
Kim Philby, Lecturing in East Berlin, Bragged of How Easy It Was to Fool MI6 - samsgro
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/world/europe/kim-philby-bbc-lecture.html
======
hackuser
Before you take Philby's comments at face value, a few things to note:

1) Philby gave this speech under the auspices of the Soviet Union, a
totalitarian state where communication was heavily controlled and censored,
with art required to be politically acceptable, with neighbors spying on each
other and family members reporting disloyal statements to secret police, and
with copy and fax machines requiring licenses (IIRC); where saying the wrong
thing could get you killed, imprisoned in a mental hospital or sent to
Siberia; and where propaganda was omnipresent. He said no more than what was
allowed and likely, I think, what he was told to say.

2) In the recording the audio doesn't match the video. The BBC attributes that
to equipment issues; but maybe his speech was edited or dubbed. The Soviets
seemed to do things like that regularly; for example, leaders who later became
unpopular with the regime were reputedly removed from historical photos with
an 'airbrush' (this was before digital imagery) and from all other historical
records.

3) At least one aspect of his speech sounds clearly like Soviet propaganda: He
attributes a large part of his success to being in the 'governing class' in
England; that is, Philby is blaming UK's the class system for their
intelligence incompetence. A foundation of Soviet ideology was that they were
a classless system, superior to the West where the masses were oppressed by
the elite. It would be surprising to me if Philby's comments were a
coincidence.

~~~
feral
>It would be surprising to me if Philby's comments were a coincidence.

Why do you need handlers or propagandists to attribute this to? Couldn't this
simply be what he believed? He was an ideologically motivated spy after all.

Do you think it's implausible his position in the UK class system got him in,
and protected him?

~~~
fit2rule
Personally I think it more likely that Brits just don't like to be reminded of
the fact that their society was built on a class system, and its not going
away any time soon. It doesn't matter if the Soviets say it or not: Brits
don't like to be reminded that their empire requires rather a lot of serfs in
order to even get itself out of bed in the morning ..

------
contingencies
These days of course you would be confronted with a lot more that would make
it hard to simply deny things:

(a) Absolute records of your physical movements. (Cellphone, car)

(b) Absolute records of your communications and social network. (Cellphone,
email/social networks)

(c) Video evidence of activity in almost any semi-formal place of work,
carpark, ATM, shop, or similar. (Physical surveillance ubiquity)

(d) Probable audio recording of your conversations via hacked cellphone.

~~~
crdb
In theory, you can watch anybody, but for this to work, you'd need someone to
actually look at the evidence i.e. suspect the person in the first place. Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes... And in this case it's the guardians of the
guardians: who are you going to trust with watching the head of MI6's counter-
intelligence division 24/7?

As the CIA found in its paranoid early days, over-suspicion is highly counter-
productive (see e.g. [1]). You just HAVE to trust your managers. Even if all
services have some kind of internal intelligence setup to watch the watchers,
it's focused downwards where the risks are higher and cost of suspicion lower,
and it has to be run by people you trust the most. You balance the cost of a
mole, versus the opportunity cost of turning down genuine defectors and
trusting your own staff.

This is why (according to [2]) many European services are run by people from
wealthy, old families, preferably with at least a few members who have served.
It's expected that on average, these people have profound ties to their
country - if nothing else, in the form of immense property portfolios - and
thus are much less likely to defect. You can't bribe them, you can't offer
them a better life [3], what's left? Ideology, and that can be somewhat
watched for. Of course, you deny yourself some great talent that way but as
with managing a hedge fund, you want to limit downside rather than maximize
upside. Nationalism and dynastic politics are a form of defense against
foreign enemies.

Hence Philby. He was trusted by design, not because MI6 were "bloody
incestuous fools" or whatever, and no amount of surveillance would have
changed that.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Main-Enemy-Inside-
Showdown/dp/0345...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Main-Enemy-Inside-
Showdown/dp/0345472500)

[2] [http://www.amazon.fr/Missions-methodes-techniques-
speciales-...](http://www.amazon.fr/Missions-methodes-techniques-speciales-
services/dp/1482745518)

[3] Kalugin recalls in [http://www.amazon.com/First-Directorate-Intelligence-
Espiona...](http://www.amazon.com/First-Directorate-Intelligence-Espionage-
Against/dp/0312114265) that he was somewhat worried about Philby's living
conditions in the Soviet Union (unheated flat, alcoholism, etc.). It's been a
while since I read the book but I recall he or someone else decided to push
for him to have a good quality of life as an advertisement to other potential
defectors; only then was Philby put up in proper accommodation and welcomed by
the Soviet system.

