196. Kim Philby: A KGB Spy in Washington (Ep 1)
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Who was Kim Philby and how did his early life shape his spy career?
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Philby is born in 1912 in a bungalow in India's Punjab. His real name is Harold, but he's nicknamed Kim after the Ridgard Kipling novel, in which an orphan boy blends in anywhere and becomes part of the great game of spies. How apt. His father is Sinjan Philby, a bizarre character, explorer, Arabist, advisor to the founder of Saudi Arabia, a man who crosses the empty quarter by camel, converts to Islam, and spends most of his son's childhood thousands of miles away. Now, young Kim is a quiet boy at Westminster School, bookish, not many friends, a bad stammer. As his oldest friend Tib Milne puts it, he's a rebel looking for a cause. And he finds his cause at Cambridge University. He arrives in 1929. It's the year of the Wall Street crash.
Capitalism looks finished. The Labour Party looks broken. And when he travels Europe, he thinks he sees What's coming, fascism. He sees a Nazi torchlight rally in Munich, Hitler speaking, he's on a balcony in Berlin in 1933, watching a parade. And so the young Philby makes a decision, alone in an armchair in his Cambridge room in the summer of 1933. Communism was calling. Next, he heads to Vienna, where there's street fighting, artillery, shelling, workers, housing blocks, a thousand are killed. And he meets Litzi, a communist two years older, already divorced. They marry within days, and he gets her out of the country on his British passport. He will tell people he did it purely to help her, to protect her, but almost nobody believes him.
He was smitten. Back in London, a friend of Litzy takes him on a two-hour walk, taxi, tube, bus, and leaves him on a bench in Regents Park, next to an Austrian called Arnold Deutsch, who invites Philby to secretly work for the cause of international communism. He's given the codename Sonny. One of his first missions is to spy on his own father. His second is to write a list of his friends from Cambridge, the serious Donald MacLean, the wild Guy Burgess, as well as others, the Cambridge spy ring is born. And then a slow march to the centre of power. Litzi and his outward communism are abandoned. Off to Spain as a correspondent for the Times, there's a bizarre mission to try and kill the nationalist leader Franco, but there's a shrapnel wound which nearly kills Philby and he becomes a hero and gets a medal from Franco.
Back home, it takes some lunches, a bit of help from his friends and family. Family, and as the Second World War starts, Kim Philby is inside the British Secret Service, MI-6. By 1944, he's in a complicated relationship with a woman called Aileen, but he's a rising star within MI6, overseeing intelligence operations against the Soviet Union. whilst all the time secretly feeding secrets back to Moscow. But Moscow at times doesn't even trust him. They think he's a plant by the British. And when a defector in Istanbul threatens to give him away, Philby's position means he can make sure the man is dealt with first, tipping off the Soviets and ensuring the man is spirited away on a stretcher wrapped in bandages.
And we left him with news Of a promotion. He's to be the head of station in Washington liaison with the newly formed CIA. He's just 37 years old and tipped to run potentially the Secret Service one day. He is at the absolute heart of the Cold War. And this is where it starts to come apart.
Те кратист трейдер да емайсікс евресім. A Soviet mole at the heart of the British Secret Service. Kim Philby is heading to Washington, but can he keep his cool as the net closes around him? Well welcome to the rest is classified. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera. And welcome. In this series, we are going to look at a time when Kim Philby reaches the peak of his powers and influence. We're gonna look at how mole hunts inside the Secret Service eventually take him down.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who was Kim Philby and how did his early life shape his spy career?
0:03–8:40
2
Why was Philby promoted to head of the MI6 station in Washington in 1949?
8:40–14:28
3
What did Philby learn from the MI6 counter‑intelligence briefing about Soviet penetrations?
14:28–21:11
4
How did Philby’s relationships with Angleton and Wisner affect early Cold‑War operations?
21:11–27:44
5
Why did the Albanian covert‑action missions repeatedly fail and who was blamed?
27:44–35:47
6
What role did Guy Burgess play in the disastrous Washington dinner party?
35:47–42:12
7
How did Philby’s personal life – his marriage and Aileen’s health – complicate his work in DC?
42:12–48:12
8
What mole‑hunt investigations began to close in on Philby after the embassy leaks?
48:12–54:35
Speakers
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