Kim Philby - His Most Intimate Betrayal

'Let's be gentlemen about this.'

I'm sure we can work something out.

'Your past has caught up with you, Kim.'

The game's up.

'We've penetrated the KGB.'

You see how foolish this seems.

It's astonishing, totally absurd.

You know it's absurd.

Do you want me to give you my version of your work for the Russians?

Do you want me to spell it out for you?

- Are you serious? - Yes, Kim.

I am.

'Is Nedosekin your contact?'

'I don't have a bloody contact.'

Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby, fellow officers in MI6,

had been the closest of friends for more than 20 years.

These were spies cut from the same cloth.

Yet, they could not have been more different.

These friends were, in reality, bitter enemies,

fighting on opposite sides of the Cold War.

This peculiarly British friendship between two spies

offers an extraordinary insight

into one of the most important secret chapters of that conflict.

Here's...

H-Here's the scoop.

'H-Here's the scoop.'

'H-Here's the scoop. H-Here's the scoop.'

14 years earlier,

37-year-old intelligence officer, Harold "Kim" Philby,

was bound to the US aboard one of Cunard's finest luxury liners.

He had been offered a top job.

Philby was a rising star in MI6,

Britain's secret intelligence service.

He arrived in Washington as the new Head Of Station,

one of MI6'S plum postings.

As the liaison between MI6 and the CIA,

Philby was now a key player in the Cold War,

with access to America's most closely-guarded secrets.

But Philby had a secret of his own, one that he did not share.

Philby led a double life,

one as a loyal and supremely charming British intelligence officer

and the other as a Soviet agent.

Philby appeared to be the quintessential English patriot.

But for more than 15 years,

he had been feeding British and American secrets to Moscow,

causing the deaths of hundreds of people.

Philby's code name was Stanley

and he was the Soviet Union's most important spy.

Moscow couldn't have been happier with Agent Stanley.

London was also pleased with him.

He was even being considered as a future chief of MI6.

He'd been always talked about as this wonderful man

who was a leading light in the office.

Of course, Philby just seemed so completely un-spylike,

you didn't think of him as a spy.

You believed in him.

But then came disaster.

This is the BBC Home Service and here is the news.

On Monday, 11th June, 1951,

Kim Philby was urgently recalled to London

and, as he put it, "I knew I'd landed in the soup."

A fortnight earlier, two British diplomats,

Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean,

had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared.

Mr Morrison has made a statement in the House of Commons

about the disappearance of the two Foreign Office officials.

He said there had been no confirmed news of their whereabouts,

security aspects of the case were being investigated

and it was not in the public interest to disclose them.

In the test match at Nottingham, England 419...

Philby knew the missing diplomats

and he knew that both of them were also Soviet spies.

Burgess was a close friend.

A few weeks earlier,

he'd been sharing Philby's house in Washington.

Through his work for MI6, Philby had discovered

that Maclean was under surveillance and about to be arrested.

So Philby had sent Burgess to London to warn Maclean

that his cover was about to be blown

and together they had fled to Russia.

Now, Philby's links with the two missing diplomats

had made him a target of suspicion.

He was invited to Leconfield House in Mayfair

for questioning by MI5, the domestic security service.

Waiting for him was Dick Goldsmith White,

the chief of counter-intelligence.

The son of a Kentish ironmonger, White was a veteran spy hunter,

polite, relentless and completely ruthless.

It was White's job to snoop and pry.

He had authority to bug, burgle

and spy on anyone he considered a threat to national security.

And what he needed to know was whether Philby was in league

with the two Soviet agents, Burgess and Maclean.

Had a third man tipped them off to flee to Moscow

and, if so, was Philby that third man?

Their meeting was a polite, slightly embarrassed affair,

but both men knew that a brutal game of cat-and-mouse had begun.

White began by telling Philby

that he was simply aiding an investigation

into this horrible business of the two missing diplomats.

He reassured him that he was not the target of an investigation himself.

"Was it remotely possible," White asked,

"that Burgess could have been a secret Soviet spy?"

