort of bulk up his cover, he got this job at the Anglo German Trade Gazette, which was a British newspaper, but it was at least in part financed by the Nazis. And it was about just trying to get trade relations between Britain and Germany. It was like a friendly newspaper between them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So he had to play this role of sort of quasi Nazi sympathizer and lose all of his friends in his life. Cause all of his friends were these, you know, sort of fellow ideologically aligned people, fellow leftists, maybe not all of them communists. But he wasn't hanging out with these people until he started doing this. This right wing sort of Nazi sympathizing group.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he essentially pulled a Christopher Hitchens and just completely transformed from one way to the other. So at the time civil war broke out, this is in the 30s as well in Spain. Have you ever seen the orphanage?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

Very creepy. In the time of the Spanish Civil War.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that was good.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It was. On one hand you had the fascists led by Francisco Franco and they were fighting the communists led by Franco Francisco. And he was supposed to be a war reporter for the London Times. And I mean, he was writing for the Times, but really what he was doing was working his way into the good graces of the fascists so he could spy on them for the Soviets who would then in turn tell what agents to do what? To undermine the fascist side of the civil war.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. Do you think there was ever any confusion about those two leaders?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I made that up.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought you did. Very subtle, though.

[Josh Clark]

Thank you.

[Chuck Bryant]

I was trying to like, sniff you off the case, but in a way that made me look as least dumb as possible.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's why you're the best all around, boy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man. Stop it. So we should mention sort of neither here nor there, but he and Litzy had been divorced by this time. He was married four times total. But he would do things like strike up affairs in order to get into the places he needed to be. In this case, he had an affair with an older woman, Franco's inner circle. But while he was there, his car was bombed, essentially. Not a car bombing, but just hit by a shelling during a bombing raid. And all three passengers in the car that were not named Kim Philby died. And he just had minor injuries. So he was actually awarded the Red Cross of Military Merit from Franco himself. Gave him this award.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. One thing I saw real quick is that Kim Philby received the highest military honor possible from the Spanish, the Soviets and the English, all while he was a spy for the ussr.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow, that's crazy.

[Josh Clark]

So he gained so much access, like he was friendly with the highest levels of the fascist side of the Spanish government that the Soviets were like, we could just have him off Franco at this point. And they decided, like, nope, we're just going to use up a valuable asset. And frankly, I'm not sure that that guy could do it. Yeah, so they didn't have him kill Franco, but he really proved his worth by infiltrating the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. And by this time. Well, should we take a break and then come back and talk about his next round of stuff?

[Chuck Bryant]

We got a break.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, well, we'll be right back to talk about his next round of stuff.

[Jerry]

With T Mobile. No, Trendspotter has to deal with Trendspotty service because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now, keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to 800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch. Up to 4 lines of your virtual prepaid card. 15 days qualified unlock device, credit service port in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required card is no cash access and expires in six months.

[Josh Clark]

