Kim Philby: Greatest Liar of All Time?

British MI6 agent Kim Philby was a spy for the Soviet Union and one of the great liars in human history, right up until his retirement in Moscow where he lived out his days as a national hero. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:03Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:13Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is the podcast, as just mentioned, we call it Stuff You Should Know. And by the way, we should say to any new listeners, we're not saying you should already know this stuff. So don't be hostile toward us about that. We're saying, we think you should know this because it's so interesting. We want to tell you about it.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, we could have changed the name of the show to things that you might find interesting, but then again, you might not as well, but that doesn't have a ring.

• 1:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's no implied dummy in the title of our podcast, okay?

• 1:47Speaker 02

  We're the dummies.

• 1:50Josh Clark?

  So I'll tell you somebody who wasn't a dummy as far as it comes to being a world class liar, maybe England's greatest liar ever.

• 2:00Josh Clark?

  It was a spy from the World War II, beginning early Cold War era named Harold Kim Philby. And if that name rings a bell, well, just sit back and enjoy this episode on a British spy. If you don't know who Kim Philby is, sit back and enjoy this episode on a British spy.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Your voice is going up like you were gonna say something else. Is that it?

• 2:26Josh Clark?

  I just wanted to replicate it perfectly.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  So, big thanks to Dave who helped us with this, but Dave also wanted us to shout out, and we want to shout out, a book by Ben McIntyre, A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. And also, a mini-series that I have not watched, that I think I probably will now, a six-parter on Amazon MGM called A Spy Among Friends from 2023, starring the winsome Guy Pearce

• 2:55Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  as Kim Philby, or Harold Adrian Russell Philby, as he was born in India in 1912 because his dad was a colonialist. I can never say that word right.

• 3:09Josh Clark?

  I think you nailed it. Philby, Kim, he was nicknamed Kim because there was a Rudyard Kipling story, a book, I think, about a street urchin raised on the streets of India who becomes a spy.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Isn't that crazy?

• 3:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it really is.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Because he got this nickname as a kid, like before he knew he was gonna be a spy.

• 3:28Josh Clark?

  Right. He wasn't out in there like, we're gonna call you Kim from now on. He, yeah, he grew up to be a spy, and it was, he was nicknamed after a boy who grew up to be a spy. So it is pretty interesting. But everyone called him Kim Philby, and he was born in India in 1912. His dad was a colonialist, like you said. His sympathies actually lay with India. And he eventually quit the service and went to become a, I think, an advisor to the king of Saudi Arabia eventually.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Oh, wow. Well, at any rate, he was born to a well-heeled family. His parents were gone a lot. He was raised by his Indian nanny. He went to Cambridge, so he was sort of on that track of, of a, not, you know, royalty or anything, but probably aristocracy, you could say. And when he went to Cambridge, it was the early 1930s. Pretty rocky time. The Great Depression was happening. And that's when the fascists, especially in Germany and Italy, saw their sort of opportunity. When people were wrecked by poverty, to step in and start controlling things.

• 4:33Josh Clark?

  Right. So communism became a thing among young Cambridge intellectuals at the time. And communism was viewed as the antidote to fascism, which was on the rise at the time, in the late 30s. And the reason I was like, why? I don't understand that. Because my geopolitics is seen through the view of an 80s American kid who lived through the end of the Cold War.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:01Josh Clark?

  But communism is all about class and social equality. One of the defining characteristics of fascism is a rigid hierarchy. So of course, the aristocracy of Great Britain would be fully on board with a kind of ideology that said, yes, you're at the top, you deserve to be at the top, you should stay at the top. And so the aristocracy at the time definitely had sympathies with the Nazis because of their fascist leanings. And that did not sit well with these young Cambridge intellectuals who had bought fully into communism as the ideology to spread throughout the world.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it was especially a way for, you know, kids to rebel against what their parents loved, which is a classic thing that kids and teenagers and young adults do. And in this case, these, like you said, these young Cambridge elites were like, hey, communism is where it's at. Forget this, I was about to say patriarchy, but it was really, you know, everybody, the upper class altogether. And, you know, as far as Philby is concerned, he didn't, he wasn't out there calling for a revolution or anything, and let's go burn it down. He apparently never officially joined the Communist Party. But he was a communist through and through, like, up until the very end. He was very committed to it, something he did not grow out of.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Like, his parents probably hoped he would.