"Absolutely inconceivable," said Philby,

he'd known Burgess since Cambridge.

The man was a drunk, a flagrant homosexual

and totally unsuitable to be a spy, let alone a Soviet one.

Dick White suspected that Philby was lying,

but the case against the MI6 man was circumstantial.

MI5 needed hard evidence.

Despite his growing certainty that Philby was a spy,

Dick White had to tread cautiously.

Philby's powerful friends in the foreign intelligence service, MI6,

were already rallying to his side in Westminster,

and one in particular.

Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby were birds of a feather.

Products of public school and Cambridge,

born into Britain's ruling elite,

they had risen together through the ranks of MI6.

Elliott shared everything with Philby,

but Philby had never revealed his own secret,

the one that really mattered.

This was an old-fashioned sort of friendship,

between two upper-class Englishmen, who seldom discussed their feelings.

It was based on cricket, clubs, alcohol and jokes.

But this most intimate of friendships

disguised the most intimate betrayal.

Kim probably meant as much to my father, apart from my mother,

as anybody in his life.

They had tremendously convivial times together.

And so, in that circumstance,

it was such an incredibly disturbing thought to him

that Kim could possibly be a traitor.

My father couldn't countenance the idea of betrayal.

Elliott flatly refused to entertain even the possibility

that his closest friend could be a Soviet spy.

They had joined MI6 together, they'd both been to Cambridge.

For God's sake, the man was a member of the Athenaeum.

71 runs. Oh, to be at Trent Bridge.

It was a damn fine display, though.

Those South African chaps, they are a jolly good bowling outfit.

I hope you can join me at Lords next week.

I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Who would have thought they'd be one up?

I rather hope all of this with Burgess will be sorted by then.

I don't know.

Dick White wants to talk to me again.

And he wants me to surrender my passport too.

Oh, Kim, you must fight like hell.

If I were accused of treachery, I'd complain to the Prime Minister.

Nick, they think I'm a bloody communist,

how would I get close to the PM?

Well, we are not going to stand by and let your reputation

be traduced by a... a bunch of half-baked rumours.

I can't drag you into this mess.

It's OUR mess, Kim.

And we will sort it out, no matter what Dick White says.

Elliott defended his friend against all accusers,

loudly declaring his innocence and bombarding MI5 with complaints

about the way Philby had been treated.

With the MI5 investigators closing in,

Philby was now given his own code name, Peach.

Dick White summoned Philby to his Mayfair office

to give him another grilling, this time much less courteous.

After the interrogation, Peach headed home,

but now he was no longer alone.

Officers from MI5's surveillance unit, the watchers,

were on his tail.

Most of the watchers were ex-policemen,

selected for their sharp hearing, good eyesight

and average height, in order not to be conspicuous.

But they were also instructed to wear trilby hats and raincoats,

which made them look exactly like spies.

As an experienced intelligence officer,

Philby quickly sensed that he was being followed.

But the watchers also had company.

The streets of Mayfair were witnessing

a Cold War battle of wits

because the Russians also had Philby under surveillance,

and his watchers.

Moscow was alarmed, worried that its top mole, Agent Stanley,

might be exposed, captured and even turned and used against them.

The investigation into Kim Philby drove a wedge between MI5 and MI6.

MI5 were convinced that Philby had tipped off Burgess and Maclean.

The head of MI6 refused to believe it, but he was left with no choice.

Philby had to go.

With great sadness, Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies,

or C for short, called Philby in to give him his marching orders.

Reluctantly, the head of MI6 told Philby that he must do

the honourable thing and resign, for the good of the service.

Philby's glittering career as an intelligence officer was over.

Elliott was outraged by his friend's dismissal from the firm.

He vowed that Philby wouldn't be frozen out of MI6 for long

and he promised to get him back into the service as soon as possible.

Only weeks earlier, Philby had been a key player

in the glamorous American capital.

Now unemployed, he found himself house-hunting near Rickmansworth

in the quiet Hertfordshire commuter belt.

He and his wife, Aileen, and their five children,

were crammed into this rented Victorian cottage called Sun Box.