Editing Kim Philby (section)

==British intelligence career==
===World War II===
In July 1939, Philby returned to ''The Times'' office in London. When Britain declared war on [[Nazi Germany]] in September 1939, Philby's contact with his Soviet controllers was lost and he failed to attend the meetings that were necessary for his work. During the [[Phoney War]] from September 1939 until the [[Dunkirk evacuation]], Philby worked as ''The Times''{{'}} first-hand correspondent with the [[British Expeditionary Force (World War II)|British Expeditionary Force]] headquarters.{{sfn|Borovik|Knightley|1994}}{{page needed|date=June 2020}} After being evacuated from [[Boulogne]] on 21 May, he returned to France in mid-June and began representing ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' in addition to ''The Times''. He briefly reported from [[Cherbourg]] and [[Brest, France|Brest]], sailing for [[Plymouth]] less than 24 hours before France surrendered to Germany in June 1940.{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|pp= 110–111}}

In 1940, on the recommendation of Burgess, Philby joined MI6's Section D, a secret organisation charged with investigating how enemies might be attacked through non-military means.{{sfn|Holzman|2013|p=146}}{{sfn|Holzman|2013|p=135}} Philby and Burgess ran a training course for would-be [[sabotage|saboteurs]] at Brickendonbury Manor in [[Hertfordshire]].{{sfn|Lownie|2016|pp=110–111}} His time at Section D, however, was short-lived; the "tiny, ineffective, and slightly comic" section{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|p=128}} was soon absorbed by the [[Special Operations Executive]] (SOE) in the summer of 1940. Burgess was arrested in September for [[driving under the influence|drunken driving]] and was subsequently fired,{{sfn|Lownie|2016|p=113}} while Philby was appointed as an instructor on clandestine [[propaganda]] at the SOE's finishing school for agents at the Estate of Lord Montagu{{sfn|Lett|2016}}{{page needed|date=September 2022}} in [[Beaulieu, Hampshire|Beaulieu]], [[Hampshire]].{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|p=129}}

Philby's role as an instructor of sabotage agents again brought him to the attention of the Soviet [[Joint State Political Directorate]] (OGPU). This role allowed him to conduct sabotage and instruct agents on how to properly conduct sabotage. The new London ''rezident'', Ivan Chichayev (code-name Vadim), re-established contact and asked for a list of British agents being trained to enter the Soviet Union. Philby replied that none had been sent and that none was undergoing training at that time. This statement was underlined twice in red and marked with two question marks, clearly indicating confusion and questioning of this, by disbelieving staff at [[Lubyanka Building|Moscow Central in the Lubyanka]], according to Genrikh Borovik, who saw the [[telegram]]s much later in the KGB archives.{{sfn|Borovik|Knightley|1994}}{{page needed|date=June 2020}}

Philby provided Stalin with advance warning of [[Operation Barbarossa]] and of the [[Empire of Japan|Japanese]] intention to strike into southeast Asia instead of attacking the Soviet Union as [[Adolf Hitler]] had urged. The first was ignored as a provocation, but the second, when confirmed by the Russo-German journalist and spy [[Richard Sorge]] in [[Tokyo]], contributed to Stalin's decision to begin transporting troops from the [[Russian Far East|Far East]] in time for the [[counteroffensive]] around Moscow.{{sfn|Borovik|Knightley|1994}}{{page needed|date=June 2020}}

By September 1941, Philby began working for Section Five of MI6, a section responsible for offensive [[counterintelligence|counter-intelligence]]. On the strength of his knowledge and experience of Franco's Spain, he was put in charge of the subsection that dealt with Spain and Portugal. This entailed responsibility for a network of undercover operatives in several cities such as Madrid, Gibraltar, [[Lisbon]] and [[Tangier]].{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|pp= 161–162}} At this time, the German ''[[Abwehr]]'' was active in Spain, particularly around the British naval base of Gibraltar, which its agents hoped to watch with many detection stations to track [[Allied Powers of World War II|Allied]] supply ships in the Western Mediterranean.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hinsley |first1=F. H. |author1-link=Harry Hinsley |title=British intelligence in the Second World War |date=1979–1990 |publisher=[[HMSO]] |location=London |isbn=978-0-11-630933-4 |page=720}}</ref> Thanks to British counter-intelligence efforts, of which Philby's Iberian subsection formed a significant part, the project (Abwehr code-name ''[[Operation Bodden|Bodden]]'') never came to fruition.{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|pp= 164–165}}

