124. Kim Philby: Britain’s Most Notorious Traitor (Ep 4)

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: The Rest Is Classified
Episode: 124. Kim Philby: Britain’s Most Notorious Traitor (Ep 4)
Date: February 4, 2026
Hosts: David McCloskey (former CIA analyst & novelist) and Gordon Corera (veteran security correspondent)

In the riveting finale of their four-part series, McCloskey and Corera dissect the postwar years of Kim Philby, focusing on the most pivotal phase of his career: running MI6’s Soviet Section while secretly serving as a Soviet spy. The episode hones in on Philby’s high-wire act in the early Cold War, exposing the immense damage he inflicted on Western intelligence, his close escapes, and the personal consequences of living a double life. They chart the chilling betrayals culminating in death, Philby’s growing psychological strain, and the shifting moral judgments around his choices.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Philby’s Position and the Cold War Landscape

• Backdrop: After WWII, Philby occupies an extraordinary post—he heads MI6’s operations against the Soviet Union while secretly working for Soviet intelligence ([04:03]).
• Tightrope Act: As the new Soviet section chief (Section 9), Philby must sabotage the West without making his actions too obvious or ineffective ([04:58]).
• “The period in which he’s going to do the greatest damage to Western intelligence but...is also the most stressful and the most difficult for Philby to manage…” — Gordon Corera ([04:58]).

2. The Challenge of Managing Defectors

• Igor Gouzenko Defection: September 1945, the defection of Soviet cipher clerk Gouzenko exposes the extent of Soviet espionage in the West ([06:44]).
  • First, the West’s initial disbelief and slow acceptance of Gouzenko's claims.
  • Philby receives the first reports, giving him time to alert Moscow, thus undermining investigations.
• Heightened Suspicion: Jane Archer, MI5’s communist expert, becomes a concern for Philby due to her expertise with defectors ([07:22]).

3. The Volkov Incident: Philby’s Most Dangerous Test

• Konstantin Volkov Approaches MI6: August 1945—Volkov (Soviet Vice Consul, Istanbul) offers to defect, promising to reveal hundreds of Soviet agents, including spies within British intelligence ([10:04]).
• Philby Reading His Own Death Warrant: Philby is present when MI6’s chief shares Volkov’s letter, which indirectly threatens Philby’s cover ([14:50]).
  • “He is sitting there in front of the chief of MI6, reading what could be effectively his death warrant.” – Gordon Corera ([14:57])
• Dramatic Luck and Delay: A series of coincidental delays (rival officer unable to fly, flight diversions) slow Philby’s trip to Istanbul, buying Soviets time to neutralize Volkov ([17:35], [18:07]).
• Philby’s Calm Under Pressure:
  • “He plays it cool…knows that the thing not to say is ‘this is nothing.’” — Corera ([15:39])
  • _“Let me come back to you tomorrow morning with a plan." – Philby’s reported answer when faced by MI6’s chief ([15:39])

4. Betrayal and Death

• Soviets Kidnap Volkov: Thanks to Philby’s tip, KGB reaches Volkov first, drugging and secretly transporting him and his wife back to Moscow, where they are executed ([21:32]).
  • “Famously, two figures entirely covered in bandages are seen being loaded onto a Soviet aircraft on a stretcher. And that is Volkov and his wife. And they are taken to the Lubyanka...” — Corera ([21:32])
• Philby’s Report: Philby writes a misleading after-action report, deflecting suspicion ([23:32]).
• Cynicism about Espionage:
  • "Spying’s a rough game, David." — Corera ([22:44])
  • "If Volkov gets out, Philby is...well, he may not be dead. I guess that is the difference..." — Corera ([22:58])

5. Personal Toll: Philby’s Psychological Decline

• Heavy Drinking: Philby’s close friend Tim Milne notes that Philby’s drinking escalates after the Volkov affair, showing the emotional toll ([26:05]).
  • “Somewhere around this time there was a perceptible change...drink becomes a bit of a bigger factor.” — Quoting Tim Milne ([26:05])
• Marital Turmoil and Aileen’s Decline: Philby’s wife, Aileen, suffers severe stress, mental health crises, and self-harm ([33:48]).
  • Philby’s secretive behavior and affairs contribute to her unraveling.
  • Philby is “angry” more at her disrupting his life than genuinely empathetic ([35:56]).

6. Moral Reckoning: Where Do We Stand on Philby?

• Political vs. Personal Loyalty: Philby cares more for his ideological beliefs than for individuals—contributing to numerous deaths ([39:57], [40:23]).

  • _“I've always operated on a personal and a political level. When the two have come in conflict, I’ve always put politics first...”—Philby (quoted by McCloskey at [45:16])

• Sympathy and Revisionism: Hosts debate if any sympathy for Philby remains at this stage ([43:18], [44:17]).

  • Corera: “Part of the point is it is too late. He started on this path...once you’ve gone in that deep, I think it is pretty hard to turn back.” ([44:17])

• Did Philby Ever Belong?

  • “To betray you must first belong. I never belonged.” — Philby (quoted at [46:14])
  • Corera reflects on Philby’s alienation from the British establishment, suggesting this was key to his self-justification.

• McCloskey’s Final Take: Philby in the end is “totally twisted up and wrecked inside,” motivated more by narcissism and self-loathing than ideology ([45:40], [48:24]).

