122. Kim Philby: An Assassin In Spain (Ep 2)

Summary

The Rest Is Classified, Ep 122: Kim Philby: An Assassin In Spain (Ep 2)

Date: January 28, 2026
Hosts: David McCloskey (former CIA analyst, spy novelist), Gordon Corera (veteran security correspondent)

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the formative years and early espionage career of Kim Philby, the most notorious British traitor and Soviet double agent of the 20th century. McCloskey and Corera reconstruct Philby’s radicalization at Cambridge, his recruitment into the infamous "Cambridge Five", and his hazardous missions in the Spanish Civil War, culminating in his infiltration of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). With their trademark wit and expertise, the hosts unravel not just spy craft—but the complex, often eccentric personalities and social dynamics behind Britain’s greatest intelligence failure.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Forster Ethic & Betrayal

• Opening quote sets the mood:

  “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friends, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.”
  — E.M. Forster, quoted by David McCloskey [03:09]

• The philosophy frames Philby’s trajectory: loyalty to ideology, friends, and the cause over country and establishment.

2. Origins: Cambridge, Communism, and Soviet Recruitment

• Kim Philby’s Background:
  • Son of the eccentric St John Philby, explorer and Middle East expert—"even when recruited, Philby’s in his father’s shadow" [04:47].
  • At Cambridge, Philby is drawn into left-wing politics, radical circles, and ultimately recruited by Soviet intelligence (then NKVD, later KGB).
• Recruiter’s Perception:
  • Arnold Deutsch code-names Philby "Sonny", viewing him as a blank slate; sees Philby as “ready, without questioning, to do anything for us...” [05:23, 06:48].

3. Formation of the Cambridge Spy Ring

• Philby’s jobless post-Cambridge, initial task: "Spy on your father" [06:56].
• He compiles a list of up to 17 associates for Soviet recruitment:
  • “It doesn’t mean there were 17 spies—but he draws up a list of who could be approached.” – Gordon Corera [08:39]
• Notable recruits:
  • Donald Maclean ("Orphan"), Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross—who together with Philby become "the Cambridge Five" or as they're called in Russia, "the Magnificent Five" [13:55].

4. The Wild Card: Guy Burgess

• Burgess’s background and excesses:
  • “I think Guy Burgess is a communist, but more importantly, he’s a lunatic.” – David McCloskey [10:16]
  • “Sex, alcohol, and Marxism. That’s the Guy Burgess way.” – [12:27]
• Philby’s pragmatic caution: Burgess is last on Philby's list, noted as “wild” and potentially risky [12:31].

5. The "Sex-Pol Rebels" & Subversion of British Establishment

• Quote from historian Christopher Andrew:

  “All of the Five were rebels against the strict sexual mores as well as the antiquated class system of interwar Britain...”
  — David McCloskey [14:57]

• Soviet tradecraft: recruiters "find idealistic young men and have them disown their past, burrowing into bourgeois institutions" [15:32, 16:52].
• Philby struggles disavowing his activist wife, Litzy, and leftist circles—a recurring personal and operational challenge [16:52].

6. Career Struggles & Early Missions

• Philby initially fails at journalism and intelligence gathering—spying on his father's circles, joining front organizations like the Anglo-German Fellowship [18:08].
• Throughout, he’s handled by a succession of legendary illegals—Deutsch, Orlov, Theodore Maly—many of whom are later lost to Stalin’s purges [20:20].

7. Spanish Civil War: Assassin-in-Training

• The Soviets deploy Philby to report from Nationalist (Franco’s) side, to gather military intelligence [21:39].
• Audacious order: attempt to assassinate Franco himself. “He’s being asked to assassinate Franco. Remarkable.” – McCloskey [23:58]
• Key turning point: survives a frontline shelling that kills three other journalists:
  • “The fact that he’d taken the back seat is just that crazy bit of luck...” – Corera [30:54]
• Philby receives a medal from Franco—becoming a "brave war correspondent" and valuable asset in Soviet and press eyes [31:56].

8. Return to England and MI6 Penetration

• On return, old school friend Tim Milne notices Philby’s transformation: more cynical, world-weary; “cynical, more worldly wise, more interested in material comforts, more gregarious...” [35:22]
• Stalin’s Great Terror disrupts Philby’s handlers, causing gaps in communication and making Philby’s situation precarious [36:34].
• Despite anti-fascist convictions, justifies Stalin’s Nazi-Soviet Pact as "a necessary tactical move," demonstrating flexible loyalty to Moscow [39:51].

9. Entering the Heart of British Intelligence

• The British establishment’s insularity allows Philby’s infiltration:
  • “I was asked about him, and I said I knew his people. That’s what Valentine Vivian says.” – Corera [59:11]
• Philby moves from journalism and Section D ("D is for Destruction") into the official MI6 apparatus, thanks partly to old boys’ networks and his father’s connections [49:38–55:57].
• Burgess falters—sent back to the BBC and later into the Foreign Office despite profound unsuitability [54:14].

10. The Old Boys Network and Class in British Intelligence

• “If you know the right people, that’s enough... this is the old-fashioned British elite and establishment in action. It’s a good lunch. Someone saying, you’re a good egg, and you’re in MI6.”
  — Gordon Corera [59:11]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On recruitment:

  “They pay him, I guess, £4 a week... but you definitely don’t get the feeling Philby’s doing it for the money.”
  — David McCloskey [06:48]

• On Burgess’s colorful life:

  “Sex, alcohol and Marxism. That’s the Guy Burgess way.”
  — David McCloskey [12:27]

• On British bureaucracy:

  “It was the death of an illusion. Its passing caused me no pain.”
  — Kim Philby (quoted) [50:18]

• On the class system:

  “I think the way to think of it is... the old boys network, where if you’re one of them, and you’re trusted by them, then you’re okay.”
  — Gordon Corera [57:59]

• On Philby's tenacity:

  “It’s not the Soviets scrambling to bring the Cambridge network back to life—it’s Philby’s own energy that does it.”
  — David McCloskey [44:50]

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Timeline & Timestamps for Key Segments

• Recruitment, "Sonny", first cases — [03:19–06:48]
• Genesis of the Cambridge Ring — [07:00–13:27]
• Deep Dive: Guy Burgess’s Life & Influence — [09:34–13:27]
• The “Magnificent Five” and sexual/class rebellion — [13:55–15:52]
• Philby’s efforts to embed & masking ideology — [16:52–18:08]
• Spanish Civil War assignment — [21:21–32:36]
• Philby’s brush with death & Franco’s medal — [28:33–31:56]
• Aftermath, transformation, and class entry into MI6 — [35:22–59:53]

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Closing Thoughts

This episode meticulously charts the unlikely ascent of Kim Philby from awkward, ideologically-driven graduate to key Soviet penetration agent inside the highest echelons of British intelligence. Through vivid anecdotes (and darkly comic asides), McCloskey and Corera lay bare not only the human frailty and eccentricity behind major historical events, but also the clubby, complacent establishment vulnerabilities that made treachery possible.

