Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, What motivates somebody to completely turn on their
country to the point that they're willing to infiltrate deep
inside the government and share top secret info with an
enemy nation. What about a guy who has it all money, prestige, privilege.
He was one of the most dangerous double agents in
British history. Imagine a James Bond villain, and he got
(00:21):
away with it. I'm Patty Steele. Kim Philby charming everybody
in the room while stabbing them in the back. That's
next on the backstory. We're back with the backstory. Okay,
it's the middle of the Cold War, their serious tension
between the East and the West. In the heart of
(00:42):
British Intelligence is an agency known for its very British,
stiff upper lip demeanor and reliance on the old boys network.
Kim Philby is at the center of that network, but
unbeknownst to his longtime associatests, he's one of the most
dangerous double agents in his life. He's to blame for
massive security spills leading to the torture and death of
(01:05):
numerous British intelligence agents. But where did it all start,
How and why did Philby become such a master manipulator
that he was able to feed top secret info to
the Soviet Union, tipping the Cold War scales in their
favor for decades without being caught. First and foremost, Kim
Philby was a charmer. On top of that, he grew
(01:28):
up as the ultimate insider. His family were aristocratic intellectuals.
He was born Harold Adrian Russell Philby in nineteen twelve
in India, where his father, Saint John Philby, worked for
the British government as a specialist in the Arab world.
His dad had a reputation as an eccentric and a
(01:48):
bit of a rebel against the British establishment. That may
be where Kim began questioning British rule. He went to
an elite boarding school as a kid, and then on
to Cambridge University in the early nineteen thirties. It looked
like he was destined for a life of privilege and
prestige and easy life, but Cambridge was a breeding ground
(02:09):
for radical thought and the Great Depression further radicalized young
intellectuals there. Kim was studying history but became intrigued with Marxism.
He and his friends socialized with powerful people in the
British Communist Party, and those people introduced him to a
man who would change his life. Arnold Deutsch, a recruiter
for Soviet intelligence. He saw in Kim a chance to
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infiltrate the British upper class long term. Kim, who was
ambitious and idealistic, was all in Who's nineteen thirty four,
He was just twenty two years old, and he pledged
his allegiance to the Soviet Union. Patience was key. Kim
now is told to keep his Communist beliefs under wraps
and to blend fully into British society. For years, he
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completely avoids sharing his leftist beliefs and instead shows himself
to be the perfect image of a loyal, upper class Englishman.
By the late nineteen thirties, he becomes a journalist covering
the Spanish Civil War and at the same time gathering
intelligence for the Soviets. He becomes a valuable asset to them.
(03:15):
In nineteen forty he joins MI six, Britain's foreign intelligence service.
His charm, connections and credentials made him a rising star.
By nineteen forty four, he's running British counter intelligence in Iberia,
where he continues to pass secrets to Moscow, but he
did more than leak info, he sabotaged British efforts against
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the Soviets. One of his most devastating betrayals came during
World War II, when he exposed Allied plans to infiltrate
German occupied Eastern Europe. Six and the CIA were training
anti Communist resistance fighters who were going to parachute into
the Balkan mountains, but thanks to Philby, the Soviets were
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waiting for them, and most were captured or killed as
soon as they landed. He was also involved in a
British project that could decode Soviet encrypted messages. He warned
the Soviets, who tightened their security. None of it mattered.
Philbey's colleagues totally trusted him. Again. He was charming, self
deprecating and seemingly completely loyal, but of course he wasn't.
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The more secrets he stole, the more deeply he had
embedded himself into MI six, becoming one of Britain's most
trusted spies. And there were others. They were part of
the infamous and very successful Cambridge five aspiring that included
four Cambridge classmates of kims By the early nineteen fifties,
though the group started to crumble as suspicions arose. Two
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of the Cambridge Five were being investigated and eventually defected
to Moscow, but Kim managed to charm his way out
of trouble with no real evidence against him. He was
cleared of suspicion in nineteen fifty five and held a
press conference denying everything, but it didn't last. By the
early nineteen sixties, British authorities began to investigate Kim after
(05:09):
a Soviet spy defected and fingered him. So how did
he avoid arrest? By this time he was working in
Beirut Lebanon, and authorities from six came to speak with him.
