Kim Philby: Interrogated by MI5 (Ep 3)

The Rest Is Classified

This episode traces Kim Philby's unraveling after his friends Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess flee to Moscow, triggering intense scrutiny from British counterintelligence. MI5 investigators Dick White and Helenus Milmo conduct escalating interrogations

Key takeaways

• Dick White conducts a light initial interrogation while Philby relies on the lack of hard evidence and frames Burgess's stay as a friendly gesture.
• Bill Harvey's obsessive five-page memo to the CIA director successfully pressures British intelligence to dismiss Philby, igniting a personal feud with James Jesus Angleton.

Main topics

• Cambridge spy ring unraveling
• MI5 versus MI6 institutional rivalry

Notable quotes

"I find myself unable to avoid the conclusion that Philby is and has for many years been a Soviet agent..."

Conclusion

The episode demonstrates how Cold War mole hunts were driven as much by institutional politics,

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:03) For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com. Speaker 4 (0:24) Two of the Cambridge spies have fled to Moscow, and now the finger of suspicion is pointing at the potential third man, Kim Philby. But will the top MI6 officer crack under pressure as the claims against him become public? Well, welcome to The Rest is Classified. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera. Well, last time we looked at this incredibly intricate episode in the life of Kim Philby in which the web around him and the Cambridge spy ring is beginning to tighten. His friends, contacts, Donald McLean and Guy Burgess have fled to Moscow. And now Kim Philby, who's connected to these guys, is beginning to face the first little bits of suspicion that he might be involved. So he has been called back from his post as head of station in Washington back to London. And he is going to be interrogated to see if he is connected to these Cambridge spies. But first. A word from our sponsors at HP. Speaker 4 (1:29) This episode is brought to you by HP. In intelligence, you quickly learn that you are only as strong as the network around you. It's rarely a single major event that undermines an operation. It's the gaps between systems. That's Speaker 2 (1:42) where information leaks. It's the same in business. Leaders face a constant battle against strict timelines, mismatched tools, and the worry their security isn't as tight as they think it is. Speaker 4 (1:55) Which is why HP approaches technology not as a collection of gadgets, but as an integrated system. Speaker 2 (2:00) And crucially, that protection is built in at hardware level. It runs quietly in the background, blocking threats without requiring constant specialist oversight. With a team of business advisors, Speaker 4 (2:12) HP helps businesses of all sizes find technology that fits their needs and Speaker 2 (2:17) budget. To see how HP helps businesses work securely and productively. visit hp.com forward slash classified. Trick listeners also benefit from 10 % off HP business technology with the code TRICK10. Speaker 4 (2:35) So. Philby is back in London now to face, I think really for the first time in his career, real suspicion and interrogations around whether he is involved in what is going to be soon Speaker 2 (2:50) called the Cambridge spy ring. That's right. He first goes to his mother's flat as he comes back to London, calls MI6 and they say, can you come to MI5 now on Curzon Street? Never a good sign. They are, of course, the spy hunters, the counter-espionage service. They've already put his mother's flat under surveillance. So they're already very suspicious about him. And the first of what are many interrogations are about to begin. Now, it's interesting because they are different in character. The first interrogation is by a very capable MI5 officer called Dick White. He's a very important person in British intelligence because he starts in MI5. ends up running MI5 and ends up running MI6. He's the only person to ever do that. But this first meeting is a little bit light. Philby's a cool customer. And we spoke about this last time a little bit. He knows what the evidence is against him. He knows there are just going to be these fragments. You know, the fact he was left wing at Cambridge. He's admitted he was married to... Litzy Friedman, who was a communist in 1934. But, you know, he's always said that was just to, you know, get her a passport, youthful indiscretion. There'd been some little leads in the system about the Soviets sending a British journalist to Spain. He knows that could point to him. And he knows his other Cambridge friends, Burgess and McLean, have gone bad. But he also knows none of that is proof. You know, none of it's all circumstantial. None of it is actually hard evidence that he is a spy. It's just little... indications that there's something suspicious about him. And he knows the way they work is they need a confession. Without a confession, almost no one gets convicted of espionage. And so if he knows that, the only problem for him is if he cracks because maybe there's some new evidence that he doesn't know about. So that's his question is, is there something new that they've got? Because if all they've got is just these fragments, he's going to be okay. You know, he knows Burgess and McClane are a bit of a problem, but McClane, he barely knew, you know, hadn't had much contact with him. Burgess is obviously a bit of a problem. Burgess was the house guest. Burgess was the house guest. But then if you really were both Soviet agents, would you put him up in your house? Yeah, yeah. It's almost too stupid, isn't it? It is interesting, isn't it? Because obviously Speaker 4 (5:02) the Soviets would have never wanted Guy Burgess to be living with Philby in Washington. And yet it works out so that it's actually... kind of helpful to him Speaker 2 (5:12) in his defense. Yeah, because it's like, no way would I, you know, I was just helping out this kind of roguish Burgess as a friend. So when he's asked about these things, he's got an answer for all of them. And with Burgess, he could say, I was just trying to do my best to keep an old friend out of trouble by putting him up. So, you know, when he's having this initial, I think it's more of a chat than an interrogation, frankly, with Dick White. That's what he's saying. And he can tell pretty quickly. as this first conversation comes, that they don't have any new evidence. He consents from the questions they ask him, what they know and the fragments they've got, because they're putting