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... people who were guided by high ideals, " says Kalugin. "Philby thought communism was the future of humanity. The Cambridge Five remained loyal to the very end, even when the system compromised itself. They didn't lose faith in the Soviet system. The Russian wife of infamous Cold War British 'double agent' Kim Philby reveals the details of what happened to the communist spy after he fled the West for Moscow. So this is the Russian woman the notorious British 'double agent' Kim Philby was devoted to for the last two decades of his life.
Now 67, Rufina Philby remains graceful and handsome. When she talks about the man she insists was the "perfect husband", it isn't hard to see how this woman lifted the loneliness of a spy's exile and even managed to wean Philby off the bottle. Rufina's memoir of her 19 years with Philby was published in the United States. Though it is unlikely to make the New York Times best-seller list, the book is a must-read for aficionados of intelligence or students of the Cold War.
And not because it casts any new light on Philby's recruitment in the 1930 s by the KGB or any new revelations about what he supplied his Soviet masters while he spied for them in Europe and the United States. While on a book tour to Washington, Rufina insisted to Insight that Philby spoke to her little about his espionage past. It isn't difficult to believe her. His silence probably was determined by his wish to protect her - he knew their Moscow apartment was being bugged by the KGB - and he also was the consummate need-to-know professional.
Rufina didn't need to know - she wasn't a KGB plant and, in fact, Philby's Soviet spymasters were opposed to the couple marrying in 1970. "I didn't ask him anything, " she says. So no new secrets, then. But what her book does bring is an extraordinary inside view of how one of the most legendary turncoats of the Cold War lived in exile: what he thought of the Soviet Union and how he coped - often badly until her arrival on the scene - adjusting to the hardships of Soviet life and essentially a forced retirement. (Fisher, 2001). British intelligence never has quite recovered from the treachery of the so-called "Magnificent Five": Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and John Cairncross. All were recruited by the KGB in the 1930 s either while studying at Cambridge University or shortly after they had been graduated.
Philby's own flight to Moscow in 1963 exposed publicly the ineptitude of Britain's security agencies - at one time the double agent had been seen as a prospective head of British intelligence. As MI 6 's liaison with Washington Philby was privy to major U. S. secrets as well and advised on the creation of the CIA. In terms of the damage he caused to Western interests.
And, like the CIA turncoat Ames, the information he supplied led to some horrific deaths. Philby betrayed untold numbers of Western agents and he was responsible for boatloads of Albanian emigrants being picked up in 1949 when they landed on their home shores. But Philby himself represented a carrier of vital information and therefore appeared to be high risk taker. This way, the only fact of using such a double agent put all the people and internal information in danger, in case he was caught and interrogated. Since Philby's flight a not-so-small book industry has sprung up to detail his treachery and explain why he and the other members of his spy group betrayed the West.
Were they convinced by communist ideology? Or were they lured by the excitement of illicit adventure? Some have interpreted the traitors' behavior as an undergraduate rebellion against traditional loyalties and mores that mutated into something far more deadly and serious. Homintern conspiracy certainly doesn't explain the recruitment of Philby, the most famous and colorful of the five. Rufina echoes Philby's own explanation for his allegiance to Moscow. In his KGB-cleared autobiography, My Silent War, he argues he was a dedicated communist and spied for the Soviet Union out of conviction.
Rufina also emphasizes the Philby contention that he never was a traitor nor a double agent. "He chose his path before joining British intelligence and followed it all his life. He always worked for one side, " she maintains. "He was not a traitor - never betrayed his beliefs, " she adds disingenuously. Even some hard-line anticommunist critics of Philby accept that there is a sustainable argument to be made to justify his initial recruitment. The realities of Soviet life were little known outside Russia, thanks to naive fellow travelers such as George Bernard Shaw who, after visits there, extolled the virtues of practical communism. What is more difficult to understand is Philby's continuing relationship with the KGB after World War II. Not that Philby even questioned his communist ideology when confronted with the reality of the Soviet Union.
His beliefs certainly were put to the test. Rufina says Philby was "disappointed in many ways" by what he found. "He saw people suffering too much. " But he consoled himself by arguing that "the ideals were right but the way they were carried out was wrong. The fault lay with the people in charge. " On arriving in Moscow after his hasty 1963 escape from Beirut, Philby had high hopes that the KGB would put him to work and use his trade craft experience. There were numerous inaccurate stories in the Western press that Philby had been rewarded with a general's rank and was helping to direct the KGB.
In fact, his untwisting Soviet spymasters kept him at arm's length, but not until the savvy Yuri Andropov took over the KGB were Philby's talents and knowledge exploited. By then it was too late: Apart from giving seminars to KGB agents on the intricacies of English life and manners he had nothing substantive to offer. (Fisher, 2001). Like fellow exile Burgess, who drank himself to death, the bored and disoriented Philby hit the bottle with a death-wish vengeance. It was during this period in the mid- to late sixties that he slashed his wrists. Rufina says, "It is hard to live a double life. He started drinking in Beirut; in Russia it got worse.
