197. Kim Philby: The Russians Make a Fatal Mistake (Ep 2)

Kim Philby is MI6’s man in Washington - whilst also working for the KGB. But he’s about to discover that western intelligence is running a hunt for moles - one that could lead to him. Listen as David and Gordon go deep into the murky world of Kim Philby in Washington. ------------------- Sign-up for our free newsletter where producer Becki takes you behind the scenes of the show: therestisclassified.com/newsletter ------------------- Join the Declassified Club to go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠ or join on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- Get a 10% discount on business PCs, printers and accessories using the code TRIC10. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://HP.com/CLASSIFIED⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more information. T&C's apply. ------------------- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restisclassified Upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app! It’s risk free with NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee 🌍 ------------------- Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified⁠ Video Editor: Joe Pettit Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03David McCloskey?

  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.

• 0:25David McCloskey?

  Kim Philby is MI6's man in Washington, and he's also working for the Soviet KGB. But he's about to discover that investigations by Western intelligence could lead directly to his demise. Well, welcome to The Rest Is Classified. I'm David McCloskey.

• 0:40Gordon Corera?

  And I'm Gordon Corera.

• 0:42David McCloskey?

  And Gordon, last time, we left off with Kim Philby working for MI6 in Washington as the head of station. He's working directly with the CIA counterparts. He's also compromising all manner of covert action operations, in particular covert action operations that are being undertaken by the CIA and MI6 into Eastern Europe, places like Albania, where exile networks that are being smuggled in, Philby is compromising to his Soviet handlers. He's also got this very chaotic personal life going on at home, drinking heavily, of course, partying. He's got his friend Guy Burgess, an unwelcome house guest who has arrived in Washington and is living in Kim Philby's basement.

• 1:27David McCloskey?

  Guy Burgess, of course, also working for the Soviet KGB. And Kim Philby is beginning to realize that there are investigations ongoing into penetrations of the British Foreign Office in particular. And these are investigations that could lead directly to him. But first, a word from our sponsors at HP.

• 1:54Gordon Corera?

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• 1:56David McCloskey?

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• 2:35David McCloskey?

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• 2:42Gordon Corera?

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• 3:00Speaker 02

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• 5:26David McCloskey?

  So Gordon, these investigations, what are they, and how are they beginning to alarm Philby?

• 5:32Gordon Corera?

  Well, if you remember, when he was on his way out to Washington, September 1949, at MI6 headquarters, he's briefed about a very, very secret operation to look for leaks to the Russians during the war. And these investigations are going to have been continuing in the background as he arrives in Washington, but picking up pace. And he's going to be given a pretty unique and special insight into it, because it's one of the deepest secrets that the West have. And it's something called Venona. And it's so secret that the existence of Venona was only declassified in 1995.

• 6:12David McCloskey?

  That's wild.

• 6:13Gordon Corera?

  So that's 50 years, basically, after it starts. And actually, as for reasons we'll come to, many in the CIA, and even the President of the United States, President Truman at the time, are not told about Venona because of its sensitivity.

• 6:28David McCloskey?

  Why would the President need to know?

• 6:30Gordon Corera?

  Why would the President need to know? So what is it? During the war, there were telegrams sent by Soviet spies back to Moscow, and they'd been intercepted. Now, they were encrypted. They were in code. And the Soviets used something called one-time pads to encode the messages, which is supposed to be unbreakable.

• 6:49David McCloskey?

  And I will note that I actually, as we were preparing this, went deep into how one-time pads work. And wrote down a bunch of notes and helpful examples of how they work. And Gordon said-

• 7:01Gordon Corera?

  Too much.

• 7:02David McCloskey?

  I think this is too much. So we will include some of that detail in our newsletter, which I would encourage everyone to sign up for at therestisclassified.com, but I won't go into it here.

• 7:13Gordon Corera?

  Exactly.

• 7:13David McCloskey?

  And this is a rare case where I respond positively to being edited by Gordon Carrera.

• 7:18Gordon Corera?

  Thank you very much, David. But that's right, because the key thing to understand is that they're supposed to be unbreakable. If you use one-time pads correctly, and the clue is in the name, use them once, then you can't break the codes, but-

• 7:32David McCloskey?

  It is actually impossible.

• 7:33Gordon Corera?

  It is impossible. It's literally impossible. But the US discovers that during the war, there'd been a printing error by the Soviets, and they'd reused some of their one-time pads. And so what they're now doing is going back over all the messages they've intercepted, effectively by hand, and seeing if they can break them using the fact that they might have reused some of the pads. It's really complex, slow, painstaking work. You get fragments of messages where there'll be something saying someone with a particular code name, not their real name, is meeting their handler in New York or Washington on this date or at this place. And then you've got to do all this detective work to try and work out, well, who might that be?

• 8:17Gordon Corera?

  And try and establish their exact identity. So this is really alarming, though, because as they start to do this, the Americans are going to realize that they are deeply penetrated by the Soviets, and that there had been something like 200 agents operating on behalf of what's effectively the KGB, Soviet intelligence, in the US during the war. Many of them are in government. At least five were in Office of Strategic Services, which is the forerunner of the CIA. They're fearful that some of them might still be in the CIA at senior levels now it started, or be around the White House and people who were there,

• 9:00Gordon Corera?

  which is hence why they're really restricting who they tell, including the President, because, well, what if some of his aides might be amongst those potential Soviet agents? So this is a really sensitive operation.

• 9:12David McCloskey?

  Makes sense. Let's let Kim Philby in on it.

• 9:14Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. Because he's head of station for the MI6-

• 9:17David McCloskey?

  The President doesn't know. But it is important to say, though, that some of the suspicion around potential agents has fallen on the Brits.

• 9:27Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, that's right. And so-

• 9:29David McCloskey?

  Hence why you would tell him.

• 9:30Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, because it's a joint project, a joint US-UK code-breaking project to try and break these codes. And there's joint investigations, because there's British leads as well. So they're working with MI5 as well as MI6 to kind of work out who people are. Some of the leads point to leakages in the US, but maybe from Brits. So for all those reasons, you've got to involve the Brits. And that means Kim Philby. What is wild is this incredibly secret operation. Kim Philby actually has a pass in- we talked about him having a pass to the CIA. He's got a pass to Arlington Hall, which is home of the US codebreakers. So at various points, he actually goes to see the codebreakers working on Venona.

• 10:14Gordon Corera?

  And he stands over the shoulder of Meredith Gardner, who is the lead codebreaker, and watches him as he's decrypting and working on Venona messages.

• 10:24David McCloskey?