  • “…the self-hate of a vain misfit for whom nothing will ever be worthy of his loyalty.” — Quoting John Le Carré ([47:14])

7. Philby’s Career Ascends—And Downfall Looms

• Promotion to Washington: Despite everything, Philby becomes MI6 station chief in Washington D.C. at age 37, serving as British liaison to the newly created CIA ([41:35]–[42:20]).
  • “He is just 37 years old, and some of his colleagues believe...this is the next step on his future, to become, you know, the head of the British Secret Service.” — Corera ([42:20])
• Foreshadowing His Fall: Hosts point out that Washington is where Philby’s own choices—and past betrayals—will finally catch up to him ([42:20], [42:24]).
  • The pod promises a future series covering Philby’s exposure and downfall.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Philby reading Volkov’s letter:
  “He is sitting there in front of the chief of MI6, reading what could be effectively his death warrant.” — Corera ([14:57])

• Philby’s cold composure:
  “In his memoir, he says, ‘I stared at the papers rather longer than necessary to compose my thoughts.’ I bet he did.” — Corera ([15:29])

• The nature of betrayal:
  “To betray you must first belong. I never belonged.” — Quoting Kim Philby ([46:14])

• Corera on Philby’s slide: “My sympathy for Philby begins at this point to be stretched somewhat and become harder...” ([23:17])

• Philby’s stance on politics vs. people:
  “When the two have come in conflict, I’ve always put politics first, first. And anybody who’s putting politics above friends, family, children...I find that to be very icky.” — McCloskey ([45:16])

• Le Carré on Philby:
  “Behind the inbred upper class arrogance, the taste for adventure, lies the self hate of a vain misfit for whom nothing will ever be worthy of his loyalty.” — Quoted by McCloskey ([47:14])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment/Topic | |------------|------------------------------------------------------------| | 04:03 | The Cold War dawns—Philby runs Soviet Section | | 06:44 | Gouzenko defection, Philby's delicate act begins | | 10:04 | Volkov approaches British, offers to reveal Soviet moles | | 14:50 | Philby faces Volkov’s letter—the personal threat | | 17:35 | Philby’s journey/delays to Istanbul and Soviet abduction | | 21:32 | Volkov and wife abducted, executed by Soviets | | 26:05 | Philby’s drinking increases, psychological cracks appear | | 33:48 | Aileen’s mental health decline and marital fallout | | 39:07 | Betrayal of young Georgian agents—Philby enables deaths | | 41:35 | Summoned to London, Philby promoted to Washington | | 44:17 | Revisiting sympathy for Philby—ideals vs. reality | | 46:14 | Philby’s justification: “To betray you must first belong” | | 47:14 | Le Carré quote—Philby as eternal misfit and traitor |

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Tone & Style

• Deeply dialogic, reflective, with flashes of dark humor (“spying’s a rough game, David”).
• Analytical, but unafraid to show moral revulsion (“that to me is very icky”).
• Engaged and skeptical—hosts challenge each other’s interpretations, revisiting earlier sympathy and critically reassessing Philby’s choices.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

This episode delivers a gripping account of the most impactful phase in Kim Philby’s treachery, combining double-cross drama and psychological depth. You’ll come away understanding not just what Philby did—compromising Western intelligence and enabling the deaths of both adversaries and innocents—but also why he did it, and at what personal cost. The hosts dig into the operational detail, the blurred lines between loyalty and betrayal, and the profound, often destructive, effects of living a lie—both on oneself and those closest.

Whether you’re a Cold War novice or espionage aficionado, this episode captures the tension, fallout, and tragedy of Britain’s most notorious spy at the height of his deception.

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Transcript

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[David McCloskey]

A penetrated Secret Service is not just a bad one, it is an appalling liability. In place of an all seeing eye, it becomes a credulous ear and a misleading voice, innocently deceiving its own customers in every sphere of the national security, diplomatic, strategic and economic. This was the condition in which SIs functioned at a charitable estimate for 10 years. Well, welcome to the Rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey and I'm Gordon Carrera and that is former SIS officer, a minor spy novelist, John LeCarre writing in 1968 about Kim Philby, of course, Le Carrey, giant of the genre, who wrote a wonderful incredible novel called Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy that really is in many ways about Philby, about the British class system, about the sort of turning inside out of a secret service as he's describing it here. And we're now Gordon in episode four, the finale of our four parter on the rise of Kim Philby and a reminder that we are not doing the entire Kim Philby story in this series. We were going to come back to this later on. Doubtless Gordon will probably have 30 or 40 episodes when all is said and done on Kin Philby, is that right?

[Gordon Carrera]

Less than that, but more than four.

[David McCloskey]

More than four. We're going to come back and do the kind of downfall of Philby later on. But we left Philby last time, Gordon, at the end of the Second World War. He had been poisoned by insecticide by a German cook. He was in the streets of Berlin when news of the, the use of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima came through. And sort of we're now entering this new world of what is soon to become the Cold War. And Kim Philby is in the astounding position of being a Soviet intelligence agent who is running all of SIS's operations against the Soviet Union. So he is doing this high wire act that is incredibly important to the Soviet Union but also extremely risky for Kim Philby himself.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, that's right. This period, I think really from 1944 when he takes over this section 9, dealing with the Soviet Union is the period in which he's going to do the greatest damage to Western intelligence. But it is also the most stressful and the most difficult for Philby to manage because as we'll see, he's basically having to walk this tightrope. Things are getting harder because he's not working with the Soviet Union and Britain against a common enemy, the Germans, but he's working in British terms against his bosses in Moscow. And he's supposed to be undermining Soviet intelligence. And so the question becomes, how successful do you want to be in that job? Because also you can't be totally unsuccessful, you can't screw everything up in operations against the Soviet Union or it's going to be pretty obvious, you know, your career is going to be over and people are going to ask questions. But equally, if you're really good at your job, you're doing Damage to Moscow and to your true masters. So, you know, there is this kind of constant question and tension you've got if you're Philby now, which is, what operations do you sabotage? What operations do you let run? Do you even tell your Moscow handlers everything for fear of what they might do? So he's got this amazing access and this amazing opportunity. Details of what the UK and the Allies are doing to the spy on the Soviets, the bugging, the agent running, the liaison with the Americans, who. He knows what they're doing, he knows what communications they're intercepting. He's constantly having to weigh in his mind how to deal with it. The place where, as we'll see in these years, it gets really hard is when you get defectors from Soviet intelligence. I mean, this is the really challenging bit.

