Speaker 1: All right, What motivates somebody to completely turn on their
Speaker 1: country to the point that they're willing to infiltrate deep
Speaker 1: inside the government and share top secret info with an
Speaker 1: enemy nation. What about a guy who has it all money, prestige, privilege.
Speaker 1: He was one of the most dangerous double agents in
Speaker 1: British history. Imagine a James Bond villain, and he got
Speaker 1: away with it. I'm Patty Steele. Kim Philby charming everybody
Speaker 1: in the room while stabbing them in the back. That's
Speaker 1: next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's the middle of the Cold War, their serious tension
Speaker 1: between the East and the West. In the heart of
Speaker 1: British Intelligence is an agency known for its very British,
Speaker 1: stiff upper lip demeanor and reliance on the old boys network.
Speaker 1: Kim Philby is at the center of that network, but
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to his longtime associatests, he's one of the most
Speaker 1: dangerous double agents in his life. He's to blame for
Speaker 1: massive security spills leading to the torture and death of
Speaker 1: numerous British intelligence agents. But where did it all start,
Speaker 1: How and why did Philby become such a master manipulator
Speaker 1: that he was able to feed top secret info to
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, tipping the Cold War scales in their
Speaker 1: favor for decades without being caught. First and foremost, Kim
Speaker 1: Philby was a charmer. On top of that, he grew
Speaker 1: up as the ultimate insider. His family were aristocratic intellectuals.
Speaker 1: He was born Harold Adrian Russell Philby in nineteen twelve
Speaker 1: in India, where his father, Saint John Philby, worked for
Speaker 1: the British government as a specialist in the Arab world.
Speaker 1: His dad had a reputation as an eccentric and a
Speaker 1: bit of a rebel against the British establishment. That may
Speaker 1: be where Kim began questioning British rule. He went to
Speaker 1: an elite boarding school as a kid, and then on
Speaker 1: to Cambridge University in the early nineteen thirties. It looked
Speaker 1: like he was destined for a life of privilege and
Speaker 1: prestige and easy life, but Cambridge was a breeding ground
Speaker 1: for radical thought and the Great Depression further radicalized young
Speaker 1: intellectuals there. Kim was studying history but became intrigued with Marxism.
Speaker 1: He and his friends socialized with powerful people in the
Speaker 1: British Communist Party, and those people introduced him to a
Speaker 1: man who would change his life. Arnold Deutsch, a recruiter
Speaker 1: for Soviet intelligence. He saw in Kim a chance to
Speaker 1: infiltrate the British upper class long term. Kim, who was
Speaker 1: ambitious and idealistic, was all in Who's nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: He was just twenty two years old, and he pledged
Speaker 1: his allegiance to the Soviet Union. Patience was key. Kim
Speaker 1: now is told to keep his Communist beliefs under wraps
Speaker 1: and to blend fully into British society. For years, he
Speaker 1: completely avoids sharing his leftist beliefs and instead shows himself
Speaker 1: to be the perfect image of a loyal, upper class Englishman.
Speaker 1: By the late nineteen thirties, he becomes a journalist covering
Speaker 1: the Spanish Civil War and at the same time gathering
Speaker 1: intelligence for the Soviets. He becomes a valuable asset to them.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty he joins MI six, Britain's foreign intelligence service.
Speaker 1: His charm, connections and credentials made him a rising star.
Speaker 1: By nineteen forty four, he's running British counter intelligence in Iberia,
Speaker 1: where he continues to pass secrets to Moscow, but he
Speaker 1: did more than leak info, he sabotaged British efforts against
Speaker 1: the Soviets. One of his most devastating betrayals came during
Speaker 1: World War II, when he exposed Allied plans to infiltrate
Speaker 1: German occupied Eastern Europe. Six and the CIA were training
Speaker 1: anti Communist resistance fighters who were going to parachute into
Speaker 1: the Balkan mountains, but thanks to Philby, the Soviets were
Speaker 1: waiting for them, and most were captured or killed as
Speaker 1: soon as they landed. He was also involved in a
Speaker 1: British project that could decode Soviet encrypted messages. He warned
Speaker 1: the Soviets, who tightened their security. None of it mattered.
Speaker 1: Philbey's colleagues totally trusted him. Again. He was charming, self
Speaker 1: deprecating and seemingly completely loyal, but of course he wasn't.
Speaker 1: The more secrets he stole, the more deeply he had
Speaker 1: embedded himself into MI six, becoming one of Britain's most
Speaker 1: trusted spies. And there were others. They were part of
Speaker 1: the infamous and very successful Cambridge five aspiring that included
Speaker 1: four Cambridge classmates of kims By the early nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: though the group started to crumble as suspicions arose. Two
Speaker 1: of the Cambridge Five were being investigated and eventually defected
Speaker 1: to Moscow, but Kim managed to charm his way out
Speaker 1: of trouble with no real evidence against him. He was
Speaker 1: cleared of suspicion in nineteen fifty five and held a
Speaker 1: press conference denying everything, but it didn't last. By the
Speaker 1: early nineteen sixties, British authorities began to investigate Kim after
Speaker 1: a Soviet spy defected and fingered him. So how did
Speaker 1: he avoid arrest? By this time he was working in
Speaker 1: Beirut Lebanon, and authorities from six came to speak with him.
