Book Review – A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Author Ben Macintyre

Shockingly, to me, Microsoft Word questions the word “Philby”. Not so many years ago, that name was notorious and vilified. And for a long time before that, Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby was a decorated, highly admired, much-married, Cambridge-educated member of MI6, the British counter-intelligence agency (akin to the CIA). His story is truth that reads like fiction. Born in 1912 in India (his father was a member of the Indian Civil Service), Kim attended prep school in England, then won a scholarship to Cambridge University. Upon graduation, Philby became involved with the World Federation Relief group, a German Communist front, which sent him to Vienna, where he met the woman who would become his first wife. Litzi Friedman was a passionate Communist who convinced the young Brit to help her cause, although he never formally joined the Party. They married in 1934, so that Litzi could escape to Great Britain with Kim. An Austrian friend of hers who lived in London, Edith Tudor Hart, probably was the first to approach him about becoming an agent for Soviet intelligence. Friedman persuaded Philby to betray his own country and become a spy for Russia. From that point on, he admitted that his political beliefs would always trump loyalty to his country, his family, his friends, and he never lost faith in the Communist doctrine, attributing its massive failures to a lack of proper implementation. Kim Philby met with Arnold Deutsch (code name: Otto), his KGB handler. The new recruit was encouraged to draw others in, and gave the names of seven of his friends to “Otto”. Two of them, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean were easily turned, along with Anthony Blunt a little later. An attempt to bring aboard Flora Solomon failed, but she did introduce Kim to Aileen Furse, who became his second wife in 1946, shortly after his divorce from Friedman. Joining MI6 was the idea of Philby’s Russian controllers. Fortunately, he had the connections to be invited for an interview, after making it known that he was interested in becoming part of an organization so secret it supposedly did not exist! Charismatic, with a flair for languages and journalistic credentials, Kim had the further advantage of belonging to the “right class”. It was, in fact, the absurd conventions of the class system that protected this double agent—no one could believe such a perfect specimen of British manhood would betray his country. Certainly, Nicholas Elliot, a fellow Cambridge grad and MI6 agent, who considered Philby his best friend, never imagined such a scenario. This was a life-changing betrayal, but it was Elliot who, in the end, forced Philby’s hand, which led to his defection and eventual death in Moscow.