• 6:24Josh Clark?

  I mean, out of all of the Soviet spies in the UK at the time, he was probably the most committed communist.

• 6:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. And as you'll see, there were plenty of chances to go a different way, and he never did.

• 6:37Josh Clark?

  No, for sure. So he was at Cambridge, and he met with a professor. And with this professor, he said, hey, I really want to help communism. You know, spread throughout the world. What can I do? What has a young aristocratic Cambridge grad do to help communism? And this professor said, I've, so in Vienna right now, they're, they're battling, the communist comrades are battling a dictator named Engelbert Dolphus. And Dolphus is a fascist dictator and you can go to Austria and help. I don't know how, but just go to Austria and figure it out. And he did.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was like, oh, I was thinking a letter campaign or something, but, but sure, I'll go to Austria and, and fight a ruthless dictator. While he was there, he went to Vienna, lovely town, by the way, one of my favorites in Europe. He fell in love with a woman named Alice Litzie Coleman, who was another young communist. They became co-revolutionaries and they, you know, hooked up also in, you know, in a more romantic way, hugging and kissing, that kind of thing.

• 7:42Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  And Dolphus, the fascist dictator, said, all right, we got to get rid of these communists and we will do so by whatever means we need to. And that Litzie woman was on that list. She was pretty well known, or, you know, well known as far as the insider fascist dictators go. And they said, all right, we got to get out of here. They, they realized the writing was on the wall, so they got married. They fled to England and in London, he finally, Kim Philby, got in touch with a real Soviet operative at a secret meeting in Regent Park that was arranged by one of Litzie's communist friends. And it was game time. It was on from that point forward.

• 8:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so this real life communist was a Czech academic who was undercover for the Soviets as basically a spy master. His name was Arnold Deutsch, or at least that's what he told people. I guess it's where Germany comes up in this one. His code name and what he used to communicate with people was Otto, O T T O. Apparently he was huge on security. He would make Philby take like three taxis at least before they would meet. And this guy was like, okay, I can do something with you. You're a, like an aristocratic, you're a member of the upper crust of British society. And right now, The upper crust of British society is if you're from them,

• 9:09Josh Clark?

  you have total trust across the board. Let's take advantage of that.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, he was, he was pretty ideal for that position. But he was like, how good of an actor are you though? Cause that's what really matters if you're gonna get into this. And Philby said, well, let's just say this. One day Guy Pearce is gonna play me in a streaming series. And he was like, what does that mean? That makes no sense at all. He said, okay, I'm a pretty good actor and a good actor will eventually play me.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  He's really gotta fall into this part, you know, in such a perfect way that obviously no one's gonna find out. That's the ultimate goal of being a mole is to be a great liar. And he was really, really good at it. One of the things he had to do though, was find a job to, you know, as cover. And he was like, the perfect job for this would be a journalist.

• 9:59Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but one other thing he had to do too was he had to, he had to become at least outwardly what he despised the most. Which was the quintessential English aristocrat.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, right wing.

• 10:12Josh Clark?

  Yep, right wing fascist sympathies that aren't particularly well hidden. Super conservative, very loyal to, to the British crown.

• 10:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, essentially everything you think of when you think of like a guy wearing a bowler hat in the 40s in, in Great Britain, carrying an umbrella on his forearm, right? Like, he did not like these people and yet he, he now entered their world. Where he would stay essentially as a mole for years to come. And I mean, it's, I don't really sympathize with him because of who he was and what a traitor he was.

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:51Josh Clark?

  But I, I do sympathize with him in the idea of having to live your life like that around people you despise and have to pretend like you like them for years on end or that you are one of them for years on end. That had to be, that had to definitely be rough on the, the old soul, you know?