So, Chuck, I was saying that Philby proved himself a very loyal communist spy and an effective one, too. So Otto's like, hey, man, you got any friends? And Philby says, yes, yes, I do. As a matter of fact, I have two very close friends from my Cambridge days who I think would fit the bill perfectly. One of them was named Donald McLean. The other was Guy Burgess. Burgess. I'm not sure which way he said it. I also saw a lot of conflicting information that Guy Burgess recruited Philby and yada, yada, yada. But I think that the way that we've said it is correct.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think so. So how he gets Don McClane? Not American Pie Don McLean, thank God. How he gets Donald McClane on the dole is he goes to dinner and he sort of hints around, you know, like, hey, you know, what do you think? And McClane was like, I'm all in, buddy. I've been waiting on this. So he had to do the same thing Philby did was, you know, like, leave all his sort of leftist friends behind. Publicly come out in favor of fascism. And his other buddy, Guy Burgess, saw this happening and was like, hey, what's going on here, dude? This is really fishy. I want in on this. Like, I see what's happening here. And Burgess was not. I think McClain was a pretty decent fit for a spy. But Burgess was very loud, apparently a pretty obnoxious guy. And he was a barely closeted gay man at a time where homosexuality was illegal, it was a crime in England. All that to say he was not a real sort of low key, under the radar, you'll be a good spy kind of guy. But the Soviets were like, he's fine.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's crazy. Like, he was a loose cannon if there ever was one. But they still recruited him anyway.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And they became known as the Cambridge Three. I think eventually there would be a Cambridge five in total, though, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There were two others that were kind of brought on, one of which was this lone wolf who was kind of acting independently. But what they had in common is they'd all five gone to Cambridge or instructed at Cambridge.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. And ended up being Soviet spies.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, that part two.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So when World War II broke out, the Soviets were like, oh, this is great. We're allied with England, you know, nominally, and we've got this guy on the inside. Let's have him join military intelligence. And just like everything else, military intelligence was run by the upper crust, the aristocracy of Great Britain at the time. And so just like, he went to that lefty professor at Cambridge and said, what can I do to help the communist cause? This spy version of Kim Philby went to the British aristocracy and said, what can I do to help the crown? I would really love to get into intelligence. They're like, well, come aboard to MI6. We don't need to vet you. We'll look at your background and see if there's anything that pops up. Nothing did. Great. Come aboard. Here's every secret that we have in the entire nation.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like later on, they literally asked about the vetting and like, how could this get past you? And they were like, yeah, you came from the right family and we knew the same people, basically.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And this is how it was back then, by the way. Look for a little preview, we got an episode on MI6 coming out at some point.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Looking forward to that. But he's all of a sudden working for MI6. Is in the perfect position to be a double agent because of where he worked, but also because he was. I mean, this is why they get Guy Pearce to play this guy. He was really, really charming guy. Apparently just very smart, very quick witted. Apparently he would just make you feel like you're the only person in the room. People really, really loved him and thereby trusted him very quickly. And a legendary drinker. He could drink anyone under the table. And if you're in a cocktail party and you get people a little, a little tipsy on, on, on whiskey, on that fine scotch or British whiskey, they're going to start spilling some secrets. And he was. He's like Karen Allen and the first Raiders. You know, she could drink that guy under the table. So don't get into a drinking contest with Kim Philby or Karen Allen.

[Josh Clark]

No. I think that Dave put it best though, when he really brought it home for me at least to describe how charming this guy was. He said Dave compared him to Peak Hugh Grant. I almost wet my pants when I read that. I was like, God, that's charming. That's how disarmed I was. I almost just peed.

[Chuck Bryant]

I haven't seen Heretic yet. It looks good though. I heard it's pretty good.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, have you seen Talk to Me.

[Chuck Bryant]

What's that?

[Josh Clark]

It's another A24 horror movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe. What's it about?

[Josh Clark]

I don't want to give it away. It's about where you can hold this mummified hand and speak to the spirit world. You've not seen it? It's Australian.

[Chuck Bryant]

I have not seen that.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, it's so good.

[Chuck Bryant]

I would have remembered that.

[Josh Clark]

You're going to love it.

[Chuck Bryant]

You've become quite a horror movie guy over the past years.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, you like all kinds of stuff, but is Yumi into these scary movies?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, no. She'll hang out on the couch with me and watch them. But she's not. She doesn't watch them. Although I think she would even, like, talk to me. It's just so well done and there's only a few parts that are like scary scary. Yeah, it's just a really well thought out horror movie. It's really cool. It's a good one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, and you're. You got an A24 tattoo on your lower back, so I know you're an adherent.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they really are great.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, where were we? We were at Hugh Grant and we were talking about the drinking. All right, I guess let's talk about what was going on then with the Cambridge 3. This is a very successful. Well, all the Soviet spies combined were really successful, including the Cambridge 3. Over the course of their work, they sent the Soviets, more than 10,000 documents during World War II.

[Josh Clark]

Just World War II.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. And like the D Day invasion, advance notice, stuff about the Manhattan Project. Like some really big fish, they were getting fed this information and sometimes this would, you know, this would lead to people dying because of information shared by Philby and others.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So Kim Philby, he wrote a memoir, as we'll see later on, but he showed zero remorse essentially for any of the lives that he, that he cost, essentially. One of the really good examples of this is some members of the Catholic resistance in Germany who were fighting the Nazis during World War II. They approached the British intelligence. We should say MI6. I don't know if we said that's the British equivalent of the CIA in America.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Is it military based? Because you said military intelligence. I thought they were just like the CIA.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I don't know if they're military intelligence or not.