Ending note:
At the episode’s close, Philby stands on the verge of entering the "inner sanctum" of MI6, having outlasted his Soviet handlers’ purges and British vetting alike, due largely to a "very good lunch" and the unknowing vouching of his wayward father. The extraordinary saga of the “Magnificent Five”—and Philby’s campaign to hollow out MI6—continues in the next installment.

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For bonus material including Philby’s own voice recounting his recruitment, listeners are invited to the Declassified Club (see restisclassified.com).

Transcript

[A]

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad free listening, early access to series first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books. Join the Declassified club@the restisclassified.com Kim Philby, being recruited, ends up going to Cambridge and then he goes to Vienna. He was drawn into communism by the Soviet intelligence service, Mutually Assured Destruction in a way there cause Stalin could go after his family and he's got the secret.

[B]

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[A]

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friends, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country. Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey.

[B]

And I'm Gordon Carrera.

[A]

And that is, I think, a quite famous Ly and Gordon, written by E.M. forster in what I believe in other essays. And it is very, I'd say, apropos of the story we are telling, really continuing today, because we are deep into the world of the young Kim Philby. And last time we looked at how Kim, who's this son of a very, very unusual father, to say the least, I think, ends up going to Cambridge and then he goes to Vienna. He was drawn into Communism. Gordon, throughout the episode, expressed great sympathy for this young hero's journey into the warm embrace of Soviet Communism. And eventually we left last time with Kim Philby being recruited by the Soviet intelligence service, the NKVD forerunner to the kgb. And he has been given, as a young man, straight out of Cambridge with really no access, he has been given the task of penetrating the British state. But unfortunately, Gordon, this. This man who will go on to be the most important, one of the most important traders of the 20th century and build an entire spy ring, he's unemployed, isn't he? Which is a bit of a problem for his Soviet handlers.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, he's been given this mission on the park bench of, you know, penetrate the bourgeois institutions, but he is, you know, he's back fresh from Vienna and this kind of grad student, you know, who's just kind of not really got a job and not quite clear how he's going to do it. And it is interesting because it is actually going to take him years to be successful. It's not a straightforward journey that we think about, but, you know, the message goes back to Moscow with the news of this recruitment of an, interestingly enough, Deutsch describes him as a kind of insecure and shy young man. And Deutsch describes him as someone whose father was some kind of British agent in the Middle East. And Deutsch codenames him Sonny, a reference, you know, to almost certainly to his more famous father. So I find it kind of funny for Philby, even then he's in his father's shadow, even, even at the moment he's recruited into the Soviet Secret Service. He's, he's. He's being referred to in the context of his of his dad, you know, and I think Deutsch, even though he's a brilliant psychologist, doesn't quite realize how determined and independent minded Philby himself is. And Deutsch really just says, well, you know, he comes from a peculiar family. You know, his father is considered to be an expert on the Arab world. Interesting enough, Deutsch says the father is an ambitious tyrant and wanted to make a great man out of his son. He repressed all his son's desires and his son was ready, without questioning to do anything for us and has shown all his seriousness and diligence in working for us. Interesting kind of portrait of how, you know, his recruiter sees Philby.

[A]

I guess he sees him as a bit of a blank slate that he can write upon, I guess is the way he's describing this here, that the father had sort of made his attempt and yet he, in doing so it repressed what Philby had desired. And now, now Deutsch, I guess, to put it differently, and maybe in the language of a recruiter, Deutsch can give Philby what he actually wants.

[B]

Yeah, make him some. Make him his own man. Yeah.

[A]

And they pay him, I guess, yeah, £4 a week amount.

[B]

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, but you definitely don't get the feeling, Phil, he's doing it for the money. I mean, that's not the motivation. But what it's. It's interesting as well, his instructions, his first instruction in terms of spying, because obviously, as we said last time, he's got no access to secrets at this point. His first instruction is spy on your father. Because they're so convinced that his dad, Sinjin, is British intelligence agents. You know, they're so convinced that because of his, the way he's maneuvering around in the Middle east around Ibn Saud, that he must be a spy. That they say to, you know, young Kim, you look at your dad's papers. But beyond that, the other thing that I think is the most famous thing about Philby is, is that it's not just him. There is going to be a ring of spies. And it's because Philby had said there were other sons of functionaries, which is the kind of communist translation, I think, for sons of people who are. People are important, who are at Cambridge and who share Philby's views. So Philby has clearly said to Deutsch, I've got communist friends who, whose fathers are functionaries or, you know, bureaucrats, senior people. And they say, well, can you draw up a list of contacts of people who, you know, who might Be interesting. And this is what creates, you know, the famous Cambridge spy ring. And the fact it's Cambridge and not, you know, the far superior Oxford is basically just because it's Philby who's the initial recruit.

[A]

And he puts maybe 17 names on the initial list. I think we still don't know who all of them are. Right. Presumably that that list did not survive. Survive sort of in the. In the Soviet archives. Yeah.

[B]

And it's interesting because. And of course, some of the people on the list might well have been approached and turned it down. So it doesn't mean there were 17 spies. But he's, you know, he's. He's drawn up that list of who could they approach. And top of their list is Donald McLean, who is a kind of brilliant academic son in this Sons of Functionaries language. He's the son of a former Liberal cabinet minister from a very good family, but also, crucially, a serious communist at Cambridge. So he is approached by Philby over dinner in Philby's flat to sound him out. He agrees. He's introduced to a Soviet recruiter at a cafe. He gets codenamed Orphan because his father had died a few years before. And Donald McLean tells his mother he's gone off communism and he heads into the.

[A]

It's like a drug.

[B]

I've been through my phase and, you.

[A]

Know, communist phase and.

[B]

And he heads into the Foreign Office and he'll be the kind of first one in. Now, the. At the bottom of Phil B's list. At the bottom. So McLean was at the top. At the bottom is Guy Burgess. It's worth a moment on Guy Burgess because this is a kind of crucial friendship from Cambridge for Philby which will define his life. And I mean, Burgess is.