• 11:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, here's the thing, I never thought about, seen so many stories on this kind of thing. We've read so many books and seen so many movies about double agents and people, you know, lying for cover, but I always think about like, oh yeah, to live that lie and to keep that up, that must be hard. Until we did this episode, I never thought about how hard that would be to just.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  Like be sleeping with the enemy essentially full time and like all your friends, all your social circle, everything that comes out of your mouth like has to be the thing that you hate the most.

• 11:41Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  It's incredible. I never considered how hard that would be.

• 11:44Josh Clark?

  Right. So you said that he was told he needed a J O B.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:51Josh Clark?

  And he became a journalist.

• 11:52Speaker 02

  J O U R N A L I S M.

• 11:57Josh Clark?

  Right. That was his J O B. And the reason why it was such a great profession for him is that you can go all over the world as a journalist and you're just like, yeah, I'm covering the running of the bowls. So here I am. Or this Olympics is amazing, isn't it?

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Oktoberfest? Let's do it.

• 12:16Josh Clark?

  Right. Nobody's going to question why you're in this country because you're covering something. That's one thing. Another thing too, is if you are covering like elite people, you're kind of considered a member of the club just in and of itself, right? So people let their guard down around you because you're in aristocracy. You're one of them. They know you won't say the things that they are saying off the record.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  You won't print those in the paper, but you could sell them to the Soviets.

• 12:42Josh Clark?

  That's exactly right. So he gathered all sorts of off the record secrets and all this stuff from interviewing people at the highest echelons of power that they were sharing with him because he was one of them. He was just turning right around and giving it to the Soviets, like you said. So his career as a journalist to start out was, it was a great choice.

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it's just further reinforced the more he does it because he's not printing that stuff. So you're like, oh, Philby can really be trusted because I told them all this off the record stuff and he's not printing it. This guy's great.

• 13:12Josh Clark?

  That's right.

• 13:13Speaker 02

  So to sort of bulk up his cover, he got this job at the Anglo German Trade Gazette, which was a British newspaper, but it was at least in part financed by the Nazis. And it was about just trying to get trade relations between Britain and Germany. It was like a friendly newspaper between them.

• 13:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  So he had to, you know, play this role of sort of quasi-Nazi sympathizer and lose all of his friends in his life, because all of his friends were these, you know, sort of fellow ideologically aligned people, fellow leftists, maybe not all of them communists, but he wasn't hanging out with these people until he started doing this, this right-wing sort of Nazi sympathizing group.

• 13:56Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he essentially pulled a Christopher Hitchens and just completely transformed from one way to the other.

• 14:04Josh Clark?

  So at the time, civil war broke out, this is in the 30s as well, in Spain. Have you ever seen The Orphanage?

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Ah, yes.

• 14:15Josh Clark?

  Very creepy, and it's set in the time of the Spanish Civil War.

• 14:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was good.

• 14:20Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it was. On one hand, you had the fascists led by Francisco Franco, and they were fighting the communists led by Franco Francisco, and he was supposed to be a war reporter for The London Times. And, I mean, he was writing for The Times, but really what he was doing was working his way into the good graces of the fascists so he could spy on them for the Soviets, who would then in turn tell what agents to do, what to undermine the fascist side of the civil war.

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Right. Do you think there was ever any confusion about those two leaders?

• 14:54Josh Clark?

  Oh, I made that up.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  I thought you did.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Very subtle, though.

• 15:00Josh Clark?

  Thank you.

• 15:01Speaker 02

  I was trying to like sniff you off the case, but in a way that made me look as less, least dumb as possible.

• 15:07Josh Clark?

  Well, that's why you're the best all-around boy.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  Man, stop it. So, we should mention, you know, sort of neither here nor there, but he and Lizzie had been divorced by this time, he was married four times total, but he would do things like strike up affairs in order to get into the places he needed to be. In this case, he had an affair with an older woman, Franco's inner circle. But while he was there, he, his car was bombed essentially, not a car bombing, but just hit by a shelling during a bombing raid, and all three passengers in the car that were not named Kim Philby died, and he just had minor injuries. So he was actually awarded the Red Cross of Military Merit from Franco himself, gave him this award.