to him, well, what about your marriage? What about your travel? What about Guy Burgess? But there's nothing new. And he says he can't believe. I can't believe Guy Burgess is a spy. But after all, the Foreign Office employed him. The Foreign Office is sending him to Washington. It's not my fault I put him up. I mean, that's their decision to put him up. He's like, I barely knew this McLean guy. So he's got his defense worked out pretty well. Speaker 4 (6:09) The Americans, though, have got to be really impatient, really keen to see if the Brits have gotten to the bottom of this. Because, of course, we talked about this a little bit last time. It has to be obvious that there is at least a third man. Because somebody has Speaker 2 (6:25) tipped off Burgess and McLean. Yeah. And it's interesting because the Americans are going to be a theme. I think, throughout this investigation, this mole hunt, because they are on Britain's back and on MI5's back saying, you've got a problem, you need to identify it. The Brits are also kind of, you can see there's notes in the archives when you look in the files, that the Brits are worried about the pressure from the Americans. And for instance, there's one note going, oh, if the Americans find out that we knew Philby's first wife was a communist, they're going to go nuts. You know, let's not tell them. You know, they agree. So these chats, interrogations with Dick White continue. They get a little bit trickier. You know, how did he pay for some of his trips to Spain when Speaker 3 (7:09) he was Speaker 2 (7:09) a young journalist and he was supposedly broke? Philby says he sold some of his personal possessions. Of course, actually, he'd been funded by the KGB. So it's getting a bit trickier. He says, how was McLean tipped off? Well, maybe when the Foreign Office stopped. giving him sensitive documents and McLean spots surveillance on him, then he's going to realize, you know, and we know McLean could see the surveillance Speaker 4 (7:32) on him. So trying to concoct a scenario where there isn't a third man and McLean just realized that he was, the game was up and it was time to go. Speaker 2 (7:41) So he's kind of toughing it out at this point. But here's the problem. It's the Americans. Because he's summoned to see the chief of MI6. And the problem is that the Americans have been leaning on the Brits to say, we think this guy's bad. And who is it? Who is it who is leading the charge against Philby? Bill Harvey. Bill Harvey. The man whose wife, Burgess, insulted and caricatured over that dinner in 1951. It's why it's the worst dinner party ever. Because it's the most fateful dinner party Speaker 4 (8:17) ever. It all goes back to a lewd caricature. It does. obsess Bill Harvey. And I guess... I mean, he must have been so enraged. I mean, it was such a chaotic and insane anecdote, that party. But it really does. I mean, here we're in the third episode of this series and it's still the ripple effects are still going on. Speaker 2 (8:41) Because June 1951, Bill Harvey has written a five page memo. He's obsessed. Yeah. Outlining the case that Philby is a badden. that Philby is a traitor. And it's actually bang on. I mean, Harvey has got it absolutely right. He says Philby knew about Venona, so therefore knew about the investigation in McLean. You know, that it suggests Burgess might have been Philby's courier in contact with the KGB. And that Philby's treachery could explain why all these CIA and MI6 operations are going wrong. So, you know, Harvey is on his case and he sent this memo to the director of the CIA and bypassed Angleton. He's just gone, you know, straight to the top. And meanwhile, Angleton's written his own memo at the CIA and Angleton's memo basically goes, Philby's probably OK. Speaker 4 (9:32) And the logic, what is the logic for Philby's probably OK? Speaker 2 (9:38) In a way. I think there's an emotional logic from Angleton's side. They're close friends. Which is they're close friends. And where Angleton is thinking to himself, if he is bad, I've shared so many secrets with him. This is a disaster for me. I don't want to believe he's bad. Whereas Harvey is like, he insulted my wife. He is bad. So you can see emotionally these two guys, Harvey and Angleton, are starting from different positions. And they write different memos. And, you know, Angleton basically says it's circumstantial. There's no proof Philby is a traitor. Angleton also at the dinner party. Yeah, exactly. And Angleton had to actually physically restrain Speaker 4 (10:17) Bill Harvey from hitting Burgess. Speaker 2 (10:21) And actually, this is going to start a feud between Harvey and Angleton because they're on different sides of the Philby argument. But the Harvey memo has gone to the director of CIA. And CIA appears convinced enough to say to MI6, we don't want Philby back. We do not trust Kim Philby anymore. And we do not want him, not just in Washington, but we don't want him in MI6. And so I think it's a really interesting case of the Americans, for the first time, I think, squeezing British intelligence. Because they're effectively saying, you know. If you don't pull the plug on Philby, we are going to pull the plug on you. And we can't share with your service. We can't share with your service. You know, we can't trust you with secrets if someone like Philby, who we think is a traitor, is inside MI6. So you better stop. And the Brits are worried about this. The head of MI5 flies out to see J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, you know, to try and avoid this collapsing the intelligence sharing relationship. MI6 are not convinced Philby is a spy. But the Americans are. And that is enough for them to be forced to act. Or Speaker 4 (11:32) even if they're not, because Angleton obviously doesn't think he is. It's, you know, seen from the standpoint of the CIA director, it's kind of like, why take the risk? Yeah. You know, even if you're not convinced, maybe he's not. You say, well, in the off chance, perhaps, that he actually is compromised by the KGB or working for the KGB. Like, Speaker 2 (11:52) why? Speaker 4 (11:54) Why take the risk? So Speaker 2 (11:54) just get him out. Speaker 4 (11:55) And Speaker 2 (11:56) so it works because chief of MI6 summons Philby and Philby will say that the chief of MI6 looks visibly distressed. Speaker 2 (12:05) All of this suggests that the chief of MI6 is doing something he doesn't want to do, but he's been forced to do by the Americans. And he says to Philby, we're going to have to let you go. I'm really sorry, but it's because of those Americans. So July 1951, Philby is paid