[David McCloskey]

The first incident here that becomes problematic for Philby is September of 1945, a cipher clerk in the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa named Igor Kuzenko shows up first at a newspaper office and then Canadian Department of Justice with a whole bunch of secrets that he's taken. And classically, Gordon, what do you do with a Soviet defector? Right? I mean, you turn him away initially, right? Get out of here. We don't want that. We don't want this stuff. Get lost. But eventually they, yeah, they see the light and Guzenko starts talking.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's funny, isn't it, because they turn him away, the Soviets start hunting for him and he goes into hiding. And then the west suddenly realize, okay, actually, maybe we need to get this guy. And they bring him in. Probably worth us doing a story on him sometime, because his intelligence is so important, because he basically reveals how much spying the Soviet Union is doing on Western countries. Because, of course, they've been allies through the war, thanks to Guisenko, the Western Intelligence agency is going like, hang on a second, they're spying on us this much from Moscow. And so in many ways, this kind of Gusenko defection is the kind of starting gun for the Cold War in terms of intelligence, because they're realizing, well, we've not been spying on them, but they are spying on us. And often it's people who've been Communists, and some of the people Grizenko will point to, you know, including spies in the atomic bomb program. This one, Alan Nunn may, you know, he's going to be important. And the reports, though, the reports of what Grisenko is revealing, of course, where do they come in? London, they come to Section nine, they come to Filby, you know, he gets the reports and he's agitated when he meets his Soviet handler, but at least he can pass it on. And then the Soviets are able to warn some of these agents not to go to some of their agreed rendezvous and meetings where they might be caught and kind of incriminate themselves. I mean, Alan Nunmay will eventually be arrested and prosecuted, but Philby's got to kind of manage this and he's kind of also managing it within the office. So there's. There's a very interesting woman called Jane Archer who's come over from MI5, who is like the leading expert on communism. And again, Philby is really kind of worried by her because he's like, she knows what she's talking about. She's actually interviewed Soviet defectors who've talked about communists, spies and agents inside the British system, and might she have some suspicions about me? So he's got to kind of manage the inflow of defector information, manage some of his own stuff and keep them away from the details that are sensitive. But then we get, I think, the big one for Philby Volkov, Konstantin Volkov, this defection and this, you know, you were talking about John Le Carre and the fact that he basically fictionalizes the Philby story and the Volkov story, I think, is at the heart of Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy. And Le Carre's book really does take this story and use it as the kind of dramatic pull into the mole hunt in Britain. So Volkov, short, stocky man, nominally the Soviet Vice Consul in Istanbul, approaches the British Consulate General in Istanbul in Turkey in August 1945, and leaves a letter asking for an urgent appointment.

[David McCloskey]

Again, no response.

[Gordon Carrera]

No response. It's a bit like the Guzensko.

It's like, really good agent.

Yeah, we'll just leave it. He gets nothing.

[David McCloskey]

It's a prank.

[Gordon Carrera]

They think it's a prank and they ignore it. So then he turns up in person with his wife.

He's taken into the British vice consul's office and he's kind of clearly nervous, his wife even more so. The British vice consul brings in another diplomat who's a Russian speaker, to help. And Volkov, of course, reveals he is actually a Soviet intelligence officer. And crucially, he previously worked on the British desk in Moscow. So he knows about operations against Britain by the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB, and he's offering to defect in return for £50,000. He's had a row with his ambassador and he says he's got a ton of intelligence, he's got Everything from kind of keys to get into the buildings of the Soviet missions to. And this is the crucial. A list of 314 agents in Turkey that they're running and 250 agents in Britain, including some of the documents they've handed over. And there's a teaser, so in an advance of what he's got, because he's obviously smart enough not to just all hand it over until the deal is agreed. He knows the kind of way these works. He says, without giving names, there are two spies inside the British Foreign Office and seven inside the British intelligence system. But one of them fulfilled the function of the head of a section of the British counterespionage service in London. Very precise words, you know, fulfilled the function of the head of a section of the British Counter Espionage Service in London. And he says if the Brits are going to offer him, you know, a new identity and the money, he will provide their identities. And he also says all communications between Istanbul and London should be by diplomatic bag because the Russians have agents inside the mission, the British mission. And the Russians had broken some of the British codes. So he doesn't want any of the details to go back by telegram because he fears the Russians will be able to read them. I mean, that's a big deal.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, we glossed over the fact that he asked for £50,000, which I presume is. I don't know what that translates to today, but it's a good chunk of change, it seems. I guess the specific words you read would have related to Philby's time when he was running section 5.

[Gordon Carrera]

What's so interesting about them is they are not very precise words because the British Counter Espionage Service, technically that is MI5. You know, MI5 is the spycatcher Service. So your initial assumption on reading that would be that the person Volkov is talking about is the head of a section of MI5 because he's talked about the counterespionage service. What he really means is a counter espionage section in the intelligence service. But he's kind of. He's slightly muddled the words or deliberately or not, but, you know, he slightly got that wrong.

[David McCloskey]

And it's dated too. That description is dated. Like he doesn't know that Philby is actually in charge of the Soviet section inside sis.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, but he clearly knows the names because he's offering to give them, but he's insisted the deal has got to be done first. So the Russian speaking British diplomat is told, you contact me. Volkov says on routine business to pass messages and he wants to hear, ideally within 21 days, by September 25 or the latest by October 1, or else then he'll go elsewhere. So that means then they have to send word back to London about this approach, because they clearly realize this is kind of serious and it's got to go back by the diplomatic bag, which of course is a. Literally a bag where you can put in documents and which is, I think, technically not supposed to be searched by postal authorities. Is that right?

[David McCloskey]

Right, that's right, yeah, exactly. You should. You could put anything in a diplomatic bag. You could put weapons, you could put documents, you could put a person. And it's not supposed to be searched by the host country on its way in and out.

[Gordon Carrera]

But of course, the problem is that because it is literally a bag, rather than the telegram going, it's got to get from Istanbul to London in those days. I mean, that in all, it's going to take 10 days. So the clock is already ticking on his deadlines for it to arrive at Broadway, at MI6HQ, where it goes straight to the Chief. And then who would, you know, if you're the chief of MI6, who would you summon to discuss this amazing offer?

[David McCloskey]

You're a Soviet guy, right? Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

Kim Philby. Kim Philby. Kim Philby is summoned into the chief's office on September 19, and he's shown.