  Meredith, that's kind of interesting. Would you just scoot over a little bit and see me?

• 10:26Gordon Corera?

  Let me just have a little look at that.

• 10:28David McCloskey?

  Show me what you're doing.

• 10:29Gordon Corera?

  I mean, and the messages are worrying, because in 1950, so soon after Philby arrives, there's references, very vague references, to a valuable London network. And a spy called Stanley. Now, this is actually Philby himself, his Stanley.

• 10:46David McCloskey?

  Does he know?

• 10:47Gordon Corera?

  I don't, well, he must suspect that the London network is, is his network. Cause he was in London during the war. Whether he knows his code now is a bit less clear. But fortunately for him, there's not much about Stanley and the London network in the, in the messages that are being broken. But there's lots of other interesting things. So one of the things is it points to why the Soviets were able to make such progress on the atomic bomb. Much faster than everyone expected because they were stealing secrets from the Manhattan Project, from Los Alamos. And actually, it's going to lead to Venona to Klaus Fuchs.

• 11:23David McCloskey?

  Friend of the pod.

• 11:24Gordon Corera?

  Friend of the pod. Uh, we did some early episodes on him, didn't we?

• 11:27David McCloskey?

  We did. And Philby, it, it seems that he may have actually tried to warn Fuchs.

• 11:33Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 11:34David McCloskey?

  That he was, he was compromised, maybe using Guy Burgess as a courier.

• 11:37Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, to try and get a message back, but it, it, they couldn't get the message back in time. It seems to have failed to get back via the Soviets to Fuchs that he was under suspicion. So Fuchs gets arrested and breaks and, you know, is, is caught. But there's another even bigger problem. And that's that there is also a lead from Venona, from these decrypted messages into a spy who the Soviets codename Homer. Guess the Odyssey, it's interesting, isn't it? And Homer was leaking secrets from the British Embassy in Washington, nineteen forty-four to five. The Febs are leading this with MI5 involved. And Philby is, he's been aware of that from when he went out to Washington, but he's going to watch it develop.

• 12:22Gordon Corera?

  And at first, it's really funny because the, the, the investigators are like, well, it couldn't possibly be a proper diplomat.

• 12:30David McCloskey?

  Yeah, obviously not. It's gotta be some low level.

• 12:33Gordon Corera?

  It's gotta be some low level.

• 12:35David McCloskey?

  Low level scumbag.

• 12:36Gordon Corera?

  Cleaner, perhaps.

• 12:37David McCloskey?

  Yeah.

• 12:37Gordon Corera?

  And so, you know, no, no proper person from the Foreign Office would ever be a spy. So they look at like local hires in Washington. I think Philby says that there's a char lady, so kind of effectively cleaner, with a Latvian grandmother. Who had a 15 page report compiled on their private life. Cause they're like, it must be someone with, you know, Soviet links like that. But the problem for Philby is they're soon going to zero in that it might be someone more significant.

• 13:03David McCloskey?

  And it's someone who Philby knows.

• 13:06Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 13:06David McCloskey?

  Because Philby talent spotted this guy at Cambridge years earlier. It's Donald McLean.

• 13:13Gordon Corera?

  Exactly. And it's Donald McLean, who is another one of those Cambridge spies. Who, you know, had been at Cambridge with Philby at this period in the early thirties. Who Philby had suggested to the Soviets, you know, would be a good recruit, who's an ardent communist. And Donald McLean is another one of these really curious characters. I mean, all the Cambridge spies, I think, are kind of, they're all, they're all kind of interesting and weird in a very British way. But Donald McLean is, is to some extent, had been the, the golden boy of the Foreign Office. You know, son of a cabinet minister, incredibly smart, high flyer. What people don't realise is he's an absolute ideological communist.

• 13:54Gordon Corera?

  And he is really, you know, we talked a bit about Philby being a kind of romantic communist, but definitely a communist. And others, there's anti fascism going, I think McLean is a communist. You know, he's a kind of Marxist ideologue.

• 14:06David McCloskey?

  And you think that's different from Philby?

• 14:08Gordon Corera?

  I think, it's a good question. I think Philby, there's a bit of anti fascism, there's a bit of adventure. I think how much Philby really digested the works of Marx, you know, I think McLean definitely did. I think he's, he's the most committed of them. And the problem is, he had been in Washington at this time, nineteen forty-four to forty-five. And the truth is, he'd been an incredibly important spy for the KGB, for the Soviets. Being in Washington during the war, he's seeing all the kind of, the traffic between, you know, President Roosevelt and Churchill. You know, about plans, about the negotiations with Stalin, about the early atomic bomb plans. And he's feeding all of that to the Soviet Union.

• 14:53Gordon Corera?

  He is a big spy. But the problem is, McLean is now in a bad way. The pressure's got to him.

• 14:58David McCloskey?

  Also a theme of this series, I think, is people sort of beginning to crack under pressure.

• 15:03Gordon Corera?

  And, and McLean's crack up is pretty spectacular. Because after the, the war, after Washington, he goes to Cairo. And he's promoted very fast to a senior position in Cairo at the Foreign Office. But he's starting to self-destruct. He's, he's drinks a lot, another theme for the podcast. He loses it when drunk though. And I find this interesting because I think Philby somehow manages to keep control when he's drunk.

• 15:28David McCloskey?

  Which is astounding when you consider how much he's drinking.

• 15:31Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 15:32David McCloskey?

  But it does seem a pretty consistent read on Philby by those around him is that he's not, he, he's not becoming someone else.

• 15:38Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 15:39David McCloskey?

  When he's drinking, he's, he's very much in control.

• 15:42Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 15:42David McCloskey?

  Of what he says and what he does.

• 15:44Gordon Corera?

  Whereas McLean, I think, loses it when he's drunk. And, you know, in Cairo.

• 15:49David McCloskey?

  Exhibit A.

• 15:50Gordon Corera?

  Exhibit A, when he comes home late, rather ring the bell, he stands outside, and he's obviously drunk. And barks like a dog in Cairo until he's let in. I mean, that's not normal behaviour. On a boating.

• 16:00David McCloskey?

  That's how you get into the Goethe offices here in London, right Gordon?

• 16:03Gordon Corera?

  Exactly.

• 16:03David McCloskey?

  Yeah.

• 16:04Gordon Corera?

  We're doing that, did that this morning. On a boating picnic down the Nile, sounds very fun. He gets drunk, he tries to throttle his American wife, Melinda. And he breaks the leg of a colleague by falling on him after arguing with some of the sailors. It's all weird behaviour. And I think part of it is that he may at this point realise he's self-destructing. He may want out from the, working for the KGB.