[A]

I should. I should also note for listeners that there will be a tendency to think, as Gordon tells all of these various Guy Burgess stories, that they're made up, but they are not. Guy Burgess is. I think Guy Burgess is a communist, but more importantly, he's a lunatic. Right. That's the.

[B]

He is the most amazing character, I think.

[A]

I think he really is.

[B]

Yeah, he is, because kind of Kim Philby is this kind of. Kind of quite dedicated, determined, maybe even repressed characters. Whereas Burgess is wild, I mean, you know, back to daddy issues. So there is one story, and it's in Andrew Lowney's book on Burgess, Stalin's Englishman as well as others, that Guy Burgess daddy issues might come from when he's 13, because he says he hears screaming from his parents bedroom. He finds, when he goes in that his 43 year old father has died while making love to his mother. And Guy, young Guy has to separate the bodies. Now whether that's true or not, but that's a story that Guy Burgess tells.

[A]

I don't understand why his mother couldn't have done that. Why did Guy have to be involved?

[B]

He goes to Trinity, Cambridge, he's been to Eton and also Dartmouth Naval College. And I guess the things about him is he is, he is very, very clever. I mean, really smart. Smarter than Philby actually. Very good looking, very charismatic, very hard drinking and very openly gay. You know, I mean, does not really hide it.

[A]

Openly gay in the 1930s.

[B]

Well, I think you could be.

[A]

That's. Yeah, I mean that's a pretty.

[B]

It is illegal.

[A]

Courageous, courageous thing.

[B]

Yeah. Until the 60s. It's illegal. It's illegal. And yet there was, you know, kind of gay subcultures which were quite open and actually within the upper class, quite common at points. So he, he, it, it was very open. And so he's this kind of at once he can be a kind of clownish over the top drunk and yet can also get, you know, deep into kind of establishment circles and close to powerful people. I mean, because he's just so you know, kind of charismatic and interesting. I mean, one person who visits Burgess's Cambridge room finds that he has two things on his bookshelves. A collection of pornography and Marxist writings.

[A]

Yeah, you're just, you're just missing the gin. You're just missing the gin. And then you have the three loves of Guy Burgess's life there, right?

[B]

All there.

[A]

Sex, alcohol and Marxism. That's the, that's the Guy Burgess way.

[B]

And of course Philby knows him as a Marxist, but also is, you know, the point is he's at the bottom of Philby's list because he's so flamboyant. I mean, you can see Philby is smart enough to go, this guy is wild. And he actually on the list puts a question mark after Burgess's name. And you know, Philby's right, because in the long run actually Guy Burgess will help play a role in Philby's downfall. But they actually also clearly enjoy each other's company. You know, they kind of get on. But the problem is Maclean and Burgess are friends. And when Donald McLean seems to give up on communism, pretend it's a phase, Burgess is too smart to buy it. I mean, he's just immediately suspicious and he starts to pester Donald Maclean and Philby, come on, I know what's going on. I know you're. Something's happened. You're doing this for a reason that you're giving up on your communist past. Just tell me. And so they basically go, we better in than out. We're going to tell him because it's too risky for him to keep asking questions.

[A]

I mean, all of these characters will. I mean, despite all of the various insanities, they'll end up serving as very long term penetrations into the British establishment and become known eventually as the Cambridge Five. Or maybe we prefer Gordon, now that you're very sympathetic to these people, as you've expressed in multiple occasions throughout this podcast, we should refer to them by the name they are known by in Russia, which is the Magnificent Five.

[B]

The Magnificent Five, yeah. And we should round off the Five, shouldn't we? Because you've got Philby as the first. He's suggested Burgess and Maclean at Cambridge. Burgess was part of this intellectual society called the Apostles where they discuss ideas. Very high minded. Philby hadn't been smart enough to get in, interesting enough. But another of the Apostles was Anthony Blunt. And so Burgess will go on to recruit Anthony Blunt. In turn, Anthony Blunt becomes a brilliant talent spotter for more communists and leads to another agent who will be John Cairncross, all from Cambridge. So these will be the kind of five penetration agents who are the Magnificent Five. Magnificent Five, as the KGB calls them. And there are other recruits as well. We should say that, you know, they were not the only five recruits at this time or agents being run. But because they are the five who, who basically last the course and get into the establishment and see it through, you know, they will become known as the Cambridge Five and their Magnificent Five.

[A]

I love this, this quote from Christopher Andrew, writing about the Five in the Matron archive, he writes that all of the Five were rebels against the strict sexual bores as well as the antiquated class system of interwar Britain. Burgess and blunt were homosexuals. McClane, a bisexual. Philby a heterosexual athlete. Karen Cross, a committed heterosexual, later wrote a history of polygamy. So these guys, you know, in some ways they're all kind of rebels, I guess, looking for a cause, aren't they, Gordon?

[B]

Sex Paul, Rebels, sex.

[A]

They're all, they're all sex pole rebels. They're not being recruited to be rebels outwardly. Right. So I mean, Philby is told to essentially get rid of all of his communist associations to be able to burrow into these supposedly bourgeois institutions.

[B]

Yeah, and that was, as we heard last time, this is the recruiter, the brilliant recruiter. Arnold Deutsch's strategy, find the idealistic young men but then have them dismiss their time at university as kind of youthful nonsense. You know, when they're into communism, you know, ditch their contacts, tell people they've given up on those ideas, have nothing to do with the Communist Party of Great Britain and move into the establishment. Now, for Philby, this is actually quite hard. Makes things difficult with Lizzie as well, you know, his, his wife, who he's brought from Austria because he's not supposed to talk to her about what she's doing. But she and he have to kind of cut themselves off from their friends, you know, the kind of left wing circles she moves in, the exiles, the activists. And he's made his choices now, you know, he's become, I think, emotionally dependent on his relationship with his hand or in the Soviet Union and is having to ditch those other relationships. But also he's still struggling. I mean, this is the thing that's so interesting about the Philby story is, you know, he wanted to join the Foreign Office but he pulls out because he's worried about some of the references he might get, might kind of give away too much at this point. And his father's very annoyed about that because that's what his father had wanted, wanted for him. So, you know, he's having these discussions with his handlers what would be best to do and they say, well, how else if you're not going to penetrate the institutions as a kind of civil servant, what else do you do? The best fallback to build access and influence, what would it be, David? Journalist.

[A]

Oh, see now, see, now we see, Gordon, your, your sympathy. Another sort of, another stinking layer in the onion of Gordon Carrera's sympathy for Kim Philby. The shared love of investigative journalism as sort of, I guess, the junior varsity team for spying, right? Yes, exactly.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. That's a route to influence. Yeah. And so. But again, he struggles at first he writes as a kind of sub editor for some small publications, writes an essay in German on Tibet.