This letter from Istanbul outlining Volkov's offer. And it's amazing because you just think about it, he is sitting there in front of the chief of MI6, reading what could be effectively his death warrant. Warrant, and also realizing, no doubt, when it talks about two spies within the Foreign Office, it's Guy BURGESS and Donald McLean who are there at that. That point, his friends, which would also point to him. And of course, Philby's such a kind of cool customer. He's reading it in front of the Chief live, and he's got to show nothing on his face. No shock, no suspicion.

In his memoir, he says, I stared.

At the papers rather longer than necessary to compose my thoughts. I bet he did.

And Phil, I mean, he plays it.

Cool because he basically knows the thing not to say is to go, oh, well, this is nothing. This is, you know, it's a joke. We should ignore it. Because he knows that also will be suspicious. So he says, oh, this looks very important. Let me come back to you tomorrow morning with a plan. That's the smart thing to do, isn't it? Kind of buy time, basically.

[David McCloskey]

Obviously, at this point, the Chief of sis, Mingus, how could he possibly think that it's Philby, he's just going to up front, probably not even consider that possibility, right, that Philby is one of the Soviet spies that Volkov refers to. And of course then that gives Philby time. So that evening, the 19th, I mean, he goes, and what do you do if you're Philby, you alert the Russians immediately, I guess via Burgess, Right? So he goes and sees Burgess at the Foreign Office and then gets him to pass a message. And then Philby meets his handler. I guess if you're Philby, you'd like to be the person talking to Volkov, wouldn't you?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, exactly. So next morning he goes, Philby goes back to see the chief, you know, he says, yes, this is potentially of great importance. And of course he says, someone who knows what they're talking about should be sent out to debrief Volkov and get him out safely. Now we talk about this a few times. Philby again and again is lucky. And here again he's lucky because initially he isn't the first person and the obvious person to be sent out because there is someone who's slightly better placed. There's a guy called Brigadier Douglas Roberts who's based in Cairo for British Intelligence and he's closer in Cairo, you know, and he speaks Russian so it kind of makes sense. And Philby can't be seen to go, no, no, don't send someone else. But later in the day, Philby is summoned back to the Chief's office to be told unfortunately, Roberts is afraid of flying.

[David McCloskey]

Oh, good grief.

[Gordon Carrera]

I mean, he's got, and supposedly Robert says, don't you read my contract? I don't fly. I mean, he's got in his contract that he won't fly when he's asked to go to Istanbul. This is kind of brilliant luck for Philby, isn't it? I mean, it's so lucky because then you can go to the Chief. Well, maybe, you know, Roberts can't go. Maybe, maybe I should go, maybe me, you know, and of course, you know.

The Chief is like, oh, Philby, would you, would you, would you be so kind? You know, it's like, I mean, it's mad, isn't it?

[David McCloskey]

You would, you would think that a, an intelligence officer faced with the prospect of being able to debrief a true blue NKVD defector, you would think people would be jumping at the chance to get there. But it's kind of treated like a irritating errand for these intelligence officers to carry out. Right?

[Gordon Carrera]

Well, it is a long way to go and I mean, this is the other thing I kind of realize, again, kind of looking back at this, as we'll see, it's not quick to go out there. It's not as easy as it is today where there's kind of multiple direct flights to Istanbul. I mean, and Philby has also got this problem now. He's been told he can go out. You want to go out slowly because you've informed the Soviets, you're hoping they're dealing with it, but equally you can't be seen to be slowballing. So he does have to do a kind of crash course in wireless coding. So he has to be kind of reminded how to do coding from the field. He doesn't rush, but neither does he slow things down because he doesn't want to tip things off too much. But it's now around September 25th when he's actually going to go to Turkey. And then again, he gets lucky because he writes this. He goes towards evening. My rising spirits were given another boost. So he's on the plane first and the pilot announces on the intercom that owing to electrical storms over Malta, we were being diverted to Tunis. And then subject to improved weather conditions, they'd eventually get to Cairo via Malta the next day. That's another 24 hours. And then he misses his next connection to Istanbul from Cairo.

[David McCloskey]

I mean, what he's effectively done is he's informed the Russians that they've got a problem with Volkov. And so he has. There's two timelines running here. There's the Russians ability to sort of pull Volkov, convince Volkov to go back to, to Moscow or to just yank him out. And that is running against Philby trying to get to Istanbul to debrief him. And Philby wants all of these delays so that he can show up effectively in Istanbul and say, oh, the guy's not here. Yeah, or the offer has been rescinded or whatever. So, yeah, as these delays pile up, it's buying time.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. And he arrives, I think in Istanbul on a Friday and the Consul General is away and the place closes for the weekend. The Foreign Office also are a bit wary of him. He goes to the ambassador's yacht on the Sunday because, you know, the ambassador wants to meet him finally. I think it's only on the Monday. He goes into the consulate and he gets the first secretary who'd been the kind of the Russian speaking Brit, he was the kind of the go between to call Volkov and they call Volkov in the Soviet consulate in Istanbul. First time, no answer. Then the next Time they try again. Someone does answer and says, yes, I am Volkov.

But the first secretary, who's met Volkov.

Many times in person, just knows it's not him. The voice is wrong. And so he says, this is not again. So they're going to try again. And the secretary says Volkov is out. And then the next day when they call again, a secretary says, volkov's in Moscow. And then the line goes dead. I mean, you know, for Philby that is success, isn't it?

[David McCloskey]

It is, yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

And it's only later that it kind of, it emerges what's happened, which is the KGB had enough time, thanks to Philby's warning, to send officers out to Istanbul. They drug Volkov and his wife two days before Philby arrives. So just two days before. And then famously, two figures entirely covered in bandages are seen being loaded onto a Soviet aircraft on a stretcher. And that is Volkov and his wife. And they are taken to the Lubyanka KGB headquarters. They are tortured, they confess, and both Volkov and his wife are executed.

[David McCloskey]

Gordon, I think this would be a good point to ask you. You've spoken throughout the series about your sort of, your affection for Kim Philby.

[Gordon Carrera]

Just revisionist take on Philby, your empathy.