• 15:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, one thing I saw real quick is that Kim Philby received the highest military honor possible from the Spanish, the Soviets, and the English, all while he was a spy for the USSR.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Wow, that's crazy.

• 16:09Josh Clark?

  So, he gained so much access, like, he was friendly with the highest levels of the fascist side of the Spanish government, that the Soviets were like, "We could just have him off Franco at this point." And they decided like, "No, we're just gonna use up a valuable asset, and frankly, I'm not sure that that guy could do it."

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:31Josh Clark?

  So they didn't have him kill Franco, but he really proved his worth by infiltrating the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. And by this time, well, should we take a break and then come back and talk about his next round of stuff?

• 16:45Speaker 02

  We gotta break.

• 16:46Josh Clark?

  Okay, well, we'll be right back to talk about his next round of stuff.

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• 19:28Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, I was saying that Philby proved himself a very loyal communist spy, and an effective one, too. So Otto's like, "Hey, man, you got any friends?" And Philby says, "Yes. Yes, I do." As a matter of fact, I have two very close friends from my Cambridge days, who I think would fit the bill perfectly. One of them was named Donald McLean. The other was Guy Burgess. Burgess. I'm not sure which way he said it. I also saw a lot of conflicting information that Guy Burgess recruited Philby and yada, yada, yada. But I think that the way that we've said it is correct.

• 20:05Speaker 02

  I think so. So how he gets Don McLean, not American Pie Don McLean. How he gets Donald McLean on the dole is he goes to dinner, and he sort of hints around, you know, like, "Hey, you know, what do you think?" And McLean was like, "I'm all in, buddy. I've been waiting on this." So he had to do the same thing Philby did, was, you know, like, leave all his sort of leftist friends behind, publicly come out in favor of fascism. And his other buddy, Guy Burgess, saw this happening and was like, hey, what's going on here, dude? This is really fishy. Uh, I want in on this. Like, I see what's happening here.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  And Burgess was not, I think McLean was a pretty decent fit for a spy, but Burgess was very loud, apparently a pretty obnoxious guy. And he was a barely closeted gay man at a time where homosexuality was illegal. It was a crime in England. All that, all that to say, he was not a real sort of low-key, under-the-radar, you'll be a good spy kind of guy. But the Soviets were like, he's fine.

• 21:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's crazy. Like, he was a loose cannon, if there ever was one, but they still recruited him anyway.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they became known as the Cambridge Three. I think eventually there would be a Cambridge Five in total, though, right?

• 21:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there were two others that were kind of brought on, one of which was this lone wolf who was kind of acting independently, but what they had in common is they'd all five gone to Cambridge or instructed at Cambridge.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Right, and ended up being Soviet spies.

• 21:36Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, that part, too.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:38Josh Clark?

  So, um, when World War II broke out, the Soviets were like, oh, this is great. We're allied with England, you know, nominally, and we've got this guy on the inside, let's have him join military intelligence. And just like everything else, military intelligence was run by the upper crust, the aristocracy of Great Britain at the time. And so, um, just like he went to that lefty professor at Cambridge and said, what can I do to help the communist cause? This spy version of Kim Philby went to the British aristocracy and said, what can I do to help the Crown? I would really love to get into intelligence. They're like, well, come aboard to MI6. We don't need to vet you. We'll look at your background and see if there's anything that pops up. Nothing did?

• 22:23Josh Clark?

  Great, come aboard. Here's every secret that we have in the entire nation.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, like, later on, they literally asked, like, about the vetting and, like, how could this get past you? And they were like, yeah, you came from the right family, and they, we knew the same people, basically.

• 22:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 02

  And this is how it was back then. By the way, look for a little preview. We got an episode on MI6 coming out at some point.

• 22:45Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Looking forward to that. But, uh, he's all of a sudden, working for MI6, is in the perfect position to be a double agent, uh, because of where he worked, but also because...