They were preparing to bring him back to London for questioning,
but he simply vanished into the night. Eventually he moved
to Moscow. How did he get away? Was it class
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privilege or as some believe, maybe the Brits let him
escape rather than drag him into court and have to
explain how they let him get away with so much
for so long. But why did they miss it? It
was totally a scene out of early James Bond. Six
wasn't just a spy agency, it was an elite gentleman's club.
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Recruitment often came through personal connections, not aptitude or background checks.
The assumption was if you came from the right family,
went to the right schools, and spoke with the right accent,
you were trustworthy. How embarrassing for the establishment when that
very business model is what allowed Kim Philby and his
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cohorts to be double agents for so long. Philby fit
this mold perfectly. After all, he went to Westminster School
in Cambridge University, where he mingled with the sons of
Britain's ruling class. He had the manners, the charm, and
the confidence of someone born into privilege. His upper class
pedigree was like a shield, deflecting suspicion even when evidence
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of his betrayal began to surface. In a lot of ways,
Kim was the perfect spy precisely because he didn't seem
like a spy. He was known as a hard drinking
man's man, a loyal patriot who despised communism. His charm
wasn't just disarming, it was disorienting. Even when his colleagues
at MI six began to suspect there was a mole
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in the in their midst. The idea that it could
be Philby was unthinkable. On top of that, there was
a deep reluctance within Six to acknowledge such a huge
breach of trust. Admitting that one of their own, one
of the best, was working for the enemy, would have
been devastating not just a morale but to the agency's reputation.
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Some even believed that Six deliberately allowed him to escape
to Moscow in nineteen sixty three to avoid the embarrassment
of a public trial. So what about his later life
in Moscow? Was it the hero's welcome he thought he'd get,
or maybe something not so glamorous. Think about it, ever,
had a friend who you found out had talked about
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you behind your back, or maybe they bad mouthed a
mutual friend, You know they're doing the same thing to you,
and you never really trust them, right well, believe it
or not. That happens in the world of espionage too.
Once you're labeled a traitorous type, you don't now grow it.
When he arrived in Moscow nineteen sixty three, he was
greeted as a hero, but the reality of life in
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exile was far from the romanticized vision he had imagined.
He was given a small apartment, a small pension, and
occasional public recognition by the Soviets. They talked about him
as one of their greatest assets, a guy who had
crippled Western intelligence and helped secure their position in the
Cold War. But in reality, Philby's life in Moscow was
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lonely and unsatisfying. He'd been promised a position in the KGB,
but it turned out they didn't want him. He struggled
with alcoholism, a problem he'd had during his time in six,
and it was tough for him to adjust a life
in a society he'd idealized from Afar. He discovered the
Soviet Union was no worker's paradise, but instead a bureaucratic,
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oppressive regime, and he was just a cog in its
propaganda machine. He realized the Soviets did very little to
lift their own people above poverty and terrible living conditions.
Later in life, his interviews made it clear that he
missed being an mi I six insider, the social life
among London's elite, and the thrill of playing both sides.
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In Moscow, he was an outsider, a guy who had
betrayed his homeland but was never fully trusted by his
adopted country, even his personal life was disappointing. Despite her shock,
his wife had followed him to Moscow, but their relationship
fell apart under the weight of his drinking and isolation
in exile. She went home and divorced him. Eventually he
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got married again to a Russian woman named Ruffina. She
says he was disappointed by his life in Russia and
that he attempted suicide by slashing his wrists, but was unsuccessful.
Kim published his memoirs in England in the late sixties,
but the Soviets wouldn't let him publish them there until
nineteen eighty. He died in nineteen eighty eight. So there
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are a few unanswered questions. Was Kim Philby a principled
idealist to sacrificed everything for what he believed or was
he basically a narcissist who loved the deception and betrayal
of his friends and country and had no remorse. And
there's the question about how England, a society so steeped
in privilege and tradition, could fail to see the danger
(10:16):
in its midst Why because Kim Philby was one of
the insiders. Hope you like the backstory with Patty Steele.
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(11:01):
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Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history you didn't
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