[Chuck Bryant]

I guess we'll find out when we do our MI6 episode.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. Great point. But they came to MI6. Some of these resistance leaders came to MI6 and they said, hey, we want to make friends with you because we think the Allies are going to win. We're fighting to make sure the Allies win. And afterward we want to build a Christian Democratic Germany that's going to be super friendly with the West. So let's work together after the war. Okay, see you, Tata, for now. And Philby, as a member of MI6, found out about this, told the Soviets and basically the names and addresses of these people and the Soviets went and killed them all because the Soviets wanted Germany to be communist afterward, not open and democratic and Christian. So after the war, when MI6 went looking for these Catholic resistance leaders to help rebuild Germany, they were gone. They'd all been killed during the war, thanks to Kim Philby.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So that's just one example of many where lives were lost due to, you know, his intelligence gathering after World War II. This is when obviously the Americans and the Brits sort of turned toward the Soviet Union and the threat of communism as the main enemy. And you know, kind of pre Cold War stuff. And you would think that this would be a tough thing all of a sudden, cause Philby is really the enemy. But he was so good at what he did, he just had an inside position, so it was not easier. But all of a sudden he was like, he was really in the mix.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And he was so good at lying, he was so good at playing this part. Sleeping with the enemy, like you said, year after year after year, that even when the Soviets were the enemy now. Like, he just coasted right through it, like it was nothing. Like there had been no change whatsoever for him. So he actually had a stroke of Genius in 1944. He said, hey, we really need to start worrying about these Soviets. I'm worried that there's Soviet spies in MI6, and I think we need to create a counterintelligence section for MI6 dedicated to rooting out Soviet spies.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

Do you know the huevos it takes I know, man. To suggest something like that when you're a Soviet spy, but at the same time, it really just shows. Yeah, that was his M.O. he would be like, you can't possibly suspect me because I'm the one suggesting this. That's what he did. And they were like, great idea. Let's get somebody. Not you, to do this. And they hired a guy named Felix Cowgill.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. Get that old boy Cowgill on it. And Philby was like, oh, that didn't go down like I wanted, because I really need to head up this organization and not have this guy Cowgill all of a sudden sniffing down my neck. So he starts a whisper campaign to sort of get Cowgill out of there. That's exactly what happened. And within a few months, Philby is standing there, you know, at the ready to take over. A Soviet spy all of a sudden in charge of the Soviet counterintelligence for MI6. So McIntyre, in his book, this is a pretty fun quote, he said, the fox was not merely guarding the hen house, but building it, running it, assessing its strengths and frailties and planning its future construction.

[Josh Clark]

You sound like Hank Azarian. Mystery Men. The Sphinx.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great, I'll take that.

[Josh Clark]

I think that's a great quote, too. He definitely nails it. So this is what. But that's the reality now. Like, Kim Philby is the in charge of rooting out Soviet spies, yet he's a Soviet spy for MI6. Perfect. Yeah. So things are going along smoothly for, I don't know, a couple of months. And then there's this really big deal that happens. There's a defector who worked at the Soviet embassy in Istanbul. His name was Konstantin Volkov. And Volkov went to the British embassy in Istanbul. He said, hey, neighbor, get this. I know the names of dozens of Soviet spies embedded in British intelligence all throughout. And I will tell you their names if you give me $50,000. And they're like, $50,000 in 20, 25 money. He goes, no, no, no. $50,000 in 1944 money. That's a lot more if you give me that and you help me and my wife defect to the West, I'll tell you all these people's names. And here's a little, here's, here's a little bit of sugar on top to get you interested. One of these spies is the head of a section of the British Counter Espionage Service in London.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they said, oh boy, that's quite a sweetener. So Philby hears about this and instead of like, you know, freaking out, he was like, no, no, no, I've got this. He said, you know what if it's that inside, we need to get an interview with this guy. Somebody needs to go interrogate Volkov. And how about I do that?