During 1942–43, Philby's responsibilities were then expanded to include North Africa and Italy, and he was made the deputy head of Section Five under Major Felix Cowgill, an army officer seconded to SIS.{{sfn|Richelson|1997|p=135}} In early 1944, as it became clear that the Soviet Union was likely to once more prove a significant adversary to Britain, SIS re-activated Section Nine, which dealt with anti-communist efforts. In late 1944 Philby, on instructions from his Soviet handler, maneuvered through the system successfully to replace Cowgill as head of Section Nine.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|pp= 254–255}}<ref name=hiscomments>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35943428 |title=Kim Philby, British double agent, reveals all in secret video|publisher=BBC News |date=4 April 2016 |author=Gordon Corera|access-date= 4 April 2016}}</ref> [[Charles Arnold-Baker]], an officer of German birth (born Wolfgang von Blumenthal) working for Richard Gatty in Belgium and later transferred to the Norwegian/Swedish border, voiced many suspicions of Philby and his intentions but was repeatedly ignored.<ref name="odnb" />

While working in Section Five, Philby had become acquainted with [[James Jesus Angleton]], a young American counter-intelligence officer working in liaison with SIS in London. Angleton, later chief of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s (CIA) [[Counterintelligence Staff]], became suspicious of Philby when he failed to pass on information relating to a British agent executed by the [[Gestapo]] in Germany.<ref>{{Cite web |title=harry george philby |url=https://siwilaibkk.com/cityclub/7q5d6/article.php?tag=harry-george-philby |access-date=2024-06-28 |website=siwilaibkk.com}}</ref> It later emerged that the agent—known as Schmidt—had also worked as an informant for the ''[[Rote Kapelle]]'' organisation, which sent information to both London and Moscow.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 268}} Nevertheless, Angleton's suspicions went unheard.

In late summer 1943, the SIS provided the GRU an official report on the activities of German agents in [[Bulgaria during World War II|Bulgaria]] and [[Romania during World War II|Romania]], soon to be liberated by the Soviet Union. The NKVD complained to Cecil Barclay, the SIS representative in Moscow, that information had been withheld. Barclay reported the complaint to London. Philby claimed to have overheard discussion of this by chance and sent a report to his controller. This turned out to be identical with Barclay's dispatch, convincing the NKVD that Philby had seen the full Barclay report. A similar lapse occurred with a report from the Japanese embassy in Moscow sent to Tokyo. The NKVD received the same report from Sorge but with an extra paragraph claiming that Hitler might seek a separate peace with the Soviet Union. These lapses by Philby aroused intense suspicion in Moscow.<ref name="odnb" />

Elena Modrzhinskaya at [[GUGB]] headquarters in Moscow assessed all material from the [[Cambridge Five]]. She noted that they produced an extraordinary wealth of information on German war plans but next to nothing on the repeated question of British penetration of Soviet intelligence in either London or Moscow. Philby had repeated his claim that there were no such agents. She asked, "Could the SIS really be such fools they failed to notice suitcase-loads of papers leaving the office? Could they have overlooked Philby's Communist wife?" Modrzhinskaya concluded that all were double agents, working essentially for the British.{{sfn|Borovik|Knightley|1994}}{{page needed|date=June 2020}}