• 22:58Speaker 02

  He was, I mean, this is why they get Guy Pearce to play this guy. He was really, really charming guy, apparently. Just very smart, very quick witted.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  Apparently, he would just make you feel like you're the only person in the room. People really, really loved him and thereby trusted him very quickly. And a legendary drinker. He could drink anyone under the table. And if you're in a cocktail party and you get people a little tipsy on whiskey, on that fine Scotch or British whiskey,

• 23:31Speaker 02

  they're gonna start spilling some secrets. And he's like Karen Allen in the first Raiders, you know? She could drink that guy under the table. So don't get into a drinking contest with Kim Philby or Karen Allen.

• 23:41Josh Clark?

  No. I think that Dave put it best, though, when he really brought it home for me, at least, to describe how charming this guy was. He said, Dave compared him to peak Hugh Grant. I almost wet my pants when I read that. I was like, God, that's charming. That's how disarmed I was. I almost just peed.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  I haven't seen Heretic yet. It looks good, though. I heard it's pretty good.

• 24:06Josh Clark?

  Oh, have you seen Talk to Me?

• 24:09Speaker 02

  What's that?

• 24:10Josh Clark?

  It's another 824 horror movie.

• 24:14Speaker 02

  Maybe? What's it about?

• 24:16Josh Clark?

  I don't want to give it away. It's about where you can, you can hold this mummified hand and speak to the spirit world. You've not seen it? It's Australian.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  I have not seen that.

• 24:28Josh Clark?

  Oh, it's so good, Chuck.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  I would have remembered that.

• 24:30Josh Clark?

  You're going to love it.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  You've become quite a horror movie guy over the past years.

• 24:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  I mean, you like all kinds of stuff.

• 24:38Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 24:38Speaker 02

  Is you into these scary movies?

• 24:41Josh Clark?

  Oh, no. She'll hang out on the couch with me and watch them, but she's not, she doesn't watch them. Although I think she would even like Talk to Me. It's just so well done. And there's only a few parts that are like scary, scary.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:55Josh Clark?

  It's just a really well thought out horror movie. It's really cool. It's a good one.

• 24:58Speaker 02

  Well, and you got an 824 tattoo on your lower back, so I know you're an adherent.

• 25:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they really are great.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  All right, where were we? We were at Hugh Grant. And we were talking about the drinking. All right, I guess let's talk about what was going on then with the Cambridge Three. This is a very successful, well, all the Soviet spies combined were really successful, including the Cambridge Three. They, over the course of their work, they sent the Soviets more than 10,000 documents during World War II.

• 25:29Josh Clark?

  Just World War II?

• 25:30Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. And like the D-Day invasion advance notice, stuff about the Manhattan Project, like some really big fish, they were getting fed this information. And sometimes this would, you know, this would lead to people dying because of information shared by Philby and others.

• 25:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so Kim Philby, he wrote a memoir, as we'll see later on, but he showed zero remorse essentially for any of the lives that he, that he cost.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:55Josh Clark?

  Essentially. One of the really good examples of this is that some members of the Catholic Resistance in Germany who were fighting the Nazis during World War II, they approached the British Intelligence, we should say MI6, I don't know if we said, that's the British equivalent of the CIA in America.

• 26:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, is it military based? Because you said military intelligence. I thought they were just like the CIA.

• 26:21Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I don't know if they're military intelligence or not.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  I guess we'll find out when we do our MI6 episode.

• 26:26Josh Clark?

  Exactly, great point. But they came to MI6, some of these resistance leaders came to MI6 and they said, hey, we want to make friends with you because we think the Allies are going to win. We're fighting to make sure the Allies win. And afterward, we want to build a Christian democratic Germany that's going to be super friendly with the West. So let's work together after the war. Okay, see ya, ta ta for now. And Philby, as a member of MI6, found out about this, told the Soviets and basically the names and addresses of these people. And the Soviets went and killed them all because the Soviets wanted Germany to be communist afterward, not open and democratic and Christian.

• 27:06Josh Clark?