[A]

Probably didn't get a lot of readers on that.

[B]

No, exactly. You're like starting really at the bottom of the journalism tree. Kind of not pro German, but not anti German. Interesting enough, his dad visits around this time. Moscow's excited that the famous Anglo spy, St John Philby is coming and his dad is working, you know, with standard oil and Ibn Saud in Saudi Arabia and they're convinced he's MI6. Phil B photographs his dad's letters and papers, but there's nothing there. He's trying to become more bourgeois. He launders or dry cleans his associations by joining something called the Anglo German Fellowship, which is there to kind of promote trade and understanding between Britain and Germany, writes for their publications. He visits Berlin with the group, you know, and Philby finds it pretty repulsive hanging out with the kind of Nazis this is. After all, what motivated him was hating them. But, you know, he's got to ditch his friends, hang out with Nazis, but that's what he's got to do. And he's kind of cultivating, I guess, this image that he's, he's sensible, he's, he's not. He's not pro Nazi, but he's anti war, you know, that's his move.

[A]

Through this period. Deutsch is still running him, right? That's the primary relationship that he's got with, with Soviet intelligence is through Arnold Deutsch.

[B]

Yeah. So Deutsch is still running him, doing kind of surveillance routes to meet him, public transport, all these things and passing on messages. But then others also come into the frame. So there's an interesting character called Alexander Orlov who'd already been posted in America, Paris, Austria. He comes to the UK in the summer of 34 to be above Deutsch as the kind of head of illegal intelligence. His cover is actually as an American businessman selling imported refrigerators in Regent Street. And Phil, Philby and Orlov will meet as well, particularly as there's some worries that Deutsch might be under surveillance. So Orlov starts to meet him after Deutschland, you know, about a dozen times over nine months. Then all of has to leave because his cover is blown, because he bumps into someone who knew what he was. Next person, very interesting guy called Theodore Mali, who is kind of also considered another of the great illegals from 36. He's running Phil B. He's in a Hungarian, originally wanted to be a priest, ends up joining the Red Army. He's again a kind of one of these great recruiters who just has that sensitivity ability to kind of work with not just Philby, but loads of other agents he recruits. And there's a kind of very close relationship between the two of them. But the problem is for Philby at this time, I mean, he's not getting anywhere. I mean, he's not even making it as a journalist and he's pretty depressed. And I mean, actually there's a. You know, for club members, we're going to hear a really fascinating tape, which is a tape of Kim Philby talking about his early career and how he got into it. We're going to be kind of listening to the voice of Philby discussing these things and analysing it. But in one part of the tape, Philby says, I'd reported to my Soviet contacts in a state of some despondency. I had to confess to failure. He, you know, Theodore Mali, as usual, was extremely sympathetic. So he's really, you know, he's just, he's not getting anywhere in penetrating the bourgeois institutions.

[A]

I mean, at this point he's probably one of the least successful members of the Cambridge Five. But the Soviets, again, are very patient. They encourage him to keep going. The idea that Philby go to Spain to cover the civil war that had broken out there in 1936.

[B]

Yeah, and it is interesting that the Soviets are kind of, they don't just think, let's get rid of this guy Philby. We'll keep looking for a way of playing him long of getting him into the state. And this, the Spanish Civil war starts in 36. And again, it's one of those kind of iconic, brutal civil wars of the 30s where the battle between left and right in Europe is being played out because you've got the kind of fascist versus communists, but also it's the kind of nationalists and monarchists as well as the fascists which have got the kind of establishment of landlords, clergy and business at one side against the Republicans and the leftists, you know, the peasants, the workers, lots of other countries pile in, you know, as a kind of proxy conflict. So the Soviet Union obviously on the leftist side, and you get also the volunteers from the left, you get the famous kind of international brigade. People like George Orwell go out. And on the other side, the Italian and German governments are helping the fascists, including, you know, using the air force to carry out bombing raids. Theodore Malley just kind of clearly thinks this is a place where Philby could be useful. So February 37th, they send him out as a freelance journalist, just with some letters of recommendation. And most journalists, you know, go out to cover the leftist Republicans, people like Ernest Hemingway. But Philby, they send out to cover the right wing forces. And it kind of makes sense because if you're the Soviets, you want to collect intelligence on, you know, the right wing forces. You want him to report back on what he's seeing, developments, you know, the array of forces on one side, support the nationalists are getting from Italy and Germany, those are the kind of details that they're after.

[A]

He's also given the mission, which again, it kind of just shows the remarkable Things that the Soviets are going to ask him to do over the course of his career. One of his missions is to get close to Franco, who's the nationalist leader, get close to Franco and collect intelligence that would help with his assassination. So, you know, get into his headquarters, log his security, you know, sort of his pattern of life, who cooks for him, how does he live, what's the daily routine? And I mean, Philby even gets an order to actually kill Franco, which, you know, in retrospect seems absolutely absurd.

[B]

It's mad, isn't it?

[A]

Yeah, it's absolutely mad. I mean, he's a Cambridge undergrad with, you know, a year of journalism experience at this point, and he's being asked to assassinate Franco. Remarkable.

[B]

I know. I think Theodore Malley, when he passes on the order, knows it's not realistic, but it's clearly come from some, you know, probably from Stalin or someone, you know, like, have we got someone who can do it? And it's just getting passed down the bureaucracy. But, you know, Philby comes back from that initial visit in May, having not even got close to Franco and Mali tells Moscow, you know, he's in a very depressed state because Philby feels like he's failed at this mission. But then I think this is so interesting that he gets another shot at it. And how does he get the connections to kind of go back out there? It's his dad, you know, it's his dad again, because his dad is so well connected. You know, he's this kind of semi celebrity explorer of Arabia that, you know, one of his old friends is. Is an assistant editor at the Times newspaper, which is, you know, the establishment government newspaper. Young Kim is offered the chance to write a piece for it, which is kind of. And the paper is quite pro nationalist at this time. The foreign editor had been to Westminster School, old boys network, has lunch with Philby's dad and then proposes that, well, maybe, you know, young Kim could become a special correspondent for us and go and cover Franco and, you know, go to. Go to. Go, go to Spain. The dad's connections here are pretty important in that, in him getting that break in journalism.

[A]

And so that's the big break then. So he goes back to Spain under this journalistic cover in June of 1937. And I mean, he's there for nearly two years until 1939. And I guess, I mean, poor Litzy. Right, Because Litzy's not coming along for this.