• 16:31David McCloskey?

  And he's a domestic, he's an abuser.

• 16:33Gordon Corera?

  I mean, there's a lot of abuse in this. I mean, and, and he's an example of it. But I think it's also, he, he doesn't, I think he wants out. The pressure's got to him and he's trying to tell the KGB, I want out. And he's trying to break off contact and he is breaking off contact to some extent. And then he goes on the, I mean, we talked about the, the great drunken dinner party with Guy Burgess last time, didn't we?

• 16:57David McCloskey?

  Really an atrocious, I mean, but perhaps one of the worst dinner parties ever.

• 17:00Gordon Corera?

  And, and McLean has his own version of a really bad night out where he goes out with a, with a kind of another Brit. And he goes on a forty-eight hour bender. Is a bender an American word as well?

• 17:10David McCloskey?

  Yeah.

• 17:11Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, okay. In May nineteen fifty, and he, they go to the flat of an American secretary from the American Embassy in Cairo. And they trash it, these two Brits. I mean, they, they take a mirror and they try and smash the mirror on the bath. But the bath breaks and not the mirror, which I find a bit weird. And then.

• 17:31David McCloskey?

  Why are they doing this?

• 17:32Gordon Corera?

  But, but then by some accounts, they, they rip up the clothes and potentially the underwear of the American secretary. And flush it down the toilet, which is, again, weird behaviour.

• 17:44David McCloskey?

  And is it because she's American that they're trashing her place?

• 17:48Gordon Corera?

  I think so. I think there's like a really interesting undertone of anti-Americanism.

• 17:52David McCloskey?

  Absolutely.

• 17:53Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 17:53David McCloskey?

  We were talking about this last time with Burgess.

• 17:55Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, with Burgess, who, who kind of loves insulting Americans.

• 17:57David McCloskey?

  Yeah, while, while being posted.

• 18:00Gordon Corera?

  To Washington.

• 18:00David McCloskey?

  In the United States of America, yeah.

• 18:02Gordon Corera?

  And, and McLean is the same. And I think, I think it is that bit of their, I don't know, it's the kind of class warrior, weird bit of them. The kind of anti-capitalist because they're communists. There's a real undercurrent of that and I think McLean's got it as well.

• 18:16David McCloskey?

  It explains why my underwear is always ripped up when I visit London. I come back to my hotel room and it's, the bath is destroyed. My underwear's been torn to pieces. So now I'm, I'm realising it's.

• 18:28Gordon Corera?

  I think it might be other reasons, David.

• 18:29David McCloskey?

  It's the latent anti-Americanism here in the UK.

• 18:32Gordon Corera?

  That's one plausible reason, there might be others. But anyway, after this massive night out, McLean's recalled, he gets sent to the Foreign Office psychiatrist. Who thinks repressed homosexuality is his problem. Um, which was very much, you know, a theme of the, the times. But then after a few months, he's made head of the Americas desk for the Foreign Office in London.

• 18:51David McCloskey?

  Yeah.

• 18:53Gordon Corera?

  You know, in November nineteen fifty. So there's a lot going on, he's fragile. His wife, Melinda, is possibly at some point having an affair with an Egyptian prince. You know, he's.

• 19:02David McCloskey?

  Clearly.

• 19:03Gordon Corera?

  He treats, as you do, he's trapped on the edge. He's going, getting to fights in Soho bars where he's nicknamed the Lurcher, which is again. So, so this is Donald McLean. Philby can see the investigation is leading to him and he knows he's cracking up. And this is, this is a problem. Because Philby can see the net closing in on McLean. Because more and more details are coming through Venona, which are pointing to him. And by the end of nineteen fifty, the number of suspects for Homer is down to about thirty-five. The shortlist narrows even more. And Philby, of course, is worried that if they work out it's McLean. Then they might work out, well, either McLean might crack, he might crack.

• 19:48David McCloskey?

  And just say.

• 19:48Gordon Corera?

  And just say, well, I.

• 19:49David McCloskey?

  Philby recruited me.

• 19:50Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:51David McCloskey?

  Or, or talent spotted me.

• 19:52Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, talent spotted me. Or they'll even be able to go, well, maybe he was recruited at Cambridge. Who else was Cambridge at the same time, you know? So, so the, the real worry for Philby is this could all lead back to him. And Philby's trying to cover his tracks as he's watching the investigation. So at some point, he does suggest, well, maybe Homer, this spy is a diplomat rather than a support officer. And he tries to point it perhaps at someone else, but also make it look like he's helping the investigation. You know, so that if it eventually comes out, you know, it is McLean. People will go, well, Philby was quite helpful in that investigation. So he's trying to be, you know, smart about it. But eventually they're narrowing it down, you know, who was in Washington?

• 20:34Gordon Corera?

  They come up with six names, including McLean. And it's getting closer and closer. And he realises at this point, he hasn't got long Philby. Because particularly in the spring, in April of nineteen fifty-one, there's a really big breakthrough in these Venona decrypts. Because it says Homer, the unknown Soviet agent, had a pregnant wife who was seeing her mother in New York.

• 20:57David McCloskey?

  Cause they've kind of pieced little bits and pieces, as they're slowly decrypting these messages at Arlington Hall. They're getting a little bits and pieces of biographic detail. That is allowing them to narrow the shortlist kind of, you know, month after month.

• 21:12Gordon Corera?

  Exactly.

• 21:12David McCloskey?

  And now this is pretty much, you know, it's McLean.

• 21:15Gordon Corera?

  Exactly. Because Philby knows that this is really specific. Because, you know, Melinda, McLean's American wife, was, you know, in New York while he was in Washington, staying with her mother. And that points at him very clearly. So at this point, Philby knows he's not got much time. The clock is really ticking on McLean being identified.

• 21:37David McCloskey?

  This is where, I think it's, it's so interesting. Because Venona is so secretive and sensitive. That in order to convict McLean.

• 21:50David McCloskey?

  You would, you would almost have to use, you would have to introduce Venona.

• 21:54Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 21:55David McCloskey?

  Into the legal system, which you can't do.

• 21:58Gordon Corera?

  Exactly. So that's the one reason why Philby knows he's got a bit of leeway is because they can't reveal that Venona exists because they're trying to catch more spies and, and work out.

• 22:08David McCloskey?

  Then they'd have to tell the president.

• 22:10Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, they'd have to tell people. So even if they do zero in on McLean as the suspect, Philby knows what they'll end up doing is watching McLean and trying to catch him in the act, rather than just simply arrest him immediately. So he thinks he's got a bit of time to warn McLean and get a message to him. But the problem is, McLean's breakdown has been so bad that he's stopped contact with his Soviet handlers. He's kind of out of touch. So how do you warn him?