  So after the war, when MI6 went looking for these Catholic resistance leaders to help rebuild Germany, they were gone. They'd all been killed during the war, thanks to Kim Philby.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, so that's just one example of many where lives were lost due to, you know, his intelligence gathering. After World War II, this is when, obviously, the Americans and the Brits sort of turned toward the Soviet Union and the threat of communism as the main enemy. And, you know, kind of pre-Cold War stuff. And you would think that this would be a tough thing all of a sudden because Philby is really the enemy. But he was so good at what he did. It was, he just had an inside position. So it was not easier, but all of a sudden, he was like, he was really in the mix.

• 27:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and he was so good at lying. He was so good at playing this part, sleeping with the enemy, like you said, year after year after year. That, that even when the Soviets were the enemy now, like he just, he just coasted right through it like it was nothing, like there'd been no change whatsoever for him. So he actually had a stroke of genius. In 1944, he said, hey, we really need to start worrying about these Soviets. I'm worried that there's Soviet spies in MI6, and I think we need to create a counterintelligence section for MI6 dedicated to rooting out Soviet spies.

• 28:29Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 28:30Josh Clark?

  Do you know the way it takes

• 28:33Speaker 02

  I know, man.

• 28:34Josh Clark?

  To suggest something like that when you're a Soviet spy? But at the same time, it really just shows.

• 28:40Speaker 02

  It's genius.

• 28:41Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was his MO. He would be like, you can't possibly suspect me because I'm the one suggesting this. That's what he did. And they were like, great idea. Let's get somebody not you to do this. And they hired a guy named Felix Cowgill.

• 28:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. Get that old boy Cowgill on it. And Philby was like, oh, that didn't go down like I wanted because I really need to head up this organization and not have this guy Cowgill all of a sudden sniffing down my neck. So he starts a whisper campaign to sort of get Cowgill out of there. That's exactly what happened. And within a few months, Philby is standing there, you know, at the ready to take over a Soviet spy, all of a sudden in charge of the Soviet counterintelligence for MI6. So McIntyre in his book, this is a pretty fun quote. He said, "The fox was not merely guarding the hen house, but building it, running it, assessing its strengths and frailties, and planning its future construction."

• 29:35Josh Clark?

  You sound like Hank Azaria in Mystery Men, the Sphinx.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Great, I'll take that.

• 29:40Josh Clark?

  I think that's a great quote, too. He definitely nails it. So, um, this is what, but that's the reality now. Like, Kim Philby is the in charge of rooting out Soviet spies, yet he's a Soviet spy for MI6.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  Perfect.

• 29:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so things are going along smoothly for, I don't know, a couple of months. And then there's this really big deal that happens. There's a defector who worked at the Soviet Embassy in Istanbul. His name was Konstantin Volkov. And Volkov went to the British Embassy in Istanbul. He said, hey, neighbor, get this. I know the names of dozens of Soviet spies embedded in, in, um, British intelligence all throughout. And I will tell you their names. If you give me $50,000, and they're like, $50,000 in 2025 money? He goes, no, no, no. $50,000 in 1944 money. That's a lot more. If you give me that and you help me and my wife defect to the West, I'll tell you all these people's names.

• 30:37Josh Clark?

  And here's a little, here's a little bit of sugar on top to get you interested. One of these spies is the head of a section of the British Counter Espionage Service in London.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  And they said, oh, boy, that's quite a sweetener. So Philby hears about this, um, and instead of like, you know, freaking out, he was like, no, no, no. I've got this. He said, you know what? This, this, if it's that, uh, inside, we need to get an interview with this guy. Somebody needs to go interrogate Volkov. And how about I do that?

• 31:12Josh Clark?

  And they're like, send Cowgirl. And he goes, no.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Exactly. And he said, you know, I should do this. And they, you know, they trusted him so much at this point. They're like, yeah, sure. Like, who, who better to send? He goes to Istanbul to meet with Volkov, but he never showed up because the Russians took care of that, right?