A more serious incident occurred in August 1945, when [[Konstantin Volkov (diplomat)|Konstantin Volkov]], an NKVD agent and vice-consul in [[Istanbul]], requested [[political asylum]] in Britain for himself and his wife. For a large sum of money, Volkov offered the names of three Soviet agents inside Britain, two of whom worked in the Foreign Office and a third who worked in counterintelligence in London. Philby was given the task of dealing with Volkov by British intelligence. He warned the Soviets of the attempted defection and travelled to Istanbul—ostensibly to handle the matter on behalf of SIS but, in reality, to ensure that Volkov had been neutralised. By the time he arrived in Turkey, three weeks later, Volkov had been removed to Moscow.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Konstantin Volkov|url=https://spartacus-educational.com/Konstantin_Volkov.htm|access-date=2020-11-22|website=Spartacus Educational}}</ref><ref name="odnb" />

The intervention of Philby in the affair and the subsequent capture of Volkov by the Soviets might have seriously compromised Philby's position. Volkov's defection had been discussed with the British embassy in [[Ankara]] on telephones which turned out to have been tapped by Soviet intelligence. Volkov had insisted that all written communications about him take place by bag rather than by telegraph, causing a delay in reaction that might plausibly have given the Soviets time to uncover his plans. Philby was thus able to evade blame and detection.{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|pp= 180–181}}

A month later [[Igor Gouzenko]], a cipher clerk in [[Ottawa]], took political asylum in Canada and gave the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police]] names of agents operating within the [[British Empire]] that were known to him. When Jane Archer (who had interviewed Krivitsky) was appointed to Philby's section he moved her off investigatory work in case she became aware of his past. He later wrote "she had got a tantalising scrap of information about a young English journalist whom the Soviet intelligence had sent to Spain during the Civil War. And here she was plunked down in my midst!"{{sfn|Andrew|2009|pp=263, 263–272, 343}}

Years after the war, [[Hardy Amies|Sir Hardy Amies]], who had served as an intelligence officer, recalled that Philby was in his [[mess]] and on being asked what the infamous spy was like, Hardy quipped, "He was always trying to get information out of me—most significantly the name of my tailor". Philby, "employed in a Department of the Foreign Office", was appointed an Officer of the [[Order of the British Empire]] (OBE) in [[1946 New Year Honours#Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)|1946]].<ref>''London Gazette'' Issue 37412 published on 28 December 1945. p. 8</ref>

===Istanbul===
In February 1947, Philby was appointed head of British intelligence for Turkey and posted to Istanbul with his second wife, Aileen, and their family. His public position was that of First Secretary at the British Consulate; in reality, his intelligence work required overseeing British agents and working with the Turkish security services.{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|p= 187}}

Philby planned to infiltrate five or six groups of émigrés into [[Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic|Soviet Armenia]] or [[Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic|Soviet Georgia]], but efforts among the [[expatriate]] community in Paris produced just two recruits. Turkish intelligence took them to a border crossing into Georgia but soon afterwards shots were heard. Another effort was made using a Turkish [[gulet]] for a seaborne landing, but it never left port. Philby was implicated in a similar campaign in [[Communist Albania]]. Colonel [[David Smiley]], an aristocratic Guards officer who had helped [[Enver Hoxha]] and his communist guerillas to liberate Albania, now prepared to remove Hoxha. He trained Albanian commandos—some of whom were former Nazi collaborators—in Libya or Malta. From 1947, they infiltrated the southern mountains to build support for former [[King Zog]].

The first three missions, overland from Greece, were trouble-free. Larger numbers were landed by sea and air under [[Albanian Subversion|Operation Valuable]], which continued until 1951, increasingly under the influence of the newly formed CIA. [[Stewart Menzies]], head of SIS, disliked the idea, which was promoted by former SOE men now in SIS. Most infiltrators were caught by the [[Sigurimi]], the Albanian Security Service.{{sfn|Smiley|1985}}{{page needed|date=September 2022}} Clearly there had been leaks and Philby was later suspected as one of the leakers. His own comment was, "I do not say that people were happy under the regime but the CIA underestimated the degree of control that the Authorities had over the country."{{sfn|Borovik|Knightley|1994}} Philby later wrote of his attitude towards the operation in Albania:

<blockquote>The agents we sent into Albania were armed men intent on murder, sabotage and assassination ... They knew the risks they were running. I was serving the interests of the Soviet Union and those interests required that these men were defeated. To the extent that I helped defeat them, even if it caused their deaths, I have no regrets.</blockquote>

Philby's wife had suffered from psychological problems since childhood which caused her to [[self harm|inflict injuries upon herself]]. In 1948, troubled by Philby's heavy drinking and frequent [[depression (mood)|depressions]] and his life in Istanbul, she experienced a breakdown, staging an accident and injecting herself with urine and [[insulin]] to cause skin disfigurations.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 344}} She was sent to a clinic in Switzerland to recover. Upon her return to Istanbul in late 1948, she was badly burned in an incident with a charcoal stove and returned to Switzerland. Shortly afterward, Philby was moved to the job as chief SIS representative in Washington, with his family.

===Washington, D.C.===
In September 1949, the Philbys arrived in the United States. Officially, his post was that of First Secretary to the British Embassy; in reality, he served as chief British intelligence representative in Washington. His office oversaw a large amount of urgent and [[Classified information#Top Secret (TS)|top secret]] communications between Washington and London. Philby was also responsible for liaising with the CIA and promoting "more aggressive Anglo-American intelligence operations".{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|p= 201}} A leading figure within the CIA was Philby's wary former colleague, James Jesus Angleton, with whom he once again found himself working closely. Angleton remained suspicious of Philby but lunched with him every week in Washington.

A more serious threat to Philby's position had come to light. During the summer of 1945, a Soviet [[cipher]] clerk had reused a [[one-time pad]] to transmit intelligence traffic. This mistake made it possible to break the normally impregnable code. Contained in the traffic (intercepted and decrypted as part of the [[Venona project]]) was information that documents had been sent to Moscow from the British embassy in Washington. The intercepted messages revealed that the embassy source (identified as "Homer") travelled to [[New York City]] to meet his Soviet contact twice a week. Philby had been briefed on the situation shortly before reaching Washington in 1949; it was clear to Philby that the agent was Maclean, who worked in the embassy at the time and whose wife, Melinda, lived in New York. Philby had to help discover the identity of "Homer", but also wished to protect Maclean.{{sfn|Richelson|1997|p=228}}

In January 1950, on evidence provided by the Venona intercepts, Soviet atomic spy [[Klaus Fuchs]] was arrested. His arrest led to others: [[Harry Gold]], a courier with whom Fuchs had worked, [[David Greenglass]], and [[Julius and Ethel Rosenberg]]. The investigation into the embassy leak continued and the stress of it was exacerbated by the arrival in Washington, in October 1950, of Burgess—Philby's unstable and dangerously alcoholic fellow spy.{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|p= 209}}

Burgess, who had been given a post as Second Secretary at the British Embassy, took up residence in the Philby family home and rapidly set about causing offence to all and sundry. Philby's wife resented him and disliked his presence; Americans were offended by his "natural superciliousness" and "utter contempt for the whole pyramid of values, attitudes, and courtesies of the American way of life". [[J. Edgar Hoover]] complained that Burgess used British embassy automobiles to avoid arrest when he cruised Washington in pursuit of [[homosexuality|homosexual]] encounters.{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|p= 209}} His dissolution had a troubling effect on Philby; the morning after a particularly disastrous and drunken party, a guest returning to collect his car heard voices upstairs and found "Kim and Guy in the bedroom drinking champagne. They had already been down to the Embassy but being unable to work had come back".{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|p= 210}}

Burgess' presence was awkward for Philby, yet it was potentially dangerous for Philby to leave him unsupervised. The situation in Washington was tense. From April 1950, Maclean had been the [[prime suspect]] in the investigation into the embassy leak.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 362}} Philby had undertaken to devise an escape plan that would warn Maclean, in England, of the intense suspicion he was under and arrange for him to flee. Burgess had to get to London to warn Maclean, who was under surveillance. In early May 1951, Burgess got three speeding tickets in a single day—then pleaded [[diplomatic immunity]], causing an official complaint to be made to the British ambassador.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 365}} Burgess was sent back to England, where he met Maclean in his London club.{{citation needed|date = July 2013}}