[Josh Clark]

They're like, think Cowgill. And he goes, no, exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he said, I should do this. And they trusted him so much at this point, they're like, yeah, sure, who better to send? He goes to Istanbul to meet with Volkov, but he never showed up because the Russians took care of that, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He told the KGB that there was this Volkov defector in Istanbul and they needed to take care of him. So he looks totally innocent and legit, like he's the head of MI6, Soviet counter espionage department. So it makes sense that he would go interview him. One, but it also just makes him look so innocent. Why would you go all the way over there to meet with somebody you know is not going to be there? Oh, of course he's innocent. He went to Istanbul to meet the guy. That guy just disappeared, that's all. And it was just another master stroke like that. I'm just, I mean, I don't take my hat off the liars very often, but this guy definitely deserves a hat tip for coming up with this stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, he was always one step ahead of things. So much so that the Soviets eventually thought that he might be like a triple agent or double crossing them or something because, you know, they were like, how has this guy moved up so quickly and all of a sudden he's running the Department MI6. It's pretty genius, comrade, but it's all very suspicious to them. And they were a pretty paranoid bunch at that point. They probably still are. And they always wondered what the deal was. But like, his information always checked out, it was always golden. So they really had no choice but to go along with things. He would eventually go to America. He was assigned MI6 chief in DC. So if he was like a charming guy in England with that accent and his drinking ability, he was like, just multiply that times 100 in the United States, as far as the charm factor goes.

[Josh Clark]

Right, Exactly. So yet again, he's done some amazing maneuvering. He's in D.C. he's hanging out with the most connected, embedded members of the CIA, the FBI, the diplomatic circuit from the State Department. Like everybody who's anyone in D.C. this guy's partying with. And you said that he was well known as just like a. He had a hollow leg. He was just such an amazing drinker. He could drink as well as anybody. Like Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark, you said. Apparently he could get so drunk that he couldn't engage in a conversation, but he was always listening. And he could still type up a pretty great report the next day for his handlers, based on the stuff he'd overheard while he was blackout drunk, essentially. So this really jived with America. Like, the Americans at the time, they loved drinking like that, just like the Brits, maybe even more so. So he would just drink with everybody. Okay. But close to tide, at least you can agree. So he would just drink with everybody. And that's how he became a trusted confidant, apparently. Also, he was a genuine friend. Like, he met some people along the way that he really became friends with, and I think later on he said that he missed some of them, but that combination of being one of them in the intelligence community, being able to drink as well as anybody so he can have fun at cocktail parts being charming and then also being a legit friend, he. He really got his hooks into people over in the US as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. One of the guys he really buddied up with, his name was James Angleton. He was a counterintelligence chief of the CIA for two decades. So good guy to know. They had already met, apparently from when they were younger in England. So they were hooked up again and became really, really close. And so he thinks they're, like, really good friends. So he's just spilling everything to Philby because they're buddies. One example is he told Philby about a military operation called Operation Valuable where the Brits and the Americans were going to overthrow the dictator of Albania to keep them from joining the Soviet bloc. And they were training exiles to sort of mount this fight against their dictator. And Philby passes this along to Moscow, and before you know it, these Albanian authorities are like, ready and waiting when this uprising happens and just slaughtered all these foreign trained exiles and basically quashed everything. The revolution was no more.

[Josh Clark]

Right. And so there's a whole bunch of heads also on Philby as well, from.

[Chuck Bryant]

That yeah, we should probably take another break. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, let's take a break.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we'll come back and talk about. Well, Kim Philby right after this.

[Jerry]