• 31:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah, he told, um, the KGB that his, that there was this Volkov defector in Istanbul and they needed to take care of him. So he looks totally innocent and legit. Like, he's the head of MI6 Soviet Counter Espionage Department.

• 31:49Josh Clark?

  So it makes sense that he would go interview him, one, but it also just makes him look so innocent. Why would you go all the way over there to meet with somebody you know is not going to be there? Of course, he's innocent. He went to Istanbul to meet the guy. That guy just disappeared, that's all. And it was just another master stroke like that. I'm just, I mean, I don't take my hat off to liars very often, but this guy definitely deserves a hat tip for coming up with this, this stuff.

• 32:17Speaker 02

  I mean, he was always one step ahead of things, so much so that, you know, the Soviets eventually thought that he might be like a triple agent or double crossing them or something. Because, you know, they were like, how has this guy moved up so quickly? And all of a sudden, he's running the Department MI6 that's to like, it's pretty genius, comrade. But it's all very suspicious to them and they were a pretty paranoid bunch at that point. They probably still are. And they always wondered what the deal was, but like his information always checked out. It was always golden. So they, they really had no choice but to go along with things. He would eventually go to America. He was assigned MI6 chief in DC.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  So if he was like a charming guy in England with that accent and his drinking ability, he was like, just multiply that times 100 in the United States as far as the charm factor goes.

• 33:08Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. So yet again, he's done some amazing maneuvering. He's in DC, he's hanging out with the, the most connected, embedded members of the CIA, the FBI, diplomatic circuit from the State Department, like everybody who's anyone in DC, this guy's partying with. And you said that he was well known as just like a, he had a hollow leg. He was just such an amazing drinker. He could drink as well as anybody, like Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark, you said. Apparently, he could get so drunk that he couldn't engage in a conversation. But he was always listening and he could still type up a pretty great report the next

• 33:52Josh Clark?

  day for his handlers based on the stuff he'd overheard while he was blackout drunk essentially. So this really jibed with America, like the Americans at the time, they loved drinking like that, just like the Brits, maybe even more so. So he would just drink with everybody. Okay, but it's close to tied at least, you can agree. So he would just drink with everybody and that's how he became a trusted confidant. Apparently also, he was a genuine friend. Like, he'd met some people along the way that he really became friends with. And I think later on, he said that he missed some of them. But that combination of being one of them in the intelligence community, being able to drink as well as anybody, so he

• 34:37Josh Clark?

  can have fun at cocktail parties, being charming, and then also being a legit friend, he really got his hooks into people over in the US as well.

• 34:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. One of the guys he really buddied up with, his name was James Angleton. He was a counterintelligence chief of the CIA for two decades. So, good guy to know. They had already met, apparently, from when they were younger in England. So they were, you know, hooked up again and became really, really close. And so he thinks they're like really good friends. So he's just spilling everything to Philby because they're buddies. He, one example is, he told Philby about a military operation called Operation Valuable, where the Brits and the Americans were going to overthrow the dictator of Albania to keep them from joining the Soviet Bloc. And they were training exiles to sort of mount this fight, you know, against their, against their dictator. And Philby passes this along

• 35:31Speaker 02

  to Moscow. And before you know it, these Albanian authorities are like, ready and waiting when this uprising happens and just slaughtered all these foreign-trained exiles and basically quashed everything. The revolution was no more.

• 35:44Josh Clark?

  Right. And so there's a whole bunch of heads also on Philby as well from that.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, we should probably take another break, yeah?

• 35:53Josh Clark?

  Yes, let's take a break.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  All right, we'll come back and talk about, well, Kim Philby, right after this.

• 36:13Josh Clark?

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• 38:03Speaker 02

  All right, so we're back here for Act Three. It is now 1946, and we're going to talk a little bit about something called the Venona decryption. That was, you know, everyone had their secret codes that they used to encrypt things in those days, and they still do. But 1946, American cryptologists cracked that code that the Soviets were using, the Venona decryption. And they said, hey, let's just not use this going forward. Let's go back and dig through all the stuff from World War II and see if we can get anything out of that. And in 1950, they decoded a message from the past that identified a Soviet spy. No, not Yuri. It's not, well, I was about to ruin No Way Out, a movie that came out like 30 something years ago, but I'm not going to do that.