Speaker 1: They were preparing to bring him back to London for questioning,
Speaker 1: but he simply vanished into the night. Eventually he moved
Speaker 1: to Moscow. How did he get away? Was it class
Speaker 1: privilege or as some believe, maybe the Brits let him
Speaker 1: escape rather than drag him into court and have to
Speaker 1: explain how they let him get away with so much
Speaker 1: for so long. But why did they miss it? It
Speaker 1: was totally a scene out of early James Bond. Six
Speaker 1: wasn't just a spy agency, it was an elite gentleman's club.
Speaker 1: Recruitment often came through personal connections, not aptitude or background checks.
Speaker 1: The assumption was if you came from the right family,
Speaker 1: went to the right schools, and spoke with the right accent,
Speaker 1: you were trustworthy. How embarrassing for the establishment when that
Speaker 1: very business model is what allowed Kim Philby and his
Speaker 1: cohorts to be double agents for so long. Philby fit
Speaker 1: this mold perfectly. After all, he went to Westminster School
Speaker 1: in Cambridge University, where he mingled with the sons of
Speaker 1: Britain's ruling class. He had the manners, the charm, and
Speaker 1: the confidence of someone born into privilege. His upper class
Speaker 1: pedigree was like a shield, deflecting suspicion even when evidence
Speaker 1: of his betrayal began to surface. In a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: Kim was the perfect spy precisely because he didn't seem
Speaker 1: like a spy. He was known as a hard drinking
Speaker 1: man's man, a loyal patriot who despised communism. His charm
Speaker 1: wasn't just disarming, it was disorienting. Even when his colleagues
Speaker 1: at MI six began to suspect there was a mole
Speaker 1: in the in their midst. The idea that it could
Speaker 1: be Philby was unthinkable. On top of that, there was
Speaker 1: a deep reluctance within Six to acknowledge such a huge
Speaker 1: breach of trust. Admitting that one of their own, one
Speaker 1: of the best, was working for the enemy, would have
Speaker 1: been devastating not just a morale but to the agency's reputation.
Speaker 1: Some even believed that Six deliberately allowed him to escape
Speaker 1: to Moscow in nineteen sixty three to avoid the embarrassment
Speaker 1: of a public trial. So what about his later life
Speaker 1: in Moscow? Was it the hero's welcome he thought he'd get,
Speaker 1: or maybe something not so glamorous. Think about it, ever,
Speaker 1: had a friend who you found out had talked about
Speaker 1: you behind your back, or maybe they bad mouthed a
Speaker 1: mutual friend, You know they're doing the same thing to you,
Speaker 1: and you never really trust them, right well, believe it
Speaker 1: or not. That happens in the world of espionage too.
Speaker 1: Once you're labeled a traitorous type, you don't now grow it.
Speaker 1: When he arrived in Moscow nineteen sixty three, he was
Speaker 1: greeted as a hero, but the reality of life in
Speaker 1: exile was far from the romanticized vision he had imagined.
Speaker 1: He was given a small apartment, a small pension, and
Speaker 1: occasional public recognition by the Soviets. They talked about him
Speaker 1: as one of their greatest assets, a guy who had
Speaker 1: crippled Western intelligence and helped secure their position in the
Speaker 1: Cold War. But in reality, Philby's life in Moscow was
Speaker 1: lonely and unsatisfying. He'd been promised a position in the KGB,
Speaker 1: but it turned out they didn't want him. He struggled
Speaker 1: with alcoholism, a problem he'd had during his time in six,
Speaker 1: and it was tough for him to adjust a life
Speaker 1: in a society he'd idealized from Afar. He discovered the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union was no worker's paradise, but instead a bureaucratic,
Speaker 1: oppressive regime, and he was just a cog in its
Speaker 1: propaganda machine. He realized the Soviets did very little to
Speaker 1: lift their own people above poverty and terrible living conditions.
Speaker 1: Later in life, his interviews made it clear that he
Speaker 1: missed being an mi I six insider, the social life
Speaker 1: among London's elite, and the thrill of playing both sides.
Speaker 1: In Moscow, he was an outsider, a guy who had
Speaker 1: betrayed his homeland but was never fully trusted by his
Speaker 1: adopted country, even his personal life was disappointing. Despite her shock,
Speaker 1: his wife had followed him to Moscow, but their relationship
Speaker 1: fell apart under the weight of his drinking and isolation
Speaker 1: in exile. She went home and divorced him. Eventually he
Speaker 1: got married again to a Russian woman named Ruffina. She
Speaker 1: says he was disappointed by his life in Russia and
Speaker 1: that he attempted suicide by slashing his wrists, but was unsuccessful.
Speaker 1: Kim published his memoirs in England in the late sixties,
Speaker 1: but the Soviets wouldn't let him publish them there until
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty. He died in nineteen eighty eight. So there
Speaker 1: are a few unanswered questions. Was Kim Philby a principled
Speaker 1: idealist to sacrificed everything for what he believed or was
Speaker 1: he basically a narcissist who loved the deception and betrayal
Speaker 1: of his friends and country and had no remorse. And
Speaker 1: there's the question about how England, a society so steeped
Speaker 1: in privilege and tradition, could fail to see the danger
Speaker 1: in its midst Why because Kim Philby was one of
Speaker 1: the insiders. Hope you like the backstory with Patty Steele.
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Speaker 1: like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and
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Speaker 1: writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.
Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out to me with comments and
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Speaker 1: Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't
Speaker 1: know you needed to know.