With T Mobile. No, trendspotter has to deal with trendspotty service because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to four lines of your virtual prepaid card. Allowed 15 days qualifying unlocked device, credit service port in 90 plus days device ineligible carrier and timely redemption required card is no cash access and expires in six months.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we're back here for act three. It is now 1946, and we're going to talk a little bit about something called the Venona decryption. That was. You know, everyone had their secret codes that they used to encrypt things in those days, and they still do. But 1946, American cryptologists cracked that code that the Soviets were using, the VENONA decryption. And they said, hey, let's just not use this going forward. Let's go back and dig through all the stuff from World War II and see if we can get anything out of that. And in 1950, they decoded a message from the past that identified a Soviet spy. No, not Yuri. It's not. Well, I was about to ruin no Way Out, a movie that came out like 30 something years ago. But I'm not going to do that. I'll just say Yuri because it's a really good movie and you should see it if you haven't. But they identified a Soviet spy named Homer who worked at the British embassy in D.C. in 1944. And Philby was like, oh, man, I'm reading this thing. Homer's McLean. It's my friend, and if they get him, then my cover's blown. And right now he's in a good spot because everyone thinks he's like me, just a straight up Cambridge boy who's doing God's work for the crown. But more evidence started coming out and another decoded message came out saying Homer's wife was pregnant and staying with her mother in New York. And he was like, it's really obvious it's you now. So I gotta. I gotta kick this thing into action.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. So I guess as an example of what kind of friend he was, he took it upon himself to get in touch with the KGB and be like, mcclain's blown. He needs to get out of here. But just McClain. Because if just McClain had to flee, and it seemed like it was just McClane who was the spy, he could weather that pretty well. He could be like, I can't believe this. I was as duped as you were.

[Jerry]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

If his other friend, the other member of the Cambridge Three, Guy Burgess, also fled, it would be really hard for Kim Philby to be like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe my two best friends were Soviet spies, but not me. So he told Guy Burgess, like, mcclane's leaving you. You cannot leave. You have to stay here. We're going to ride this out together. Just. We'll be okay. And Guy Burgess said, yes, absolutely. And he dipped with McClane, too, leaving Kim Philby to hold the bag.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And he was holding the bag because he didn't know this was coming. Moscow didn't say that was going to happen. So word gets out. It's pretty clear that there's a third man, Q the zither, and that had said, hey, Moscow, here's what's going on. So the writing's on the wall. He knows he's about to be found out, even though he had all this protection as the Cambridge boy, these other two guys being Cambridge gentlemen, being moles and just sort of disappearing. It could be anyone. So he knew that the writing was on the wall. Everyone's starting to remember, like, wait a minute. All three guys were super leftist, like, Communist in college. And they really turned. They really changed their mind on how they felt about things ideologically, really quickly. And then there's also the Volkov affair and Operation Valuable, and, like, all the things that Philby's assigned to are going tits up.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, well put. He could have fled, too. He didn't, though. He's like, I think the best thing I can do is stay here. And just by having the guts to stay here, it'll make me look all the more innocent. Like, it will back up my claim. Right. Like, what person in his right mind would be a Soviet spy? And when he's basically outed, stick around to say, no, I'm not a spy. And that's exactly what he did. And MI6, at the end, they said, okay, we'll believe you. And they circled the wagons around him again because he was an aristocrat. But the CIA, the FBI, MI5, which is like the UK's version of the FBI, all of them were like, this Guy, Kim Philby, he's the third man. He's a Soviet spy. And MI6 would not hear of it. And there is actually a rift that developed between MI6 and the other agencies. But the reason why MI6 was willing to do this was because, like we said, he was such a good friend that his true friends who were left, who weren't spies, came to his defense. And they staked their reputations on Kim Philby not being the third man. The Soviet spy that was still embedded in MI6.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And those were James Angleton, who we talked about, the CIA guy for 20 years, and a guy named Nicholas Elliot, a career guy at MI6. So they kept him from being prosecuted. He couldn't still work at MI6. He was forced to resign. They couldn't save his job. But when this all came out, it should have been like over for him. But he held again, the Wavo's in the sky. He holds a press conference at his mom's house in London and like live on camera, just very openly and convincingly answers all these pointed questions from reporters saying like, my two friends deceived me. Everyone ended up believing him. And while this made him like technically a free guy, he didn't have that job anymore and he thrived on that job. So he was pretty miserable at this point and drinking way, way too much.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for not the last time in his life. He almost drank himself to 1951 and 1956 when he was just totally unmoored and adrift. He was no longer an MI6. The Soviets had cut off contact with them. And his friend Nicholas Elliot, one of those guys who had staked their reputation on Kim Philby not being a Soviet spy, he pulled some strings. He used to be this MI6 station chief in Beirut and he got in touch with some friends at the observer and, and at the Economist and said, why don't you take this guy, Kim Philby, as one of your reporters? He's a longtime journalist. He used to be a journalist and covered the world. Why don't you put him to work in Beirut? And they did. They put him in as a Middle east correspondent for both of those papers.

