Editing Kim Philby (section)

==Motivation==
In a 1981 videoed lecture<ref>Ishaan Tharoor. (4 April 2016). "Britain’s most infamous double agent talks about his treachery in new video". [https://wapo.st/45gEHCw Washington Post website] Retrieved 19 May 202.</ref> to [[Stasi]] agents, the [[East Germany|East German]] intelligence agency, Philby attributed the failure of British intelligence to unmask him as due in great part to these things: the [[British class system]]—it was inconceivable that one "born into the ruling class of the British Empire" would be a traitor; the amateurish and incompetent nature of the British organisation; and because so many in MI6 had so much to lose if he was proven to be a spy. He had the policy of never confessing; a document in his own handwriting was dismissed as a [[forgery]].<ref name=hiscomments />

Philby said that at the time of his recruitment as a spy there were no prospects of his being useful; he was instructed to make his way into the Secret Service, which took years, starting with journalism and building up contacts in the [[British establishment]]. He said that there was no discipline there; he made friends with the archivist, which enabled him for years to take secret documents home, many unrelated to his own work, and bring them back the next day; his handler photographed them overnight.

When he was instructed to remove and replace his boss, Felix Cowgill, he asked if it was proposed "to shoot him or something" but was told to use bureaucratic intrigue. He said: "It was a very dirty story—but after all our work does imply getting dirty hands from time to time but we do it for a cause that is not dirty in any way." Commenting on his [[sabotage]] of the operation to secretly send thousands of anti-communists into [[Albania]] to overthrow the communist government, Philby defended his actions by saying that he had helped prevent another world war.<ref name=hiscomments />