[David McCloskey]

For the adventurous spirit of, you know, this young communist idealist. I mean, who didn't dabble in this left wing stuff when they were at university, right. And, but now here we are with two dead people. So I'm just kind of curious where you were.

[Gordon Carrera]

Spying's a rough game, David.

Yeah.

This, this just in case you didn't realize that it's a rough game and this is how it gets played. If you're Volkov, if you're Philby, it's, it's survival. It's Volkov or Philby, isn't it? It's as simple as that.

If Volkov gets out, Philby is, well, he may not be dead. I guess that is the difference. You know, he's not going to get tortured, he's just going to go to jail for a long time or. Well.

[David McCloskey]

Well, would he?

[Gordon Carrera]

No, probably not. Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

I'm very skeptical at this point that Philby would have seen the inside of a British jail.

[Gordon Carrera]

I agree. My, my sympathy for Philby begins at this point to be stretched somewhat and become harder to. But anyway, let's, let's, let's pass on that for the moment.

[David McCloskey]

Let's move on.

[Gordon Carrera]

Let's move on. Let's move on.

[David McCloskey]

Let's.

[Gordon Carrera]

Fillby heads back on the plane and he writes A report to his bosses, speculating.

I love this. He has to speculate what happened, what happened to Volkov, because they don't know yet about the kind of stretcher and the vantages. Perhaps he writes, Volkov changed his mind. You know, he had been very nervous in the meetings. Maybe he got drunk and was spotted or maybe, maybe the embassy, one of the embassies was bugged and they worked it out. Those are the only ways of explaining it. And on the way back to London, he goes via Rome and he visits James Jesus Angleton, later of the CIA. They get massively drunk. You know, Angleton expresses great sympathy about what's happened and Philby will later call it a very narrow squeak.

And I think it's more than that.

[David McCloskey]

Because I think it's a very, very British understatement.

[Gordon Carrera]

Right there it is very British. It's very Philby, you know, he now knows that any defector from inside Soviet intelligence could be the end for him. What if Volkov had defected to the Americans or even the Turks and given them the details of who the spies were in British intelligence? Assuming he had Philby's name, he could have just defected to them and given them the name. He would have had no chance even to control the situation. Philby then. So again, you know, he was very, very lucky maybe.

[David McCloskey]

Gordon Dare. With Philby having come through this very narrow squeak, let's take a break. And we come back. We'll see how the strain of Bilby's double life begins to take its toll.

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[David McCloskey]

Well, welcome back Kim Philby. Gordon, I think it's safe to say is maybe beginning to show some signs that this whole double life thing is really wearing him down. And I mean, even his friends start to notice in this period, don't they, that he's a different man. Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

Tim Milne's old schoolboy friend, who's also with him in MI6, says it's interesting. He says, I scarcely ever saw him much the worse for drink before 1945. But somewhere around this time, there was a perceptible change. Milne wonders, you know, is it the war is over? But he suddenly changes and drink becomes a bit of a bigger factor. And I think Milne will later think maybe it was the Volkov case, which was the turning point for him, because, you know, suddenly he could be sober after a dozen drinks or almost incoherent after two. At this time, 1945, 46, he was more likely to get drunk on private, relaxed occasions than in wider company. He was not usually aggressive or unpleasant, just drunk, you know, and it's interesting. He gets drunk in private with his friends and. And you feel like he needs that release, doesn't he?

[David McCloskey]

You know, we haven't talked a whole lot about his consumption of alcohol. We talked about it a little bit last week on our club episode when we talked with Antonio Senor about her book Stalin's Apostles. I think it is a fascinating aspect of the way Philby manages his stress because it makes perfect sense, doesn't it? I mean, it's a way for him to cope with what must have been a very unpleasant, interior psychological reality. You wouldn't want to face it every day, and you would want moments or hours, evenings where you can just turn that volume down and ignore, frankly, the consequences of your actions.

[Gordon Carrera]

Of your actions. Yeah. I mean, he's on this path now and there is no going back, even if he'd wanted to. He's, you know, he's too deep in this. It's also interesting because it. You start to see it playing out in his marriage. Tim Milne recalls that he and Philby and Aileen were kind of walking back from a Pub in 1946 when Kim announced suddenly that his divorce, that Kim's divorce from Litzy was going through and he'd be free. And then in front of Milne, he's inspired to propose. And he says to Aileen in front of Milne, darling, will you be the mother of my children? Aileen, now pregnant with their fourth, giggled all the way back to number 18. Now, it's interesting because many friends were surprised when they get married, Kim and Aileen, because they actually assumed they'd already been married, because after, look, they got, you know, all these kids. Philby's taken this kind of decision, I think, to close up some of the gaps in his past and kind of deal with Some of the problems. So he actually approaches Valentine Vivian Vivi at MI6, one of his bosses, and he tells him about Litzy, because I think he realizes it would be a risk if MI6 found out about Lizzie and he hadn't told them. So he says, look, I just married her to get her out of trouble in Vienna in 1934. You know, I was using my passport. We soon separated, but we never got round to getting divorced, but partly because we were never really married. It was just an act of selfless sacrifice. And they seem to buy that, which I think, you know, again, if you've already bought into the youthful idealism thing, so that allows them, him and Alien to kind of have a massive boozy party and get married and then, you know, the next stage in his career he gets, he gets offered the chance to go as the station chief, the head of MI6 station in Istanbul. Now this is kind of interesting because it might sound like a bit of a downgrade from running Soviet operations, but actually what it looks like is that the Chief Mingus is actually trying to push Philby's career on because he's spotted him as a potential future chief further down the line. And actually one of the gaps in Philby's kind of CV is that he's never run a foreign station, he's been in headquarters all the time in the war. And it does look at this point as if Philby is in the mix to eventually become chief of MI6. Hugh Trevor Roper, who was a kind of wartime colleague in MI6, it's a.

Great quote from him.

He says, who else of his generation was there? I looked around the world I had left at the part time stockbrokers and retired Indian policemen, the agreeable epicureans from the bars of Whites, Whites Again and boodles, the jolly conventional ex naval officers and the robust adventurers from the bucket shop. And then I looked at Filby and I was convinced that he was destined to head the service.