[Chuck Bryant]

And while this happened, or sort of shortly after this happened, Elliot said, and you know what? You can start working for MI6 again, just on the down low.

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

We'll throw you some bones here and there. You can go to work. So now Philby has this. Once again, he's a journalist again. He's quietly working for MI6 again. And he could have just, you know, Played it straight from this point forward and been like, all right, I got back on track. But he calls up the Ruskis and is like, guess what, old boys? Guess who's back in? And immediately, you know, because of his love of communism is one thing, I think. But the author of that book, MacIntyre, also makes a point that. And I think a good one, that he was sort of addicted to this kind of lifestyle, the deception lifestyle of drinking and philandering and leading these two lives. Like, he seemed to really thrive off of that subterfuge and could not give it up.

[Josh Clark]

Right? So he was back in it again. He was happy to be alive once again. And I think this lasted for about a year. A woman named Flora Solomon came forward. She had been reading some of Philby's articles in either the observer, the Economist, or both that were unflattering toward Israel. And Flora Solomon was dedicated to the cause of Israel and did not like that. So she said, you know what? I've had this thing in my pocket for 30 years. Kim Philby approached me when we were back at Cambridge and. And asked me if I wanted to become a Soviet spy. And I said no. And then I just let it go for 30 years until he ticked me off. And so this was. This was it. Like she said, this guy is a Soviet spy. Told an editor at one of the papers, either the Economist or the observer, again, they turned around and told MI6, and Kim Philby was in again in trouble. And this time, he had nobody to swoop in to help him out. He was basically cooked.

[Chuck Bryant]

I feel like those kind of loose ends don't happen in intelligence anymore. Like, oh, this woman who you tried to recruit as a spy is just out there with this information.

[Josh Clark]

I read. Why?

[Chuck Bryant]

Why?

[Josh Clark]

Because MI6 at the time was doing something called negative vetting. They would look at your record, your file, whatever they had on you, and as long as nothing, no red flags popped out, you were in. Rather than positive vetting, where they conducted an actual background, like a background investigation on you that they went to the trouble of doing research, as long as there's no problems you're in. So that was one reason why it changed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hmm. Okay. Well, that makes sense.

[Josh Clark]

Thanks.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm glad you knew that. Thank you. So where were we? Okay, so he was in trouble. He couldn't deny what was going on any longer. His buddy, Nicholas Elliot, was pretty upset, obviously. He volunteered to go to Beirut and get a confession out of Philby, and he tried to deny it to him still. But Eliot was. He was super upset at this point. And he was like, you're my friend. You pulled a charade over my eyes. The charade over my eyes. The wool. The woolly blanket has been pulled over my eyes, old boy. And he was ticked off. And finally he was like, hey, listen, give me a full confession. I can make sure you're not prosecuted for this. Philby knew that even if that happened, he wouldn't be a free man. The Mi6 was all of a sudden gonna put the thumb screws on him to try and get all the information he ever had about the Soviets. The Soviets were probably gonna try and snuff him out. So he was like, I gotta just leave. I gotta get the heck outta here.

[Josh Clark]

Well, he compromised. So just this past January, they declassified the confession that he gave to Nicholas Elliot. And in it, he basically said, yes, I spied for the Soviets, but only while they were allies to the UK, just in World War II. And in 1946, I stopped. So he compromised. He had to give him something, but he also didn't give him enough that the Soviets would want to kill him. Right, right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, hopefully.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. And Nicholas Elliot had a great quote when he went to Beirut. He said, I once looked up to you, Kim. My God, how I despise you. Now I hope you've enough decency left to understand why.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So painful. Phil be sitting there. He's doing three days of interviews with Nicholas Elliot, and on the third day, he's like, that's enough. I'm out of here. And he vanished from Beirut In January of 1963, shortly after telling his wife he'd meet her at a diplomatic dinner party that evening. And. And he hopped on the Soviet freighter and slipped away. Slipped away so easily that even the KGB was like, we're pretty sure Nicholas Elliott let him slip away.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and he may have, because just to let him quietly leave was a lot less embarrassing for England than to put him on trial and to go through this big public spectacle where all these people are trotted out and asked, like, how did this guy get away with this for so long under your watch?