• 22:37David McCloskey?

  Why do I feel like Guy Burgess is about to come back into the story?

• 22:41Gordon Corera?

  I mean.

• 22:42David McCloskey?

  We've got an errand for Guy Burgess.

• 22:44Gordon Corera?

  I mean.

• 22:45David McCloskey?

  Reliable courier.

• 22:46Gordon Corera?

  Reliable messenger is, is our favorite kind of drunk, roguish spy. And it, it's a kind of fateful decision to use Guy Burgess. But I guess, I mean, there's a logic to it, even though it's.

• 23:00David McCloskey?

  No, there is a logic to it. I mean, and Philby has been using Burgess as a courier occasionally in the US.

• 23:06Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 23:07David McCloskey?

  And Burgess, Burgess knows.

• 23:08Gordon Corera?

  McLean, yeah. So they're all part of a group together. So, so you're not introducing another risk there.

• 23:14David McCloskey?

  But go down in the basement and.

• 23:17Gordon Corera?

  But it's Burgess.

• 23:18David McCloskey?

  Burgess with his navy jackets and send him, send him to warn McLean.

• 23:22Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. And it's interesting because in the, there's a tape of Philby talking about his career and club members can listen to that. And if you're not a club member, join at therestisclassified.com, where, where Philby talks about this period and he talks about arguing with Burgess about, you know, what should they do? And, you know, Philby is confiding with Burgess. And he says that there's an argument about, you know, how do we warn McLean? What's the best way of doing it? But eventually, you know, they come up with a plan and that is Burgess will go back to London and warn McLean and get a message to him. The thing is, it would be odd if, if Burgess suddenly runs back to London for no reason. So this is the bit where, there's a little bit of mystery

• 24:03Gordon Corera?

  about this because Philby says there was a plan in which Burgess was going to get thrown out of the embassy in Washington for bad behavior and use that as, as a reason for why he was going back and then be able to warn McLean.

• 24:18David McCloskey?

  Which it wouldn't seem difficult to get Guy Burgess thrown out of the embassy in Washington. I mean, it's actually shocking that Burgess hasn't already been thrown out of the embassy.

• 24:30Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. But the way supposedly, you know, this is Philby's claim of how Burgess gets thrown out is that, I mean, this is another one of those Guy Burgess stories, which we could do in huge detail. Maybe we should, when we do Guy Burgess on the pod. Because he's going to the Citadel, which is a military training college in South Carolina.

• 24:48David McCloskey?

  South Carolina.

• 24:49Gordon Corera?

  So he's driving from Washington through Virginia to the Citadel. And he gets booked for speeding three times in Virginia on the way.

• 25:01David McCloskey?

  I think you'd have to be driving really fast to do, to do that.

• 25:07Gordon Corera?

  I mean, well, one time when he stopped by the police, he's doing 80 miles per hour. And they say, you know, you're doing 80 miles per hour. And Burgess supposedly replies going, I was doing at least a hundred, which is not what you're supposed to say.

• 25:18David McCloskey?

  Presumably he's drunk also.

• 25:20Gordon Corera?

  He's drunk, but not only is he drunk, he's picking up hitchhikers men on the way as well. So at one point, he's got a kind of male who's driving for him because I think Burgess is so drunk. I mean, it's like this one journey, sounds like the maddest journey, but it's Burgess. And he does get stopped. And of course, each time what he does is when they stop him for speeding, he goes, I'm a British diplomat. I've got diplomatic immunity. And as you can imagine, I don't think this goes down very well with the American authorities because this is going to get reported back eventually to, you know, through the police, to the British ambassador. It's like, you know, that guy Burgess.

• 25:58David McCloskey?

  Three, three speeding tickets.

• 26:00Gordon Corera?

  Three speeding tickets, hitchhiker in the car, drunk, you know. And I think he turns up at the supposedly at the, at the Citadel for his thing, gives a speech which is slightly anti-American and then goes and sits back at, you know, at the kind of podium and someone else starts to speak and he just kind of falls asleep in the chair. The result is news gets to the British Embassy by April 1951. They're like, Burgess, you're out. You know, you're suspended. It's time to go.

• 26:27David McCloskey?

  And Philby claims that this was, this was a plan.

• 26:31Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 26:31David McCloskey?

  This was the idea. But I mean, do you buy it? Or do you think that?

• 26:35Gordon Corera?

  Burgess was just getting drunk.

• 26:36David McCloskey?

  Was he just, because all of this feels in pattern for Burgess.

• 26:40Gordon Corera?

  Well, that's the thing. And so it is a bit weird because he starts doing this in February and then he only gets thrown out in April. So there's quite a kind of long delay. So it's a little bit odd. And so it's a, you know, whether Philby sometimes, particularly when he tells his story, there's quite a lot of hindsight and making out everything as a master plan, when actually I think things might have been a bit more chaotic. But anyway, the result is that Burgess is being sent back and he's going to be able to warn Donald McLean. They have this last dinner, Philby and Burgess, which is a kind of very, in some ways, this is going to be a very sad moment because it's, as we'll later find out, the last time these two people actually ever meet.

• 27:23David McCloskey?

  Hmm.

• 27:24Gordon Corera?

  These two people who've been friends, fellow spies, they don't realize it's going to be the last time they meet. But they dine at a Chinese restaurant in the US where the music is individually piped into the booths. I don't know whether that's a, anyway, a thing.

• 27:37David McCloskey?

  I don't think that's a thing.

• 27:38Gordon Corera?

  I don't think that's a thing.

• 27:39David McCloskey?

  It's a thing at this restaurant.

• 27:39Gordon Corera?

  It was a thing in this restaurant. But the reason is, it's perfect for a clandestine conversation because there's music in the booth. So they, they figure even if there's a kind of surveillance on them or a bug somewhere, it's not going to pick it up because the music is coming so directly into it. Burgess is going to go back. He's going to brief his Soviet handlers. The Soviet handlers will warn McLean. Philby is worried though. And when he drives him to the station the next morning, his last words, Philby says, spoken only half in jest were, don't you go too.

• 28:11David McCloskey?

  But it's Burgess.

• 28:12Gordon Corera?

  It's Burgess.

• 28:13David McCloskey?

  He might do the opposite of what you tell him to do.

• 28:16Gordon Corera?

  Because Philby knows that would be a disaster.

• 28:18David McCloskey?