~~~
cmdkeen
Philby wasn't trusted from 1951 onwards, he was sacked from SIS and caught in
lies by interrogators - using things like his wife's passport stamps to
capture his movements.

Technology these days may enable mass surveillance but historically the same
thing happened - because there was much less international traffic. MI5 could
"burgle their way across London", open all the international mail it wanted
to, read the telegrams sent abroad etc.

The sheer change in volume of international travel and communication is
recent.

~~~
msellout
Per capita this wave of globalization is about the same as the last one,
1860-1914.

------
deepnet
"Maybe the real state secret is that spies aren't very good at their jobs and
don't know much about the world."

Adam Curtis hilariously documents the 20th centuries near 100% failure rate of
the British Secret Services (except when they manufactured a plot).

And how they were created to hunt fictional spies dreamed up by paranoid
tabloid readers obsessed with novels about German spies.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460)

~~~
chippy
It's more frightening to realise that there is no conspiracy running the
world, pulling to strings, and realise that everyone is not very good at their
jobs and dont know much about the world.

A conspiracy is comforting, the reality of ignorance and incompetence is much
more scary

~~~
jgalt212
You say that, but just a few days ago the Panama Papers were released. I don't
buy into the worldwide conspiracy thing, but there's clearly stuff going on
that others don't want you to know about.

~~~
krapp
Other than a list of names, what did the Panama Papers tell the world that it
didn't already know? That the rich use offshore accounts and shell companies
to hide their money from the government wasn't exactly a secret to anyone. For
that matter, not everything revealed in the Panama Papers is necessarily
illegal.

~~~
jgalt212
Given the world's reaction to this news[1], I'd say it actually is news and
not stuff that was known, but maybe only suspected.

The best response is for the common man should stop paying taxes as well. If
that happens, you'll get across the board tax reform immediately.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/iceland-
prime-m...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/05/iceland-prime-
minister-resigns-over-panama-papers-revelations)

~~~
krapp
As yet, this isn't the world's reaction, merely Iceland's. From what I can
tell, most of the outrage seems to be from governments wanting to know where
their tax money is - popular outrage seems to be minimal.

Although to be fair, the momentum would probably take more time to build in
larger countries with more diverse and complex societies.

------
pinaceae
well, for anyone who read le carré philby here confirms one of the key
failings of british intelligence services - the utter disbelief that anyone
from their top-universities/upper echelons could ever be a communist.

tinker tailor soldier spy is basically all about that. they hired students who
had openly joined leftist groups and never really followed up on that.

~~~
knughit
He wasn't communist, and that nonsense worldview is why they missed the
problem. He was an opportunist, like many people in all governments. He sold
info to russians while others just sold contracts to friends or embezzled
directly. It's not us vs a foreign them, there are selfish and power-hungry
monsters throughout all sides.

~~~
Agustus
He was not an opportunist, he was vindictive; when he did not get certain
things or recognition, he sought out the Russian government's approval.

------
cup
Strange how the author slips "said Mr. Philby, whose treachery was responsible
for the deaths of hundreds" casually into the final paragraph.

~~~
glangdale
The article generally appears to be written with the assumption that the
readers already are quite aware of the doings of the Cambridge Five - a
reasonable assumption for people over a certain age, but probably less and
less likely.

------
yitchelle
I read this book a few months back, and was amazed to how easy it was get to
the top secret information. Good information as it was easy to read and to
understand.

[http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Among-Friends-Philby-
Betrayal/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Among-Friends-Philby-
Betrayal/dp/0804136653)

~~~
piratebroadcast
All of Ben's books are amazing. Check Agent ZigZag out. I've read it like 4
times. _Such_ an amazing fun story. [http://www.amazon.com/Agent-Zigzag-Story-
Espionage-Betrayal-...](http://www.amazon.com/Agent-Zigzag-Story-Espionage-
Betrayal-ebook/dp/B000VSW7SO/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8)

~~~
jgalt212
Zig Zag was good, but if just starting with Ben Macintyre, I'd start with the
Philby book. It's the better of the two. I've read both.

------
draw_down
Yeah, it's easy, just be a wellborn member of British aristocracy.

~~~
pcrh
I decided to look that up...

The result is curious indeed. It appears that Kim Philby's father, St John
Philby, was a senior civil servant, but not an aristocrat. He was what was
called in those days an "Arabist" and had converted to Islam.