[David McCloskey]

If you're the Soviets, you're handling Philby, he's maybe not as useful to you in Istanbul as he is running the head of the Soviet section from London. But if you're playing a long game with Philby, which the Soviets are, him advancing strategically through the service is unambiguously a good thing because eventually he'll come back to London in a more senior role and he'll have even better access for you. So. And I guess Istanbul is also. It's not, it's not a backwater, is it? I mean, it's A great spy town at this time. It's in a strategically important location. It's kind of this crossroads between the Middle east and Europe. Shares a border with the Soviet Union, so you can kind of. You can see how this is still going to be very valuable to Soviet intelligence.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, that's right. And so Philby and Aileen move into a kind of beautiful house, it sounds, on the Asian side of Istanbul, where he can take a boat down to the consulate. Now, this is where I think, again, the pressure is starting to tell because things start to go wrong with Aileen when she's there. She is lonely. They've got four kids by now. Now she is convinced Philby is having an affair with his secretary, which he is. And then, even worse, Guy Burgess keeps coming to visit.

And, you know. You know, that friend I've missed.

[David McCloskey]

I've missed Guy Burgess. We haven't talked much about him in the last couple episodes. Yeah, it's good to have Guy back.

[Gordon Carrera]

And Guy's now in the Foreign Office.

With tons of access, and he's also kind of Philby's kind of conduit sometimes to get messages to Moscow. Burgess is also kind of cracking up, I think, under the pressure. He's also becoming kind of riskier in his activities, both the drinking and the casual sex. I mean, Maclean is also feeling the pressure and kind of cracks up at one point. But Burgess is getting wilder. I mean, he was wild before. And Aileen hates Burgess visiting, you know.

Because she thinks he kind of encourages.

Kim's heavy drinking and carousing. And they go out a lot with the secretary with whom Kim is having an affair. And one evening they supposedly go out to a yacht club and there's four of them and they drink 52 brandies. I mean, that's what the receipt shows, is.

[David McCloskey]

That seems like a lot. That seems. That seems almost impossible.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. Although with purges and Philby Burgess goes missing sometimes.

[David McCloskey]

Does it he. After. After these nights of drinking. And there have to be these kind of desperate searches. At one point, Burgess dives off the balcony of Kim's house into the Bosphorus. Like, wrecks his back. I mean, this Guy is just. I'm glad Guy Burgess is back. I mean, I don't like what he's doing, spying for the Soviets, but he's an entertaining sort of gremlin.

[Gordon Carrera]

Although I also love. He's also got this kind of very emotional side because Tim Milne's there during one of Burgess's visits and he remembers this kind of sentimental side because Burgess starts Telling the story of Mansfield Cumming, the first chief of MI6. And it's a story we tell where he crashes his motorcar in the First World War and his son dies and Mansfield coming, has to cut off his own leg. And Burgess, as he tells the story.

Bursts into tears with emotion. It's just like, it's so guy, Burgess.

And at this point also Eileen becomes ill and we should have a trigger warning because we're going to talk a bit about self harm here because Eileen starts engaging in self harm now. What Philby doesn't know, she's done so since she was a teenager. This isn't new, but it really starts to increase now. Is it the affair? Does she suspect something about her husband keeping more than even normal secrets about her? It's hard to know. But she injects herself with urine, she sets fire to things again. Milne remembers one story that Eileen sets out alone in her car at one point and then she arrives at someone else's house in a terrible state, badly bruised about the head, covered in dirt, with the story of having been held up on a narrow road and attacked by a man who hit her on the head with a rock and tried to steal her bag. And she goes into hospital and years later she admits she actually kind of faked that incident. And then she prolongs her stay in hospital by reinfecting her wound. Now it's pretty dark, you know, and she goes actually, I mean, she, she gets taken to a clinic in Switzerland on a stretcher, I mean, which has got these kind of awful echoes of Volkov being taken on a stretcher, you know, out of Istanbul as well. And, you know, while she's away, Philby drunks, drinks himself under the table. But then six weeks later she's back. But then she sets fire to things. But then eventually she seems to get back on an even keel. But Philby, it's very interesting. Philby is kind of worried about her, but also just angry. And he seems especially angry when he learns that she had this history of self harm going back to her early years and that he'd not known about it.

[David McCloskey]

Do you think he's angry because he cares about her, or is it that he's angry that he somehow didn't understand this part of her? Like it's something about him and his inability to sort of see her that makes him question his ability to, I don't know, to understand what's going on around him. I interpret it in kind of a more selfish way, but that's because I have a Very uncharitable view of Kim Philby.

[Gordon Carrera]

No, no, no. And even I, with my Philby sympathies think actually this is about him being angry Aileen is making his life difficult.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

And angry that also she'd kept a secret from him. You know, he's supposed to be the guy who keeps secrets. And it goes back to our initial maybe conversation about Philby. You know, for him, secrets are power, secrets are a kind of means of having one up on someone. And the idea that Aileen has had one up on him by having a secret that she didn't know, I think that kind of challenges probably his masculinity and his kind of spy tradecraft perhaps.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah. Well, Becky, our intrepid producers said here, you know, this feels like a very narcissistic response. And that's. That's right. I mean it's a word we haven't actually used a lot in this series when we talk about Philby. But maybe it just goes without saying that he is an absolutely raging narcissist.

[Gordon Carrera]

Right.

[David McCloskey]

So everything around him is getting kind of circled back to him. Right. In some, in some way shape or form. I mean, does she know, do we think Eileen suspects that he's working against SIS or.

[Gordon Carrera]

I think at this point less likely, Yeah. I mean, because already he spends a lot of time out boozing with Guy and with other people.

So meeting his Soviet handlers, you know.