  And then a few days later, Philby is going to get a message which will change absolutely everything for him. So maybe there, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll see how things are about to go spectacularly wrong for the Cambridge spies.

• 28:38Speaker 04

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• 28:43Speaker 05

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• 28:47David McCloskey?

  Holding the Russians accountable is World War III.

• 28:49Speaker 06

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• 29:04David McCloskey?

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 29:06Speaker 07

  All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today.

• 29:11David McCloskey?

  Kill the President of Russia.

• 29:13Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 29:15Gordon Corera?

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• 30:47David McCloskey?

  Well, welcome back. Burgess is back now in the UK. And he is going to try to get a message to the Soviets about what is going wrong in the States.

• 30:57Gordon Corera?

  That's right, he's back 7th of May 1951. He's met first by Anthony Blunt. Now, Blunt is another one of the Cambridge spy ring, another one of the Cambridge spies. Very interesting character. Again, we're not going to delve too deep into him, but he had been at Cambridge as a don, you know, kind of academic. Had known Burgess very well. Then is in MI5 in a very influential role in the war. But then steps back from intelligence work afterwards and becomes an art historian. Surveyor of the pictures at Buckingham Palace to the king and then the queen. So a serious establishment figure.

• 31:37David McCloskey?

  What does that mean, surveyor of the pictures?

• 31:40Gordon Corera?

  So you are basically, you're in charge of the royal art collection.

• 31:43David McCloskey?

  Okay, you're the curator.

• 31:44Gordon Corera?

  You're the curator of the royal art collection. And he's a kind of superior, diffident character. I think in many ways, he is the mystery man of the spy ring. I mean, he's the most mysterious and actually one of the most interesting because, I mean, he has huge access in World War II to MI5 material. Really important. But then now is part of the establishment. And he often seems to be the one in the background, I think, pulling the strings about some of the things that happened with the Cambridge spies. But I think partly, primarily, especially in this period, to protect himself. Because he's now got this position in the British establishment, which he wants to protect. So he meets Burgess and Blunt then gets a message to their Soviet controller in London for the KGB, a guy called Yuri Modin. Blunt meets Modin.

• 32:29Gordon Corera?

  Blunt is panicked because Blunt is worried as well. You know, he's part of the same ring. They're on to McLean, then they'll be on to Burgess and maybe Philby and maybe him. And Blunt is saying, look, it could be just hours or days before, you know, the authorities get to McLean. And McLean could break if he's arrested and implicate us all. So Modin, the KGB controller, tells Moscow, there's meetings in Moscow. They agree, McLean is so kind of fragile. They need to get him out. That's the best thing. And Philby, of course, is watching this. This is May 1951 in Washington. And he's going to learn that McLean is now in the sights of the investigators. He's going to be under surveillance by MI5. He's trying to warn Burgess.

• 33:13Gordon Corera?

  He sends Burgess a message, basically saying, Burgess, you know, you've, remember you've left your car here. You know, what do you want to do with it? But it's also got a line at the end, it's getting very hot over here. And I think that's not the weather.

• 33:26David McCloskey?

  Signal, yeah.

• 33:26Gordon Corera?

  It's a signal. Philby knows that MI5 are watching and that at some point, they're going to move towards picking up McLean and arresting him. They're hoping that they can get him out beforehand. So Burgess and McLean then meet. First, they try and meet at the Reform Club, which is a fine British establishment. You have been there?

• 33:45David McCloskey?

  I've never been. I have been to a decent number of interesting clubs here, but never the Reform Club. How does it fit into the club hierarchy?

• 33:52Gordon Corera?

  It was very much a fave for the Cambridge spies. They loved the Reform Club. And McLean knows he's being watched and knows he's under surveillance. He says to Guy Burgess at one point, I'm being followed by the dicks, which I think is a reference to the police.

• 34:09David McCloskey?

  Okay. Is that slang for police?

• 34:13Gordon Corera?

  Maybe in those times, but that's the phrase he used. And he actually even points them out, the people who are following them.

• 34:18David McCloskey?

  Oh, they don't like that when you point at them?

• 34:20Gordon Corera?

  When you point at the police. Because I think when they're having lunch at the clubs, they're like, you know, look at the guy over there, he looks like a cop and he's watching them.

• 34:26David McCloskey?

  But he is, McLean is under, like, there actually is consistent surveillance on him at this point. So he's not imagining this.

• 34:33Gordon Corera?

  No, there is surveillance. We'll come to how consistent it is. They don't suspect Burgess at this point. And actually, the two of them having lunch makes sense because of course Burgess has been in the British Embassy in Washington. McLean runs the America Department for the Foreign Office. So they're friends. So it's not a kind of intrinsically suspicious. And McLean visibly sags when Burgess, you know, tells him that the reason MI5 or the police are watching him is because of these Venona decrypts and the fact that he now realizes this isn't just some random bit of surveillance. They are really on to him. And he actually says, you know, I will probably break if I'm interrogated. Melinda, his wife, is due to have a baby in just a few weeks.

• 35:16Gordon Corera?

  I mean, he's going to talk to her about this and she seems to know about his espionage, which is interesting. But he's nervous about whether he's going to be able to survive this.

• 35:24David McCloskey?

  So I guess the question is, given that he is under surveillance, how do you get him out? Because nothing could be more incriminating than attempting to escape while surveillance is watching you.

• 35:36Gordon Corera?

  But here's the slight, I find this almost bizarre. The surveillance is on him, but they don't work after 8pm. Or on weekends, the surveillance. I mean, or follow him to his home. So he lives in the kind of outskirts of, you know, in a village actually way out of London in Tatsfield. And the surveillance don't go out to Tatsfield, to his home.

• 36:03David McCloskey?

  It's too inconvenient or?

• 36:04Gordon Corera?

  I mean, look, I find this odd now. And nowadays, I mean, I think we know if the Thebes or MI5 were on to you, they'd surveil you 24/7, wouldn't they? Or at least if they were really worried.

• 36:15David McCloskey?

  But I guess the thing is, the surveillance is a game of resources at the end of the day. They're not infinite. And so you do have to think about, you know, how you allocate teams and the timings that you'd allocate them and all of that. Because he's not the only person that MI5 is interested in in this period. So, but I guess what doesn't quite make sense to me is because presumably MI5 is certain that he is a Soviet spy. Or are they not? That's the question. Because if they are certain, if the information has made it, truly made its way from the Venona decrypts into London, you would think. And you know this guy's cracking up, you would think it would be like a 24/7 operation.