He does seem, however, to have passed onto his son a love of intrigue...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John_Philby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_John_Philby)

~~~
cmdkeen
Kim Philby was also mixed race - his mother was Indian. In British society at
the time that very much didn't make him part of the Establishment, and he did
face prejudice from senior officials because of it.

~~~
knight17
Do you've more information on this? Wikipedia says his mother is Dora
Johnston, that doesn't sound like an Indian name.

~~~
draugadrotten
Picture of Dora:
[http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00528/34242...](http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00528/3424237_a_528244j.jpg)

Dora's parents: [https://www.geni.com/people/Dora-
Philby/6000000013566932381](https://www.geni.com/people/Dora-
Philby/6000000013566932381)

~~~
cmdkeen
Looks like I was led astray by a newspaper article today, thanks for the
correction. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/04/kim-philby-
was-a-...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/04/kim-philby-was-a-bad-
liar-his-true-talent-lay-in-self-mythology/)

------
signa11
i remember reading an excellent book called "spycatcher" which details a
first-hand account of peter-wright (employed by mi5) exposing kgb spies in the
highest echelon of mi5.

~~~
PaulRobinson
Spycatcher was banned in the UK on publication by Margaret Thatcher which a)
immediately validated there was truth in its page and b) made it a huge best
seller. It's actually a pretty dull book, I think, apart from a few fun
stories like breaking into the building sites of embassies and pouring
thousands of bugs into the wet concrete walls meaning the entire walls would
test as "live" making the whole complex unusable for classified work.

Interesting side-note about Spycatcher for geeks:

In the book, Peter Wright talks about he "and Tony bugging and burgling their
way across London in the 1960s".

"Tony" was his engineer who installed bugs. His name was Tony Sale. You best
know him, perhaps, as the founder of the Bletchley Park Trust.

After his time with MI5 he decided to restore Bletchley Park and rebuild the
machines there like Colossus, etc.

I met him on a visit there in 1999, and I think I was the first person in
many, many years who had asked him about his connections, because he seemed
slightly taken aback that I knew he was an ex-colleague of Peter Wright's.

Nice bloke. Liked Peter as a man, thought what he'd done with the book was
potentially very, very dangerous.

~~~
Angostura
> a) immediately validated there was truth in its page

Alternatively, it was simply a question of the fact that he had broken the
agreement he had signed that prevents ex-intelligence officers from publishing
memoirs without them going through official screening first.

~~~
PaulRobinson
In the UK, no such agreement exists.

Source: I know people who would have been required to sign it.

They confirm that they would have it screened both out of a sense of duty, and
a desire to avoid accidental breach of the Official Secrets Act if they ever
produced such memoirs (release it to your agent with something you thought had
been declassified? 30 years in prison for you!), but they were not explicitly
asked to sign such an agreement.

~~~
Angostura
I would argue that signing the official secrets act constituted just such an
agreement

------
nxzero
Always thought the first rule was never lie, not deny, deny, deny. Watch
interviews with former heads of the CIA when asked a question they don't want
to answer to see what I mean.

~~~
tinco
An interview is something different from an interrogation. See for example
Gen. Alexanders lies to congress. Even after it's been made clear beyond any
reasonable doubt that he was lying he goes to conferences and denies that he
was lying when heckled about it. He'll deny and then confuse the audience by
casting further doubt.

~~~
fit2rule
The CIA are required to lie, by law. Therefore they are extremely good at it.

~~~
nxzero
Exactly which law(s) are you referring to; as in links are requested.

------
AnimalMuppet
A quote from C. S. Lewis seems apropos: "We laugh at honor, and are shocked to
find traitors in our midst."

------
DanBC
Here's the BBC Radio programme about the tape:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b076v1zq](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b076v1zq)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00lfylv](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00lfylv)

The BBC have had many interesting programmes about Philby and the Cambridge
spies. It's really hard to search the BBC website to find these programmes,
and many of them are no longer available to listen to. It's odd that the BBC
missed the opportunity to have a meta page of all the Philby coverage, linking
to the programmes.
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076y5w](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076y5w)
or this one

~~~
mazuhl
The BBC did have a really interesting viewer for all the meta data at
[http://open.bbc.co.uk](http://open.bbc.co.uk) \- but that seems to have
disappeared.

[http://duncan.hull.name/2012/08/03/meta-
bbc/](http://duncan.hull.name/2012/08/03/meta-bbc/)

------
petecooper
Full-fat version for non-mobile devices:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/world/europe/kim-philby-
bb...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/world/europe/kim-philby-bbc-
lecture.html)