[B]

No. And, you know, I do find this sad. This might get my. Some of my sympathies for Kim Because I think, you know, these two young lovers who'd met in the snow now have to separate, you know, because she's. She's. She's clearly too.

[A]

She doesn't know what he's doing, right? She doesn't know.

[B]

I think she must suspect. I think she suspects, but she's not. She's not kind of in the know of the details. And of course, she's so associated with communism that they have to separate. And she doesn't like kind of bourgeois life in London. So around the time he goes to Spain, she moves to Paris. And Philby will say, well, we just discussed it calmly. And they. I think they both realized they've got to sacrifice the fact they love each other or loved each other for the cause. Philby, he has a charm. I mean, he has a charm and a way with women, we should say. It's very interesting. But he, you know, there's something. I think the fact that he's smart, idealistic, he's got a slight man of action to him, as we'll see. He's also got the kind of vulnerability of the stammer. He's pretty.

[A]

Is he still stammering at this point?

[B]

Yeah, he does.

[A]

Stammering.

[B]

Still stammering, yeah. So pretty quickly he gets into a relationship with another kind of interesting character called Lady Frances. Lindsay Hogg, who's known to everyone as Bunny, who is a glamorous, divorced Canadian actress, 10 years older than Kim, but who, crucially, is very well connected on the Royalist side and is quite a fan of fascists. And. And the two of them kind of shack up together in Spain. And she's this kind of glamorous figure who all the kind of fascist leaders love. And so you can see that for him, hanging out with her and having an affair with her is also pretty useful. I mean, they're a kind of interesting, slightly odd couple.

[A]

And I guess it's. It allows him to get close to some of the, I guess, press or media officials in the. In the Franco regime. And I guess a way to start putting some questions to those contacts on, you know, I guess, military details, plans and intentions. I mean, he's. He's gotta be a bit of an odd duck in the journalistic community in Spain, right? Because not now. He's. He's got this girlfriend named Bunny. He's getting close to Franco. He's not covering the Republicans. So it does seem, I guess, a little odd. And then, especially if anyone knew him, they would know that he had been a, you know, a communist sympathizer. Back at, at Cambridge. So he's kind of an odd stew seen from the outside. Right, when he's, when he's in Spain.

[B]

Yeah. And it's interesting when you read the accounts, quite a few of the other journalists just actually think he is a British spy. You know, they think he's working for British intelligence and being told to, you know, to infiltrate the fascist side. But yeah, he's doing, he does quite well. You know, goes to the press conferences. You know, you get the permission, you get a pass to go by car to the front lines of the, of the war. Six weeks after he arrives on this kind of second big trip, he gets an interview with Franco. By now the order to kill him has kind of been rescinded, but he's getting close to people providing pretty useful intelligence. And then there's an important moment in December of when he's out there in that first trip where he goes out to see the action. At the front line there's a convoy of cars, it's New Year's Eve snowing. They approach a village near Teruel, if I'm pronouncing it right in eastern Spain, so north of Valencia. You know, they all get out the car, the reporters. I mean, I've done this kind of thing, you know, places. They wander around for a bit. Two of the journalists go back to the car, sit with a bottle of rum to warm up. Philby comes back to the car and the, you know, it had been his seat in the front, but someone else is now sat in the front. So, you know, Philby says, oh, it's fine, I'll get into the back of the car. They light up some cigarettes, open some chocolates. As a chocolate is being offered to Philby, there's a massive explosion. And it's funny because Philby later says he thought it was exploding chocolates, but actually the car has been shelled by the republican side and the other three men in the car, one of them a Pulitzer Prize winning America journalist, they are all going to die from their wounds of that schelling. All of them apart from Philby will be dead. And you know, the fact that he'd taken the back seat is just that crazy bit of luck that the shrapnel from this shell goes, you know, kills the other three and all the other seats in the car. But in his one seat in the back, you know, he's protecting, he gets a slightly bloodied head and that's it. And you know, next day, New Year's day, it's his 26th birthday. And he will always look back on that day and think he was lucky. And I think he was.

[A]

Well, it gives him, I guess, something of a heroic shine, doesn't it, because he's, he's survived, he's been bloodied, he's this kind of brave war correspondent. I mean, I find this fascinating. He's given a medal by Franco personally for, for surviving this, this attack. I mean, it, it just, it gives you this sense, I guess, seen from the perspective of his Soviet handlers, this is a guy who, you know, despite maybe, you know, sort of against all odds, although I guess with a bit of help from his dad and, and the Times, you know, has. Has actually succeeded in the mission that he's given in Spain of the getting close to penetrating Franco's, maybe not inner circle, but penetrating the people around Franco and giving the Soviets actual intelligence about what the Nationalists are up to in Spain. So that's a. That's a success for Kim.

[B]

Yeah, he's a. He's a kind of successful war correspondent, which gives him, you know, because of this injury, because of the medal, he's got all the access he needs. And that in turn makes him a better agent for the Soviets. You know, he's able to get, you know, some pretty good information which he can, you know, feed back to his handlers if he meets them in France. So, you know, Philby's reputation is definitely enhanced. This is the point where he's no longer a failure. And the Nationalists as well, who he's covering, are steadily advancing until eventually they win that civil war. And Philby's there in Barcelona in January 1935, when Barcelona falls to the Nationalists and reports, you know, from the front line as it falls. And then soon after that, Madrid will fall and the civil war will be over.

[A]

We'll be there, Gordon. With. With Philby having succeeded at his mission in Spain and with a return to England imminent, let's take a break. When we come back, we will see how Kim Philby joins the British Secret Intelligence Service and begins to hollow it out from the inside. This episode is brought to you by attio, the CRM for the AI Era.

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[A]

Welcome back. It is the summer of 1939 and Kim Philby has just returned from Spain. He is back in Britain. He is tougher, he's more experienced, he's more disciplined. He's got a reputation now, Gordon. He's got some experience on the front lines and I guess you could say it's he's kind of someone who has had his first taste of success in the spy game.

[B]

Yeah, and it's interesting. Tim Milne, his old friend from school, definitely finds him changed. He says it was not just that he'd grown fatter, too fat for a young man, but he seemed to have discarded all his previous asceticism and idealism, which I had admired. Now the talk was all about the flesh pots of Spain, the booze, the marvellous seafood. He was more cynical, more worldly wise, more interested in material comforts, more gregarious, you know, that's. He also talks about how it's with some glee. Philby boasts that a doctor had told him that he, then 27 years old, had the arteries of a man of 50. I mean, that doesn't sound like a thing to boast about to me. But he's back. He's back In London, he's passing his material to Moscow. But, but, but this is a really interesting point, kind of 3940, because, you know, he's actually poorly handled by Moscow at this point. You know, having been brilliantly recruited by.