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

So he left. He lived in Moscow for the rest of his life for 25 years. You can Google pictures of, like, an elderly Kim Philby walking around Moscow. He eventually would die in a Russian hospital in 1988, and never said a bad word about the reign of terror from Stalin or anything like that. He got the Order of Lenin, like you said. Was awarded the highest honors in three different, very opposing places.

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because he was so good at lying in his spy craft.

[Josh Clark]

He also. I mean, he was considered. I think still to this day is considered a national hero in Russia. He was featured on a postage stamp in 1990 as part of the Soviet intelligence agent series of postage stamps. And I think he got full military KGB honors when he was buried in Moscow. And yet I read this blog called Cypher Brief, and they basically say the big problem they did, in addition to all the lives lost because of him, was just the damage he did at creating paranoia in all of the intelligence agencies which tore themselves apart looking for Soviet spies because they found out that there were not just three, but five.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And they tore themselves up for decades to come looking for that fifth one because they didn't know who it was. And it turned out it was a guy named John Carncross. And then there was another one named Anthony Blunt, who was the art curator for the Crown. But he was a traitor. At any rate, that was one of the big lasting legacies Kim Philby left behind him was just utter paranoia.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, if it could have been them, it could have been anyone. And it was also this sort of this bedrock thing of that up until then had been, if you come from the right family, if you come from the right world, then you're to be trusted as an insider. It rocked them to the very foundation.

[Josh Clark]

Well put, chap.

[Chuck Bryant]

Thanks.

[Josh Clark]

You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, no, but since you said chap, I think you know what that means.

[Josh Clark]

It means that I've unlocked listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. This is from. It says Emily, but there's a little. Is it an accental goo or grave? Which is the one that goes from northeast to southwest?

[Josh Clark]

Like, I know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. That's above the E. So I'm not sure how Emily pronounces the name. There might be Emiel.

[Josh Clark]

No, like you would pronounce the e. If it has an accent. There's something to it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Emile.

[Josh Clark]

There you go.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. Hey, guys. Been listening since around 2018. Provided me much comfort, entertainment, and knowledge. So thank you. I'm from Montreal, and I love your poutine Short Stuff episode. I'm somewhat of a poutine superfan and purist. It's been on my mission to try and rate as many poutines as possible throughout Quebec to find my favorite. I thought I'd share my personal poutine rating system with you because I found it to be a rigorous method.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Four criteria. Number one, cheese curd. How squeaky are the curds? Too big or too small?

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Number two, gravy sauce. Too sweet. Tomatoey. Not salty enough. Too runny.

[Josh Clark]

Tomatoey.

[Chuck Bryant]

Eh, I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

French fries. Too limp? Is the cut too thick? Are they tasteless? Boo.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Do they taste like Wendy's tasteless fries?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, not on the Wendy's fries, huh?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty good dipped in a frosty, though.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Assembly. Is the cheese gravy fry ratio just right? That's a big one.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is the portion too big or too small? And bonus, fifth criteria, value for money.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's a good extra one there at the end.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, pretty good. Even though poutine is a simple dish, guys, the beauty of it is so that it can be adapted to everyone's own personal taste. Thank you very much for the podcast to all the team. Have a nice day. That is from Imelay.

[Josh Clark]

Thank you very much, Imelay. Emily, that is a great test, a litmus test, if you will, for poutine. In my opinion, it would be really tough for the gravy to potato ratio to be too much gravy. It'd be easy to be too little gravy, but too much gravy would be hard to achieve, in my opinion.

[Chuck Bryant]

That could lead to a soggy fry, though.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that just means you're not eating them fast enough.

[Chuck Bryant]

Ah, good point.

[Josh Clark]

All right, well, if you want to be like Emily and send us your own personal litmus test for something or other, we love that kind of stuff, you can send it to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff.

[Jerry]

You should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

[Chuck Bryant]

You listen to your favorite show.