• 36:56Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, and it's not. I think it is, you're right, it's a resource question. There are reasons like, they say, for instance, he gets on the train in and out of Tatsfield every morning. And it's a small train, small carriage, probably if people are in first class, who all know each other by sight. So if you put, suddenly put MI5 watchers on that.

• 37:15David McCloskey?

  Okay.

• 37:16Gordon Corera?

  Actually, people are going to, people are going to go, who's the news people on the train? Who are you? You know, they probably talk to each other on the train in the morning. So there's a view which is, you can't put people on the train and, you know, we'll just follow him in London during working hours. This will prove to be a mistake. I mean, he's on an immigration watch list, so they can't get him false papers from the Soviet side. So, but they have come up with one option. Now, in the meantime, Philby is still watching this investigation. And as May ticks by, Philby learns on May 24th that there is a plan to detain McLean soon. And even potentially for this to go up to ministers for a decision, you know, do we bring him in for questioning?

• 37:59Gordon Corera?

  Now, when exactly that will be, it's not entirely clear. And maybe they're going to wait to do a search before Melinda goes into the hospital and, you know, gives birth. But it's coming in the next kind of days, days or weeks. And Philby knows this in Washington. But they've got a plan. Because they've worked out there's a boat which goes from Southampton. It's a kind of weekend pleasure boat, which leaves Southampton on a Friday night and goes around the channel between England and France on the weekend and returns on Sunday. And it's used primarily, it seems, by people having affairs. And particularly, it seems by some of the accounts, civil servants having affairs. I don't know why they would particularly use this boat, but you.

• 38:41David McCloskey?

  Are there rooms on the boat?

• 38:42Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, it's a kind of overnight boat where you have a cabin. And you go around. And what's crucial about this is there are no passport checks because it's not supposed to stop in France. It's not officially taking people to France to get off the boat. But everyone knows it stops in France for a few hours and if you want to, you can get off.

• 39:03David McCloskey?

  Oh, interesting.

• 39:04Gordon Corera?

  So it's a very specific type of route or journey.

• 39:08David McCloskey?

  Very convenient.

• 39:09Gordon Corera?

  Very convenient.

• 39:10David McCloskey?

  From the KGB standpoint, if you're trying to exfil somebody.

• 39:13Gordon Corera?

  I mean, it's perfect. So Friday, May 25th, in the morning, the Foreign Secretary that morning, that Friday morning, gives the go ahead for MI5 to interrogate McLean. McLean, on that Friday, has a big lunch in Soho, oysters and champagne, again, just like.

• 39:30David McCloskey?

  Gets into some fights, lurching around Soho.

• 39:32Gordon Corera?

  Lurching around Soho. Friday afternoon, the MI5 surveillance team sees McLean carrying a large cardboard box, which is a bit weird. But he takes the 6:10pm train from Victoria back to where he lives. Now meantime, Guy Burgess has gone to his flat in central London. This is also weird. He picks up to take with him a tweed jacket and a dinner jacket, £300 in cash and the collected works of Jane Austen. If I, if I was about to do an exfil operation, that's exactly what I'd take.

• 40:07David McCloskey?

  What do you think he's planning at this point?

• 40:09Gordon Corera?

  Well, this is one of the big mysteries about what happens. It's worth addressing this now because is Guy Burgess gonna flee as well? What the signs are, are that he, he doesn't want to go to, to Moscow. You know, it's Guy Burgess. This is not a guy who's, you know.

• 40:32David McCloskey?

  His lifestyle might be frowned upon.

• 40:33Gordon Corera?

  His lifestyle might be frowned upon. He loves London clubs, drinking and, you know, picking up men. That's his life. So he, he, you know, he doesn't want to flee. But it looks like there's a kind of question mark about whether the KGB have decided that they want him to go.

• 40:50David McCloskey?

  Cause he's not, he's not under suspicion.

• 40:53Gordon Corera?

  He's not under suspicion or implicated. But of course it's Guy Burgess, you know, who is, who is wild and out of control. And the KGB know this. Now, all the signs are that the KGB at one point might have asked him, do you want to go? Do you not? And, and also they've realised that McLean is so fragile that he needs an escort

• 41:17Gordon Corera?

  to get across Europe after getting off the boat. Because.

• 41:21David McCloskey?

  He, he, otherwise he won't make it.

• 41:22Gordon Corera?

  Otherwise he may not make it.

• 41:23David McCloskey?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Gordon Corera?

  And so the plan looks to be that the KGB have decided that they'll ask Guy Burgess to escort McLean across Europe to get eventually to Russia.

• 41:36David McCloskey?

  Hence the Jane Austen collected works.

• 41:38Gordon Corera?

  And the money and the dinner jacket.

• 41:39David McCloskey?

  Reading material along the way.

• 41:40Gordon Corera?

  And he's, and you know, he might be doing stuff on the way. But it looks like possibly they mislead Guy Burgess into thinking you're then going to come back.

• 41:50David McCloskey?

  Oh, okay.

• 41:51Gordon Corera?

  And, and there's a bit of ambiguity about this and, and no one, I mean, to some extent, only Guy Burgess, who's you know, long past, really knows the truth of what he was expecting to happen. But it may be that he thought, I'm going to take my dinner jacket, tweed jacket, weekend in Europe, get McLean over as close as I need to, and then come back.

• 42:09David McCloskey?

  Yeah.

• 42:10Gordon Corera?

  But the KGB are going to have other plans. So Burgess picks up Jane Austen and the dinner jacket. He's rented a car. He drives out to McLean's house that evening. It's looking like he's staying for the weekend. Nine PM, McLean goes upstairs, kisses his kids goodnight. Melinda, his wife, yeah, I mean, that's a weird moment. Melinda says she thinks the two men are going to the pub. But then the pair, they have to drive off fast in the rented car to Southampton to catch this boat. And they are, I mean, again, it's the kind of like in a movie, they are racing to get to the dock in time before that boat goes. And they arrive, I mean, as the crew are preparing to pull up the gangplank.

• 42:50Gordon Corera?

  So Burgess drives the car basically onto the docks, right by the gangplank. So they can race onto the car. And one of the sailors shouts at him and says, you know, you can't park there. And he says, back on Monday, I'll pick up the car then.

• 43:06Gordon Corera?

  And they sail off into the distance. So, you know, this is the moment which they disappeared. Burgess and McLean will get off the boat on the Saturday morning at nine AM. It's raining, most people stay on the boat. But they leave their luggage on the boat. So I guess maybe he leaves his dinner jacket and things. Cause you know, you don't want to be taking, because the whole point is it's not supposed to be a stop where you get off.

• 43:28David McCloskey?