[A]

Arnold, I can't imagine why everything was going so smoothly inside the intelligence apparatus of the Soviet Union in the late 1930s. What could have possibly happened, Gordon?

[B]

What possibly happened was that in 1937-1938, the Great Terror of the purges strike Moscow. I mean, yeah, it's this mad bit of Stalinism, isn't it, where, where you know, Stalin's purges of the kind of military and of the Communist Party then extend to, you know, the NKVD or the KGB itself. And you know, basically they can't start purging all the spies, including all these people who'd handled, you know, Philby. And Philby's got no idea what's going on. But his handlers, you know, keep getting withdrawn very quickly, you know, and the reason is because they're getting purged. You know, Theodore Malley, this, you know, this kind of brilliant of, of the illegals, the one who'd sent him to Spain, gets recalled, tortured and shot in 1938 as a German spy, which he wasn't. Others, you know, there's a couple, Krivitsky and Orlov, who knew a little bit about Philby, who defect but don't, you know, spill the beans, but they kind of leave. Very interesting. Orlov is a very interesting case because he, he'd handled Philby and he, he, he defects to the west but says to Stalin or sends a message through to the top going, I know lots of secrets and I will agree not to reveal them if you don't harm my family still in the Soviet Union. And the deal basically holds. So even though he's defected to the west, he never reveals the kind of, you know, the fact of what Philby is doing. It's kind of interesting.

[A]

That is kind of a mutually assured destruction in a way there, because Stalin could go after his family and he's got this secrets that could uproot one of Stalin's best spies. So they just stay quiet. That's incredible.

[B]

Yeah. And so, you know, what about Deutsch? Yeah, well, Deutsch, it's a little bit mysterious because he's not, we don't think, purged. So the best guess is he dies during the war. It's thought possibly on a, on a, at sea, but it's not, it's not entirely clear what happens. To him, which is a bit of a shame because he's such a kind of interesting character that you kind of like to know a bit more about that. But there's. There seems to be some mystery to it. But the result is all these handlers getting purged. Moscow is worried. The British, you know, it's. It's. British Embassy has been penetrated. There's only one person left. They're also a bit suspicious about the Cambridge spies, because also, of course, technically, the people who recruited and ran them have now been purged as German spies. So does that mean that these agents were compromised? You know, so it's all a little bit kind of actually haphazard for Philby. And Philby is complaining, you know, to Burgess, Maclean and the others and kind of going, I'm really struggling to contact, you know, my Soviet handlers. And then you get as well, this other big moment, August 1939, which is the Nazi Soviet Pact. And I think this is so interesting, isn't it, because this is when Hitler and Stalin briefly make a deal that they're gonna be allies. And you kind of think to yourself, well, how must that feel to someone like Philby, who anti fascism had been his thing? I mean, it's wild, isn't it, what it must have been like when you read that in the news.

[A]

Philby and others, including Burgess, will basically say. I mean, some people just totally walk away from the communist cause.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, when this happens. But I guess Burgess and Philby basically say that this is a necessary tactical move on. Yeah. On the sort of march toward the glorious communist future. That sort of. Stalin had to do this, you know, to. To kind of live to fight another day, I guess.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But even so, I mean, it's got to be very disturbing to watch.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think. I think. I think that must be the lowest moment for Philby because he's got. He's kind of badly handled. Intermittent contact, struggling to talk to them. Nazi Soviet pact. I mean, he must, I think, have had doubts about his choice at this point, you know, and wonder, what have I done? But what's interesting, and I think this is very. Philby is he doesn't walk away. I've made my. You know, I've made my bed. I'll lie in it. I'm going to keep going. And he does, and he gets this next journalistic assignment from the Times, which is now the Second World War, proper, as we think of it, starts when Hitler invades Poland at the start of September 39. And the times newspaper can Send one correspondent to be accredited with the British Expeditionary Force in France, the kind of British army in Europe. And they pick Philby because he is their star war correspondent, having, you know, done the Spanish Civil War. So, so he goes out to the kind of headquarters of the British army in Europe, you know, sits with the British military. He's reporting on what's happening. I mean, it's not that much happening at this point, but he's actually in military uniform. I mean, I hadn't realized this, saw some of the pictures. You know, he. He gets a British military uniform to wear, but now he is crossing a line because the Nazis and the Soviets at this point are allies and again, against the British. I mean, it doesn't last long. But I think this is interesting because this is the first moment where, you know, you raised this earlier. When, when does he. When's he really betraying his country? Really betraying his country? And I think this is the first moment where he's. He's really crossing a line. But very briefly.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, I, I guess it's. It seems unlikely if, even though he'd been in touch with, with Deutsch and other handlers prior to this point, it seems unlikely that if, even if all of that had come to light, you would have been able to prosecute Philby for espionage. Right. I mean, there may not have even been a willingness to do it. Yeah, but there, there may not have been enough of a. There, there to do anything about him at this point. I guess you think about it, it's, you know, you're right. To this point in time, he has not. I mean, I guess he spied on his own father, which is a psychological piece we sort of glossed over. But, but, you know, he, he hasn't spent that much time actually directing his energies at British interests.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Most of his work to this point has actually been, you know, working to penetrate the Franco regime in Spain.

[B]

He is passing on information about British military. And I think that that is definitely crossing a line. But of course, you know, here's the crazy thing. At this point, Moscow is in a kind of bit of a mess. The London residency, the London spy base in the embassy of the Soviet Union is in a mess. And effectively they're pausing contact with him. He's kind of not being handled at this moment, where actually he's perhaps doing his most dangerous thing so far. And so it's a kind of odd situation I think he's in. And then finally, Germany attacks France and the Low Countries. The Germans make this Rapid advance through Belgium and France and very quickly, of course, those countries collapse and their militaries collapse. And, and just ahead of the evacuation of the, what's left of the British army from Dunkirk on these famous little boats, Philby, you know, heads back to Britain. So, you know, by the summer of, of 1940, he's back in Britain, but his relationship with the, with the Soviets seems effectively to have broken down. You know, he's struggling to make any contact with them.