The SIS planned to interrogate Maclean on 28 May 1951. On 23 May, concerned that Maclean had not yet fled, Philby wired Burgess, ostensibly about his [[Lincoln (automobile)|Lincoln]] convertible that had been abandoned in the embassy car park. "If he did not act at once it would be too late", the telegram read, "because [Philby] would send his car to the scrap heap. There was nothing more [he] could do."{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 374}} On 25 May, Burgess drove Maclean from his home at [[Tatsfield]], Surrey, to [[Southampton]], where both boarded the steamship ''Falaise'' to France and then proceeded to Moscow.{{sfn|Lownie|2016|pp=237–239}}{{sfn|Macintyre|2015|pp=150–151}}

===Public denials===
Burgess had intended to aid Maclean in his escape, not accompany him in it. The "affair of the missing diplomats", as it was referred to before Burgess and Maclean surfaced in Moscow,<ref name="SundayTimes">{{cite news|last=Evans|first=Harold|url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article6841293.ece|title=The Sunday Times and Kim Philby|work=[[The Sunday Times]]|location=London|date=20 September 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110615060549/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article6841293.ece|archive-date=15 June 2011}}</ref> attracted a great deal of public attention, and Burgess' disappearance, which identified him as complicit in Maclean's espionage, deeply compromised Philby's position. Under a cloud of suspicion raised by his highly visible and intimate association with Burgess, Philby returned to London. There, he underwent MI5 interrogation aimed at ascertaining whether he had acted as a "third man" in Burgess and Maclean's spy ring. In July 1951, Philby resigned from MI6, preempting his all-but-inevitable dismissal.{{sfn|Hamrick|2004|p=137}}

Even after his departure from MI6, suspicion towards Philby continued. Interrogated repeatedly regarding his intelligence work and his connection with Burgess, he continued to deny that he had acted as a Soviet agent. From 1952, Philby struggled to find work as a journalist, eventually—in August 1954—accepting a position with a diplomatic newsletter called the ''Fleet Street Letter''.{{sfn|Seale|McConnville|1973|p= 224}} Lacking access to material of value and out of touch with Soviet intelligence, he all but ceased to operate as a Soviet agent.

On 25 October 1955, following revelations in ''[[The New York Times]]'', [[Labour Party (United Kingdom)|Labour]] [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]] [[Marcus Lipton]] used [[parliamentary privilege]] to ask [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]] [[Anthony Eden]] if he was determined "to cover up at all costs the dubious third man activities of Mr Harold Philby..."<ref name=parliament>
[https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1955/oct/25/burgess-and-maclean Burgess and MacLean ] Hansard Parliamentary Debates</ref> This was reported in the British press, leading Philby to threaten legal action against Lipton if he repeated his accusations outside [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]]. Lipton later withdrew his comments.<ref name=LRB /> This retraction came about when Philby was officially cleared by [[Foreign Secretary (United Kingdom)|Foreign Secretary]] [[Harold Macmillan]] on 7 November. The minister told the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]], "I have no reason to conclude that Mr. Philby has at any time betrayed the interests of his country, or to identify him with the so-called 'Third Man', if indeed there was one."{{sfn|Fisher|1977|p=193}} Following this, Philby gave a press conference in his mother's London flat in which—calmly, confidently, and without the stammer he had struggled with since childhood—he reiterated his innocence, declaring, "I have never been a communist."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/3295527/The-spy-who-loved-his-mum.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110316173012/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/3295527/The-spy-who-loved-his-mum.html|archive-date=16 March 2011|title=The spy who loved his mum|author=Roger Wilkes|work=The Daily Telegraph |location=UK |access-date=30 January 2011|date=27 October 2001}}</ref>