  He's not taking the collected works of Jane Austen with him.

• 43:30Gordon Corera?

  If he left them on the boat.

• 43:31David McCloskey?

  He probably did.

• 43:33Gordon Corera?

  Ah, and he's throwing away, probably took the cash. They take a taxi to a train station, then they go to Paris, Bern, Switzerland. They get fake passports from the Soviet embassy, train to Zurich, flight to Stockholm, Prague, finally Moscow.

• 43:47David McCloskey?

  Yikes.

• 43:48Gordon Corera?

  Monday morning, Melinda McLean, Donald's wife, calls the Foreign Office, saying her husband is missing.

• 43:54David McCloskey?

  So she's probably.

• 43:56Gordon Corera?

  In on it.

• 43:57David McCloskey?

  In on it, right?

• 43:58Gordon Corera?

  I think the, the view is she knew he was a spy.

• 44:01David McCloskey?

  Yeah.

• 44:01Gordon Corera?

  And had known for some time and that she's in on it. And she'll come back to our story and Philby in an interesting way later. It's interesting, the authorities may have already worked out by Saturday that he's gone. Because there's, there's already some messages which are going around government on Saturday going, has McLean fled? You know, and they're worried about that. But then of course they find the abandoned car at Southampton. See it's hired by Guy Burgess and they're like, hang on a sec. We were suspicious about McLean, but Burgess?

• 44:27David McCloskey?

  Yeah. I mean, it's a shock.

• 44:29Gordon Corera?

  It's a shock. This is in a way the pivotal moment for the Cambridge spies. The fact that Burgess flees as well. Because if it had just been McLean, I think, you know, it may have been that they could have kept a lid on the investigation, which is now going to spiral out. But as soon as Burgess goes as, as well, it suddenly looks like this is something bigger. And I mean, the KGB will admit later that they think this is their big mistake was getting Burgess to flee as well. Rather than leaving him in place.

• 45:01David McCloskey?

  And just to think about it from the KGB's perspective for a moment. The reason you would get Burgess out too, is that you think he's a crack up risk as well? Is it, is it that?

• 45:13Gordon Corera?

  I think so, yeah.

• 45:14David McCloskey?

  Sort of like, if you're at the KGB, you look at him and you say, if we leave him in place.

• 45:19Gordon Corera?

  He's going to blow things up.

• 45:20David McCloskey?

  He's going to blow things up.

• 45:21Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. Um, and, and of course also Burgess, remember, he's, he's just got suspended from the Foreign Office. You know, he, he, his career is also on a very much downward path. So his value as an intelligence asset is pretty limited.

• 45:36David McCloskey?

  Yeah.

• 45:36Gordon Corera?

  But I think the KGB will later view this as a mistake because it will suddenly draw attention to the fact, well, how did these two know each other? And, you know, could there be more? And then of course the question of how they got tipped off. But there's lots of things suddenly moving very fast because Anthony Blunt, another one of the Cambridge spies. Anthony Blunt goes around to Burgess's London flat with two MI5 officers. And he tells them, well, I've got a key, so you know, I can, I can let you in. You don't need a warrant. He's already been there once and tried to remove anything incriminating which relates to him. And he's, he's, because he's so close to Burgess. I mean, he gets most of the stuff and he kind of hides it, but he misses a couple of documents. And actually they will point suspicion at John Cancross, who's another one of the Cambridge spiring.

• 46:21Gordon Corera?

  I mean, Blunt has also been asked like by the KGB, you know, don't you want to flee? But Blunt, surveyor of the Queen's pictures, has got no interest in going to Moscow. You know, this is not a man for whom, so he's like, no, no, no, I'm not going. And of course, so Philby, I mean, this is an absolute disaster.

• 46:38David McCloskey?

  Burgess has been living in his basement.

• 46:40Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. And, and Philby can recollect the moment he finds out. Cause he's at the embassy in Washington. A colleague comes in who says, I've just had a very long, most immediate secret telegram from London. My secretary's away, you know, Kim, could your secretary help decrypt this telegram? Cause you know, it's a bit of a pain to decrypt it. And when the work is complete, the man reads the telegram and looks grey. And he says, Kim, the bird, meaning McLean, has flown. There's worse than that. Guy Burgess has gone with him.

• 47:14David McCloskey?

  Does Philby talk about this in the tape?

• 47:16Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 47:16David McCloskey?

  That you unearth from the Stasi archive?

• 47:18Gordon Corera?

  Because he's.

• 47:19David McCloskey?

  Such an impactful moment.

• 47:20Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. It's a, you know, he says, it's like a thunderclap. Because he suddenly knows this is a disaster for him. Cause actually he hadn't been very close to McLean. You know, he hadn't been friends with him. He hadn't seen him socially, you know, there's not much contact. But I've just been living in his flat.

• 47:37David McCloskey?

  In his house, yeah.

• 47:38Gordon Corera?

  I mean, it's a disaster.

• 47:40David McCloskey?

  So I, I mean, I guess the question that has to be running through the heads of everybody inside MI5. And then through the liaison, I'm sure to the FBI and CIA is who tipped these guys off? They've just, they've just fled. So there's somebody else. I mean, immediately it raises this question of there's at least a third man.

• 48:01Gordon Corera?

  Exactly. And who could that be? So Philby is worried it's going to point to him. I mean, and he's right. So he's got a decision now. Do you tough it out or do you run? And he's got a, there is an escape plan in which he would flee via either the Caribbean or Mexico. But it is interesting because he thinks, no, I'm not going to run.

• 48:21David McCloskey?

  Yeah. I think this is, it's such an interesting theme of, really a consistency in Philby's personality is that he's got a lot of nerve, doesn't he? And it, it seems like there, there are multiple points in this story where he could have cracked up. He could have decided I'm out and had, I've had enough. But he kind of just decides to tough it out.

• 48:44Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 48:45David McCloskey?

  And figures that by. Facing it and essentially when questions are put to him, denying everything and pushing the blame elsewhere that he can he can outlast.

• 48:56Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, and I think it's one of the absolutely fascinating characteristics of Philby is he's, whatever you think about his morality, he's got guts to kind of, he doesn't choose to run. And I think he knows he's got some advantages and they're really interesting because he kind of processes this in his own head. He knows, first of all, it would be really embarrassing if he was proved to be a spy. People won't want to believe he's a spy culturally. Secondly, he knows the evidence better than anyone. You know, he's kind of seen it himself. It's evidence about him, but also he knows what investigators know because he's been in this position. And he knows how they go about investigating moles because he's, you know, been a head of counterintelligence against the Soviets and he's been in Washington watching

• 49:40Gordon Corera?

  the mole hunts. So he kind of knows that if people are gonna try and get someone, they need to catch them in the act or they need a confession. And so he understands that well enough from the inside to know, I'm a player at this game with advantages because I'm on the inside.