He was depressed, out of work and lonely. He once told me that drinking was the best way to commit suicide. When he told me this he touched the scars on his wrists. " Then a copy editor, Rufina, who had survived cancer, met Philby accidentally via a friend who was acquainted with another British traitor, George Blake, then also in exile in Moscow. Almost half Philby's age, she knew little about the legendary spy as his exploits had not been lauded or publicized within the Soviet Union. Philby became childishly dependent on his wife. Such a dependent and stressful life becomes dangerous for the work of double agent, making him less vigilant.
This way he becomes dangerous for the mission and creates an overall problem. (Fisher, 2001). There are other cases of spy stories like with Mitrokhin. He was to collaborate with Christopher Andrew, professor of modern history at Cambridge and a well-known expert on the KGB, to publish what the authorities would permit. What Mitrokhin managed to copy and squirrel away reveals only a small part of the KGB effort internationally, but it is enough to stand as an astounding record of Communism, a commemoration of the Soviets as they really were. The archive shows that one or another department of the KGB considered how to approach, to monitor, or, at best, to recruit everyone who was anyone politically in the United States and Europe throughout the postwar period. Many of these schemes were ridiculous, of course, but the KGB did succeed in assembling a slew of renegade politicians and parliamentarians, civil servants and academics.
One significant success was to compromise Willy Brandt, the West German chancellor, in a way that led to his resignation. British prime minister Harold Wilson earned himself a code name in the files by shooting his mouth off indiscreetly and often to someone he knew to be a KGB agent. Approaches were made to men as varied as Cyrus Vance and Oskar Lafontaine, the German socialist. In 1975 alone, KGB head Yuri Andropov typically ordered operations to penetrate the "inner circles" of George Ball, Ramsey Clark, Averell Harriman, Edward Kennedy, Theodore Sorensen, and others. Plans existed for the murder of a range of personalities, from Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia to Soviet defectors, especially those from the KGB itself.
Rudolf Nureyev and Natalia Makarova both escaped the Soviet Union to dance abroad, and their legs were to be broken as fitting punishment. Bomb attacks were arranged in black districts of New York, with the blame laid on the Jewish Defense League. Sexual smears were invented about Senator Scoop Jackson, Martin Luther King, and J. Edgar Hoover. The AIDS virus, the KGB put about, had been "manufactured" in Maryland. Thanks to the number of agents operating in U.
S. defense laboratories, American science effectively became Soviet science. Secret arms caches and radio transmitters, we now learn, were buried in a dozen countries (including America, Turkey, and Israel) for the day when war was openly declared and sabotage behind the lines could begin. (Gill, 1994). Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Whitehall began to draw up top secret plans for the transition to World War Three.
Some of the evidence remains classified, but assiduous detective work in the archives, supplemented by interviews with Whitehall insiders, has enabled Peter Hennessy to reconstruct many of the preparations made between the late 1940 s and the late 1960 s. The actions to be taken at successive stages of an escalating crisis were laid down in the government War Book, but the ultimate consequences were so horrific as to be almost unthinkable. The Strath report of 1955 predicted that ten hydrogen bombs would kill twelve million Britons. Officials planned for the War Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff to retaliate, from a bunker in Wiltshire, with an offensive that would kill eight million Russians. (Lander, 2002). Among the numerous books being published on the Cold War this stands pre-eminent. The author warns his readers about the difficulties involved in writing about government intelligence services and traces this to the final days of the Second World War.
Secret intelligence lies at the heart of the Cold War which was 'fought, above all, by the intelligence services. ' Yet H. M. Government destroys some 98 per cent of all records. Not surprisingly, 'we do not yet know the full story of the Cold War; indeed we may never know. ' The author's aim is to eschew the more exciting world of spies and moles and 'to look at the regular work of British and American secret service officers. ' The Cold War contained other 'wars' -- within individual countries and between allies. The secret services, through by inheriting high risks, helped the 'transformation of the Cold War old-fashioned conflict between states into a subversive competition between societies. ' By the 1950 s Britain and America were both adept at managing empires and Britain's longer experience was a key factor in the two countries' cooperation and in explaining Britain's value to the U. S.
Britain's secret services also helped to cement her 'special relationship' with America and, in the author's term, to make it not only special but 'unique' in world history. (Gill, 1994). Bibliography: Fisher, J. Gentleman spies: agents in the British Empire and beyond, Sutton: 2001. Gill, P. Security Intelligence & the Liberal Democratic State. London: Frank Cass, 1994.
Herman, M. Intelligence Power in Peace and War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. House, B. and O'Neill R. Thoughts for the Cold War Era.
Basingstoke: Macmillan/ St Antony's College, Oxford, 1992. pp. 308 - 309. Intelligence & National Security < web > Jeffery, K. Intelligence & Counter-Insurgency Operations, Intelligence & National Security 2 January 1988: 18. Jones R. Reflections on Intelligence.
London: Heinemann, 1989. Lander, S. British Intelligence in the 20 th Century, Intelligence & National Security 17, 1. Spring 2002: 19 - 20.
Lashmar, P. Spyflights of the Cold War. London: Sutton Books, 1996. Wright R. Spycather.
New York: The Viking Press, 1987.
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Research essay sample on Second World War Communist Ideology