[A]

This is what I, this is remarkable, I think, and it shows the extent to which Philby was a sort of self driven true believer. Because even though his relationship with the Soviet Union is in shambles and even though, I mean, even, you know, by this point the Moscow center has kind of concluded insanely that the Cambridge network was not actually working for the Soviet Union and had been, you know, sort of, you know, controlled by enemies of the people. Right, It's Philby who patches it back up and restarts the relationship with the Soviet Union. It's not the other way around. It's his energy that, that brings it all back together. Which again is just, it's sort of another data point in how deeply committed he is to this cause.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, so he's kind of trying to get McClain and others to say, can you get me in touch? And he, and he's not getting much back, but he keeps the faith because I think it is a faith. I think that's the point. And it's only actually after a few months that Moscow will respond to that. And that's because basically Philby himself is incredibly successful. And it's worth saying at this point, until now, the other Cambridge spies have been doing much, much better at penetrating the bourgeois institutions. You know, Donald Maclean is at the Foreign Office office and he's a rising star. He's passing on tons of secrets, tons of documents to his handler. You know, they're kind of running out of film to photograph it all. Burgess has recruited Blunt, who's in turn recruited others. Blunt is in MI5, he's in the security service. John Cairncross we talked about, has joined the Foreign Office and then the treasury and then is the kind of private secretary to a cabinet minister, Lord Hanke, and he has tons of access to secret documents. Kerr Cross is really important. I mean, he possibly gives the first information about the plan of the Allies to develop an atomic bomb to the Soviets, who was definitely one of the first. 1935, if you go back a few years, he decided the best way to distance himself from his Communist past was to being an aide to a right wing Tory mp. And then they go on a fact finding trip around Nazi Germany where according to Guy Burgess, he has sex with lots of men from the Hitler Youth. Which is like again is just kind of classic Guy Burgess, which is kind of mixing work with pleasure, I think on his, on his. And he's got this amazing network of friends, many of them Gabe and all of them in London. And famously this will be known as the homeintern as opposed to the Comintern, the kind of. And it's a kind of gaggle of people who is with his flamboyant character he's mixing with. Where does he join though, David, in 1936, where's the best, you know, on his path to the establishment? BBC. Where else would you go?

[A]

BBC. BBC? Yeah, I mean, I guess he. Blazing the, blazing the straight path from having sex with tons of men in the Hitler Youth straight to the BBC.

[B]

Yes, exactly. I don't think that's an option anymore. And on the, on, on the career when you're doing your kind of, you know, previous, previous experience experience that qualifies you for this job. But he ends up in the BBC as a talks producer where he's persuading people to come on and talk. And again, he's so well connected, he's so charismatic. He gets, he's got this just brilliant network and I mean he gets to know Churchill pretty well. Before Churchill's Prime Minister, Churchill inscribes one of his books to Guy as a present. And then in January, 39 guys left the BBC for a position in something new which is called section D of MI6. What's the D for, David? The D is for destruction.

[A]

Destruction, yes. I mean these guys. I wish, I wish we got to name sections this way of intelligence agencies. That reminds me, you know, I think we did, we did those episodes. This is now over, I think almost over a year ago. Gordon on North Korean cyber bank robbers and we talked about the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau and they have like a. I think they had a unit called like the, like the Enemy Destruction Sabotage Unit or something like that. This is, this is very redolent of those kind of muscular North Korean naming conventions.

[B]

Yeah, I'm a fan. Yeah. So it's a new section for MI6 focusing on sabotage and destruction, but also propaganda. It's a bit of a, it's new, bit of a sideshow. And Burgess is in the bit basically dealing with propaganda because he's got his background in talks and the BBC So he's a kind of liaison between Section D, Propaganda and Ministry of Information. But then of course, he's now into.

[A]

It's a.

[B]

It's a new bit, it's a kind of adjacent to the main British Secret Service, but it's part of it. And of course he lobbies to get Philby into it. His old friend. And Philby, you can see why Philby is perfect for it because he's an experienced war correspondent, he knows Europe, he's good at languages, he knows about the military, he's been embedded with the military in France, but he also knows about irregular warfare from having covered the Spanish Civil War. And Philby has also been trying to drop hints with all his contacts in the previous months. Journalists and others love to do something for the war and, you know, and a female journalist, I think, with intelligence links is the one he thinks plays a role. But definitely Burgess is the one who kind of helps get him in.

[A]

Philby says he's talking about this meeting with Burgess. Says, I was sitting in the office in the Times with very little to do when suddenly the telephone rang and a voice asked me to go to a certain room in a certain hotel on a certain day. And I asked why? Why? And they said, well, look here, it's rather special work we are thinking for you about and please be as discreet as you can. Simply come to us and don't say anything. And so this is the connection that I guess Burgess helps facilitate for Phil B to the Secret Intelligence Service that is going to really shape all of Phil B's robadic life and legacy.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. So, you know, he has a couple of interview at the St Ermin's Hotel, which is still there, and he's asked to sign the Official Secrets Act. He's into this section D and Guy shows him up to his new office. You know, no one knows what it's doing because it's new. It's the start of the war, there's, you know, reorganization. It's all a bit of a mess. He's got a vague role, Philby helping Burgess, of all things. And there's a great description in Philby's memoir and it's. I have to say, his memoir is pretty unreliable in parts. But I do love the title. Shockingly, yeah, shockingly helped. Written partly by the kgv, but it is called My Silent War, which I think is a great title for his memoir. And he says sometimes in the early weeks I felt perhaps that I had not made the grade after all. It seemed that somewhere, lurking in deep shadow there must be another service really secret and really powerful. Powerful, capable of backstairs machination on such a scale as to justify the perennial suspicions of, say, the French. But it soon became clear that such was not the case. It was the death of an illusion. Its passing caused me no pain. You feel like that when you entered in the CIA, David? First time?

[A]

Yeah, I was going to say I think all sort of intelligence officers and analysts, people who joined these secret services must go through some version of this moment because you have been fed this image of these services as being extremely capable, omniscient, omnipotent in some ways like all seeing. And then you get in and you realize that they're organizations that are run by human beings and they're just, you know, they're, they're broken and messed up and insane in all the ways that, you know, non secret organizations are. And sometimes it's even worse. I think, I think this is a very common feeling. I think it's, it's interesting though that you know, for people who are loyal to these institutions in some way, shape or form, the passing of that illusion does cause some pain because you'd idealized, you know, some picture of this thing that is now gone. And I think in Philby's case, because he's an enemy within, he's probably more than happy to see that it's run to some degree as any other organization would, where you've got lunatics and incompetents who are staffing something. It's a bureaucracy. Yeah, it's a bureaucracy. Yeah, that's right, yeah.