Wouldn'T be suspicious that he's away at various points in evenings. So I mean, I think she might realize he's. There are secrets from her. So his personal life is hard at this point, but his work is going really well, I mean, because he's looking for ways to penetrate the Soviet Union. So he's still doing the kind of anti Soviet work. He goes on tours of the border with the Soviet Union, plans kind of long range photography, debriefs defectors from Soviet military intelligence and can check are no leads there for him. And this is also a kind of big moment because the Cold War is starting and CIA and MI6 are moving to this new policy which is rollback against communism. And the idea is you're going to try and roll back the Soviet Union's ability to impose control on its own borders and neighbouring states. And one of the ideas they've got is they're going to send emigres back into the Soviet border states and occupied countries who are then going to build resistance networks, ferment trouble, often use nationalist separatist groups. You know, they're going to do this all around the kind of periphery of the Soviet Union. So, you know, the Baltic states, Ukraine, Albania, lots of places. And they're going to do it in Turkey as well. They're going to try and send people from Turkey into Georgia, which is one of the Soviet republics, so part of the Soviet Union. And MI6 kind of codename, these operations climber. And they, for instance, train two operatives in London to go in via Turkey into the Soviet Union. They arrive in Istanbul, and Philby is helping them. He's the one getting them prepared to cross the border. And they're two really young Georgian men. They're like 20 years old. And one of them seems very subdued because he knows the risks. Philby takes them to the border, and, of course, they're never seen again. You know, that's it for them.

[David McCloskey]

And Philby is asked about this years later, and he says, it was an unpleasant story. Of course, the boys weren't bad, not at all. I knew very well that they would be caught and that a tragic fate awaited them. He says, on the other hand, it was the only way of driving a stake through the plans of future operations.

[Gordon Carrera]

He does what he has to do at this point.

[David McCloskey]

He does what he feels he has to do. But again, Philippi is interesting, isn't he? Because he's kind of squeamish around death himself. I mean, there's great instance where, you know, is young. He hated seeing the maid kill mice around the house. But he's now dealing out death himself, isn't he, in an effort to protect himself. And I guess as he sees it, his project to penetrate these bourgeois institutions that are opposing the Soviet Union.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

Now we have at least four people that he has played a very direct role in killing.

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah. And it is interesting because I think he is involved in death, but it's kind of at a distance, you know, in later life, he does claim that he feels bad about, you know, having to do this. But then, as he puts it, you know, later in life, he says a decent soldier would feel badly about the necessity of killing the enemy in wartime.

[David McCloskey]

Him.

[Gordon Carrera]

So he basically sees these young Georgians or Volkov as, you know, soldiers who are working for the enemy, and he's working for his side. And in a war, you kill him. It's brutal. I agree. I'm not going to kind of pretend it's not, you know. But at one point in Turkey, he goes right up to the Soviet border, and it's marked by the crest of a hill and a border post. And he approaches the border post he touches it and. And then he puts his foot over the line. And of course, it's the first time he's, you know, set foot on Soviet territory and only for a moment. I mean, it's this weird thing where he is serving this cause and this country, which he doesn't really know, but which he's now killing for. He's now doing that. But it's about to change, because Clymer is only really a kind of taste, I guess, of what Philby is about to do, because Turkey is not the end of his career. In Turkey, he gets a telegram asking for him to come back to London to discuss a new post. Now, every time, like all kind of, you know, traitors, you know, when they get that telegram, they think, oh, being summoned back to headquarters, you know, Gordievsky thinks this, doesn't he? You know, is it because I'm blown.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah.

[Gordon Carrera]

Is it really for a new job, or is it because I'm, you know, defector has kind of given him away? But this time, he goes back to London, and it's. It's the best possible news because he's being offered a promotion, and not just any job, but, like the job for a rising star, because they want him to be the head of the MI6 station in Washington and the liaison with the newly formed CIA, putting him at the absolute heart of the Cold War. And what's astonishing is he is just 37 years old. You know, he's 37 years old, and some of his colleagues believe, you know, this is the next step on his future, to become, you know, the head of the British Secret Service.

[David McCloskey]

And c. Well, I guess in. In Washington, I mean, he'll be able to do more damage there, perhaps, than anywhere else. But it's also a place in Washington where his past, his decisions, his friendships, the choice that he made years earlier is really gonna catch up with him and lead to his downfall. And I guess a reminder that we are not done with Kim Philby on the Rest is classified. We'll be coming back to tell the story of that downfall in another series. But I guess at this point, Gordon, maybe it's worth coming back to the opening challenge that you kind of delivered in episode one, which was when you said, you know, you have a spot of sympathy for Kim Philby. And I guess, you know, it's the question maybe that hangs over this, is at this point in the story, now that we've gotten Philby to Washington, do you still have a measure of sympathy for Kim Philby and the choices that he has made.

[Gordon Carrera]

David, you're pushing me a little bit to be.

To give up on my sympathies for Philby.

[David McCloskey]

And I am, I am.

[Gordon Carrera]

We have hit the point where I think it gets harder. I get the early Philby, that period in late 20s, Cambridge, early 30s, rise of fascism. Seeing the failure of the political system, turning to communism as the answer, I think is. I'm not saying I'd have done it.

But I think it is understandable or.

Explicable in its own terms. And then the Soviet Union at that point is not an enemy. But I think that point where he keeps going in the Nazi Soviet Pact, you're starting to think, and then they're allies in the war, so you can get away with it. But now I think it's different. But I do think part of the point is it is too late. He started on this path. And of course, you know, all through his life he'll say, well, I, you know, I never wavered from the path, but I think he does. But I think once you've gone in that deep, I think it is pretty hard to turn back, isn't it?

[David McCloskey]

I think you can understand his Cambridge experience, you know, that, that makes sense to me. I mean, 1930s, this. He'd seen a lot of the ugliness of Nazism and fascism up close in Germany itself. In Austria, he had fallen in love with a young woman who had been brutalized by fascism. You know, let's see. So you can understand the sort of anti fascist impulse that would lead you to think that communism is a better way or the antidote to fascism. Especially a scene from the early 1930s that makes a lot of sense where I find Philby to be disgusting. Philby has this line he actually says in reference to portraying some of those exile operations like the Georgians we just talked about, where Philby says, I've always operated on a personal and a political level. When the two have come in conflict, I've always put politics first, first. And anybody who's putting politics above friends, family, children, I find that to be very icky.