• 49:58David McCloskey?

  Yeah. Well, if you run the counterfactual and think about what might have happened if McLean had actually been been arrested.

• 50:07Gordon Corera?

  Hmm.

• 50:08David McCloskey?

  Philby has to understand that the Venona, the decrypted Venona messages would not have been introduced in court.

• 50:15Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 50:16David McCloskey?

  So the the case, the eventual case against McLean would have hinged very much on McLean eventually confessing.

• 50:23Gordon Corera?

  Confessing.

• 50:24David McCloskey?

  While being interrogated. And of course, because he was in such a chaotic mental state, he probably would have. I mean, he said so himself.

• 50:29Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, but maybe not implicating others.

• 50:32David McCloskey?

  Right. And so Philby knows that he has the advantage of, he has not been identified specifically from the Venona decrypts.

• 50:39Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 50:40David McCloskey?

  And he also knows that even if he were, he wouldn't crack under pressure.

• 50:45Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. And and the evidence against him is is circumstantial.

• 50:49David McCloskey?

  Right.

• 50:50Gordon Corera?

  So he knows, okay, suspicion might come on me because Burgess has fled and Burgess has been living in my house. But it's also going to take a day or two for the message to come from London to the FBI to watch him. And so he knows he's got this kind of short gap before before he really comes in, you know, in into their sights. So on that day that he finds out about Burgess and McLean having fled, you know, gets that telegram first thing in the morning, he says, I'm going off, I need a drink because.

• 51:20David McCloskey?

  This news is so shocking.

• 51:22Gordon Corera?

  This news has shocked me, which I think it has. So he says, I need a stiff drink. But instead of going to the bar, he goes home, goes down into the basement.

• 51:31David McCloskey?

  Burgess's den.

• 51:33Gordon Corera?

  Burgess's den, train set, Burgess's kind of stained naval jackets, all these things. And there he's got some of his spy kit. So he takes a secret camera and other accessories and he puts them in waterproof containers and he drives out to Great Falls. And it's interesting, he's established a routine that he often drives there for a walk.

• 51:53David McCloskey?

  Yeah, classic intel officer behavior of, you know, you want the, you want a walk in your pattern of life or some movement. So anyone who's watching him is going to think.

• 52:05Gordon Corera?

  He always does this.

• 52:06David McCloskey?

  He always does this. It's also why intelligence officers like to have dogs. Because you take a dog out, walk, walk the dog around a park. So there's a reason for him to do this.

• 52:14Gordon Corera?

  This doesn't look suspicious.

• 52:15David McCloskey?

  Yeah, it's it's perfect.

• 52:16Gordon Corera?

  So he parks his car on a deserted stretch of road. He's scouted this in advance, near the Potomac River on one side, some forest on the other, goes a few hundred yards into the bushes and then begins digging with a trowel and he buries his spy camera.

• 52:30David McCloskey?

  Hmm.

• 52:31Gordon Corera?

  And the evidence of his espionage. He walks back out, and I do love this detail, he does up the fly buttons on his trousers. So he's basically making it look to anyone who's watching as if he's just been out into the forest and done a pee.

• 52:45David McCloskey?

  And he's on his normal walking route. There's absolutely nothing, you know, anyone watching or trying to reconstruct his his day would say, he got this calamitous news.

• 52:57Gordon Corera?

  Goes for a walk.

• 52:58David McCloskey?

  He goes for a walk to clear his head, pees on the walk. There's nothing weird at all about this day.

• 53:03Gordon Corera?

  Exactly. Eventually, the message does come from MI6 back to the embassy in Washington. And it says, Kim Philby, we need you to come back to London. He knows now he's going to be questioned, you know, about Burgess. On his way, as he leaves Washington, he goes to see, who does he go to see? James Jesus Angleton. And he says they pass a pleasant hour in a bar. It's interesting because Angleton gives him some documents and asks Philby to give them to counterintelligence in London. At this point, is Angleton, does he suspect Philby? You know, has he already heard that there's suspicions? Not clear? Is it a test? You know, I don't think that's entirely clear whether he trusts him or not.

• 53:43David McCloskey?

  Does the institutional angle matter here? Because both Burgess and McLean were foreign office guys.

• 53:51Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 53:52David McCloskey?

  And obviously, all of the intelligence that MI6 or the CIA is collecting, not being passed to the foreign office.

• 53:58Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 53:59David McCloskey?

  So in Angleton's mind, in the mind of the Americans more more generally, you could sort of say, this is a foreign office problem.

• 54:08Gordon Corera?

  Not an MI6 problem.

• 54:09David McCloskey?

  Not an MI6 problem, right.

• 54:10Gordon Corera?

  Uh, who knows? And I think Angleton's always, when Angleton begins to suspect Philby, it's very unclear. But Angleton at this point does seem to, you know, perhaps, you know, still have some trust in him. Other people do not, including Bill Harvey.

• 54:25David McCloskey?

  Bill Harvey, who who probably now looks at Burgess leaving and saying, I I knew he was a deranged pervert.

• 54:33Gordon Corera?

  Yeah.

• 54:34David McCloskey?

  Now I know that he's, he was a spy.

• 54:36Gordon Corera?

  And and where did I meet him last?

• 54:38David McCloskey?

  Kim Philby's house on Nebraska Avenue.

• 54:42Gordon Corera?

  So, you know, so so Bill Harvey, as everyone's going like, well, who tipped off Burgess and McLean? What led him to, you know, you can see Bill Harvey, the man whose wife got caricatured by Burgess at Philby's house, is like, I've I've got my suspicions of who did it.

• 54:56David McCloskey?

  And I mean, Harvey now legitimately does think that Philby is involved.

• 55:02Gordon Corera?

  So there, with Philby trying to play it cool, but knowing the investigation has him in its sights as he heads back to London, he knows he's going to need to face down an interrogation. The question is, can he survive? So join us next time as we look at that Philby interrogation and a reminder that if you're a declassified club member, you can hear all the bonus episodes we've got to go alongside this Philby series, including a tape of Philby himself talking, people talking about mole hunts, the legacy of Philby, a really fascinating collection to understand and get to grips with what Philby really meant, even into the worlds of spy fiction. So do sign up at therestisclassified.com. But otherwise, we'll see you next time.

• 55:47David McCloskey?

  We'll see you next time.

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