[B]

So he's in this Section D, he's going to go to a kind of training school and be involved in training exiles in propaganda. And he's good at it actually. And at this point the Soviets finally respond to his contact requests. And you can imagine how surprised they must be because like this guy who they thought was a kind of, you know, he's doing okay and suddenly he's like, I'm in MI6. You know, I've got into a kind of bit of the British Secret Service. But Section D doesn't really last very long because it sits, you know, they're real. This is a kind of period of great change for British intelligence. It's the start of a war. So soon they're going to create the Special Operations Executive, this famous organization to set Europe ablaze and to do sabotage. Which means that MI6 can therefore focus much more on just intelligence gathering. And so this kind of creation of The SOE is bad news for Burgess because the new bosses at SOE can see that he is just not. He's not their kind of guy. They're a bit more military.

[A]

He's not SOE material. Burgess is not SOE material.

[B]

This drunken, lecherous young man who's basically been trying it on with all the soldiers is not suitable to be in. To be training in sre. And he's living this kind of wild life at this flat in Bentic Street. And he's also just gets done for drunk driving at this point as well. So as a result, Burgess, you know, who's got Philby in, is thrown out. But what do you do with someone like that? You know, who's. Who's been clearly not suitable for this kind of work. I know.

[A]

Back to the BBC.

[B]

Back to the BBC with my tail between my legs. One day, David, he goes.

[A]

He does go back to the BBC, though only briefly. And then he goes to the Foreign Office.

[B]

Yeah, of course, because he's. He's. He's a drunk. Lecturer's dangerous. Where else would you put him but in the Foreign Office with access to secrets, diplomacy.

[A]

You've got a future in diplomacy.

[B]

Yeah, but meanwhile, Phil be, though, of course, you know, but that's Burgess. But Philby, who's been brought in by Burgess, partly, I think they can see he's. He looks capable. So here is the crucial moment, which is, can he get into the real MI6? You know, not this offshoot which is being now kind of absorbed, but the inner sanctum. And there is this chance. So MI6 decide they need to check him out before joining up. You know, there's a quick cursory check of the files. Nothing found. Now, the number two in MI6 was one of the number twos. There were two deputies, one of the Valentine Vivian Vivi, kind of head of security, decides that to check out Philby whether he's, you know, good enough to join the British Secret Service, what do you do? You have lunch with him and his dad because, you know, Valentine Vivian had known his father. Very British Gordon St John Philby had known Valentine Vivian back in India when, you know, Vivian had been there 30 years earlier. They used to play bridge together. Philby's mother, Kim Philby's mother is an old friend of, you know, Valentine Vivian's, wife's. So. So they decide they're going to meet. And, of course, we'd slightly lost track of the mad St. John Philby story, hadn't we? I think. Where did we leave him? Last, I think he'd converted to Islam, hadn't he?

[A]

In the 30s he'd converted to is he'd converted to Islam potentially to help secure more lucrative business deals in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

[B]

And also by the kind of late 30s he's very anti war, pro peace with the Germans and he becomes a little bit pro Hitler, you know, not totally stands for parliament in Britain for a far right party. And then crucially at the start of the war he's actually encouraging the Arabs to stay out of the Second World War when it starts. And Ibn Saudi is clearly kind of sufficiently kind of worried about this behavior that he kind of tells the Brits. And then St. John Philby gets detained and deported to Britain where he's held for months as a kind of risk to public safety. This is the bit where you just go, this is just so weird. And it's so Britain. So he gets held for a few months, then he gets released. And yet just after that he's having lunch with the number two of MI6 because they're old friends. I mean it's just like. It's nuts, isn't it?

[A]

I've actually been bottling up this question on the British class system because I think we Americans, at least Americans like me Gordon, you know, a pretty decent middle class guy from a flyover state who isn't part of any sort of establishment. Yeah, ordinary Joes like me Gordon, we don't get the class system. But I guess this is, is this a demonstration of that class system in action here where if you're kind of in, and I know Sinjin isn't exactly in the upper class, but if you're, if you're kind of in or if you know a few people who sort of vouch for you, that's, that's enough. I mean what, what is the best way to understand this dynamic that we've just seen here where this guy, a bigamist, a bigamist who converted to Islam and who has actually been deported back to his home country from abroad because he is a threat to safety and security, winds up vouching for his son to join the British Secret Intelligence Service. Like why, why do you have that dynamic for us? Why does that work?

[B]

So I think it's partly about classic, although it's worth saying none of these people are like upper class. They're not the aristocracy and they are kind of upper middle professional class and they're not rich, but they are from a certain world where everyone knew each other. So I think the way to Think of it is partly about class, but not as upper class, but more as what people call the old boys network, which is people who'd been to school together and where if you're one of them and you're trusted by them, then you're okay. And I mean you see that with, you know, with this lunch, you know, this fascinating lunch because it's the three of them having lunch. Deputy head of, you know, one of the number twos at MI6, St. John and Kim, Kim goes to the bathroom and Valentine Vivian from MI6 turns to the father and says, he was a bit of a communist at Cambridge, wasn't he? And St. John replies, that was all schoolboy nonsense. He's a reformed character now and that is it.

[A]

It's an astounding mis. Astounding misjudgment on the part of the father. Exactly. Because he does. Because he probably actually believes it too.

[B]

Yeah, right.

[A]

I mean he's not, he's not covering up for his son. He genuinely thinks that it was schoolboy nonsense. Yeah. VV's got, got the stamp of approval.

[B]

Yeah. And he's been vouched for by one of us. It's clear now he's been told he was once a communist and yet it's fine to employ. And Valentine Vivian later says, I mean I love this line as well. Later he will say he let him in because he was vouched for. And he said, I was asked about him and I said I knew his people. That's what Valentine Vivian says. Valentine Vivian, you know, I was asked about him, Philby, and I said I knew his people. In other words his father, his type of people. And I think it's so interesting because that is the kind of old fashioned British elite and establishment in action. It's a good lunch. Someone saying you're a good chap, a good egg and you're in MI6.

[A]

Well, Gordon, I think there is the perfect place to stop for right now with Kim Philby about to enter the inner sanctum thanks to a very good lunch and a completely out to lunch father who has no idea what's going on in his son's life. But he is about to join sis. And when we come back next time, we'll see how Kim Philby begins to penetrate this most bourgeois institution, the British Secret Intelligence Service.

[B]

But of course, just a reminder, if you want to hear the next couple of episodes right away, you can go join the Declassified [e-mail]. lots more there for you, including some bonus material. And that tape where you can hear Kim Philby himself talking about being recruited into MI6. So we'll see you next time.

[A]

We'll see you next time.

[C]

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[A]

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