[Gordon Carrera]

No, I agree with that.

[David McCloskey]

I sort of get why he puts it that way. But I also just think this is a story at the end of the day about a guy who's inside totally twisted up and wrecked.

[Gordon Carrera]

That's one way of seeing it.

Let me give you another return, which is we prize. And I'm not criticizing this, you know, loyalty to country very highly. I think ultimately Philby never felt very English or British or loyal to his country. He was loyal to his ideology, which meant betraying his country. And many years later he, he's asked about this. He said, didn't you betray your country? You know, didn't you betray your colleagues? Didn't you betray, you know, Britain by doing this? And Philby has a very interesting line. He says to betray you must first belong. I never belonged. Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really interesting line because I think it does to me unlock quite a lot of Philby and it goes back to the kind of father, the weird upbringing, the fact the father is kind of in the British class system but not really part of it. Philby again never quite fits in. He's never quite a member of the British kind of establishment or elite. Even though he's seen, you know, in later years he'll be seen as emblematic with his kind of Westminster and Cambridge background as part of that elite. But he was never part of it. He never felt he belonged, so he never felt he was betraying that. He was never turning against any because he was never part of it. That is in his own mind, his justification, I think for what he did. He was a, you know, a communist all the way through and he remained kind of, he didn't betray anything because he remained pure to that cause since he was a student all through his life.

[David McCloskey]

Yeah, but that's just where I think like an authoritarian or totalitarian despot who sort of aligns the interests of the state with their own personal interests, like those two things and their psychological needs, that all of that stuff just gets kind of merged together. I think Philby does something similar with his quote unquote ideology. It becomes a vehicle for a personal, very interior crusade against this system that he felt he never belonged to. You know, and there's a great Le Carre quote about Philby where he says behind the inbred upper class arrogance, the taste for adventure, lies the self hate of a vain misfit for whom nothing will ever be worthy of his loyalty. So again, I think it's this idea that none of this stuff that Philby was betraying was ever worthy of him. So it's this very self centered narcissistic response to the world that I think ultimately triggered so much of his betrayal. Really?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah, I mean I think he was vain, self absorbed and as I said, shaped perhaps by that father. But I think in his mind he would have seen himself as just loyal to a single cause. So I am going to moderate my.

Pinko sympathies for Philby at this point before I think various people will never.

Speak to me again if I sound like I'm. I'm a big Philby fan.

So for those people out there listening.

[David McCloskey]

That's true, actually. For this. For the sake of the pod, Gordon.

[Gordon Carrera]

For the sake of the pod, Yeah.

I just want to be clear. I do not endorse betraying Britain.

You know, disclaimer. This host does not endorse betraying Britain or signing up for the communist cause.

And becoming a penetration agent for Moscow. That is a bad thing to do.

Kids, if you're thinking of doing that.

If you're at Cambridge right now thinking about, you know, communism and Moscow, don't do it. Let me just be absolutely clear on that.

[David McCloskey]

We're at the tail end of the. Almost the fourth hour, Gordon, of this series, and I feel like this message could. You're sort of burying the lead here, wouldn't you say?

[Gordon Carrera]

Yeah.

[David McCloskey]

This is the equivalent of a deathbed confession, Gordon. This is too. It's too late.

[Gordon Carrera]

Too late.

It's too late to save my reputation, I guess. On that note, we should finish our.

Story of the rise of King Kim Philby. As you said.

We'll come back and we'll look at.

The fall, which is also fascinating and of course involves Guy Burgess, you know, very involved in the fall. We'll do that a little bit further down the line. But just a reminder, members of the Declassified Club are going to hear something fantastic because we've got Kim Philby himself on the Declassified Club talking in this amazing tape about Volkov, about Kalgil, about joining the Soviet Secret Service, about joining MI6. So you can hear from the man himself and you can join the [e-mail] but otherwise, we'll see you next time.

[David McCloskey]

We'll see you next time.

[Dominic Sambrook]

Hi there, everybody. It's Dominic Sambrook here from the Rest.

[Gordon Carrera]

Is History and Gordon Carrera from the Rest Is Classified.

[Dominic Sambrook]

Now, over the last month or so, the regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran has been pushed to the edge. Has having seen the largest protest for a generation ripping across the country. Tens of thousands of people have been killed by the Ayatollah's forces since the uprising began. And a lot of people outside Iran are asking, is this the beginning of the next Iranian revolution?

[Gordon Carrera]

And Goal Hanger is covering every element of this on the Rest Is Classified. David and I have looked at the role of intelligence agencies in this conflict. With the Internet blackouts and so much unknown, we've been looking at whether spies are best placed to judge whether the regime is truly at risk of falling.

[Dominic Sambrook]

Now on the Rest Is History. We have been looking at the origins of the Iranian regime at the 1979 Iranian Revolution, which saw the fall of the last shah and his replacement by the rule of the ayatollahs. Now, given that the last shah's son is being touted abroad as the man who might, just might, save Iran, you can't understand what is happening now without understanding what happened back then at the end of the 1970s.

[Gordon Carrera]

But it's not just our own two podcasts that are covering Iran. If you want to know whether Donald Trump's military buildup in the region means it's likely he's going to wade in and force regime change, hear Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart cover the latest developments in the Rest Is Politics.

[Dominic Sambrook]

And our dear friends at the Rest Is Money have been looking at the economic collapse, the corruption and the impact of the sanctions that have been eating away its social cohesion in Iran over recent years and have pushed so many people onto the streets and on Empire.

[Gordon Carrera]

They've been looking at the similarities and differences between 1979 and today. How is it that a country that less than 50 years ago forced the Shah out of power is now seeing crowds chanting Long live the Shah?

[Dominic Sambrook]

So whatever happens next to the people of Iran and to all those brave souls who've turned it on the street streets to protest, stay tuned to Goal Hanger for all the context and the answers and the analysis that you need. Find the Rest is history. The rest is classified Empire. The rest is politics and the rest is money. Wherever you get your podcasts.