• 38:47Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 38:48Speaker 02

  I'll just say Yuri, because it's a really good movie, and you should see it if you haven't.

• 38:52Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  But they identified a Soviet spy named Homer, who worked at the British Embassy in DC in 1944. And Philby was like, oh, man, I'm reading this thing. Homer's McLean, it's my friend.

• 39:06Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  And if they get him, then my cover's blown. And, you know, right now, he's in a good spot, because everyone thinks he's like me, just a straight-up Cambridge boy.

• 39:16Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  Who's doing God's work for the Crown. But more evidence started coming out, and another decoded message came out saying Homer's wife was pregnant and staying with her mother in New York. And he was like, it's really obvious it's you now, so I gotta kick this thing into action.

• 39:33Josh Clark?

  Yes, so I guess as an example of what kind of friend he was, he took it upon himself to get in touch with the KGB and be like, McLean's blown, he needs to get out of here. But just McLean, because if just McLean had to flee, and it seemed like it was just McLean who was the spy, he could weather that pretty well.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:56Josh Clark?

  He could be like, I can't believe this, I was as duped as you were.

• 39:59Speaker 02

  Right.

• 40:00Josh Clark?

  If his other friend, the other member of the Cambridge Three, Guy Burgess, also fled, it would be really hard for Kim Philby to be like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe my two best friends were Soviet spies, but not me. So he told Guy Burgess, like, McLean's leaving, you cannot leave. You have to stay here. We're gonna ride this out together. Just, we'll be okay. And Guy Burgess said, yes, absolutely. And he dipped with McLean too, leaving, um, leaving Kim Philby to hold the bag.

• 40:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he was holding the bag because he didn't know this was coming. Uh, Moscow didn't say that was gonna happen. So word gets out, it's pretty clear that there's a third man, cue the zither. And that had, you know, said, hey, Moscow, here's what's going on. So he, the writing's on the wall. He knows he's, um, about to be found out. Uh, even though he had all this protection as the Cambridge boy, these other two guys being Cambridge gentlemen, uh, being moles. And, and just sort of disappearing, you know, it could be anyone. So he knew that the, the writing was on the wall. He's, uh, everyone's starting to remember like, wait a minute. All, all three guys were super leftist, like communist in college.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  And they really turned, they really changed their mind on how they felt about things ideologically really quickly. Uh, and then there's also the Volkov affair and Operation Valuable and like all the things that Philby's assigned to are, are going tits up.

• 41:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah, well put. He, he could have fled too. He didn't though. He's like, I think the best thing I can do is stay here. And just by having the guts to stay here. It'll make me look all the more innocent. Like it will back up my claim, right? Like what person in his right mind would be a Soviet spy? And when he's basically outed, stick around to say, no, I'm not a spy. And that's exactly what he did. And MI6 at the end were, were, they said, okay, we'll believe you. And they circled the wagons around him again because he was an aristocrat. But the CIA, the FBI, MI5, which is like the UK's version of the FBI.

• 42:08Josh Clark?

  All of them were like, this guy, Kim Philby, he's the third man. He's a Soviet spy and MI6 would not hear of it. And there's actually a rift that developed between MI6 and the other agencies. But the reason why MI6 was willing to do this was because, like we said, he was such a good friend that his true friends. Uh, who were left, who weren't spies, came to his defense and they staked their reputations on Kim Philby not being the third man. Uh, the Soviet spy that was still embedded in the, in MI6.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and those were James Angleton, who we talked about, the CIA guy for 20 years, and a guy named Nicholas Elliot, a career guy at MI6. So they kept him from being prosecuted. He couldn't still work at MI6. He was forced to resign. They couldn't save his job. But when this all came out, it should have been like over for him. But he held it, again, the waybill's in the sky. He holds a press conference at his mom's house in London and like live on camera, just very openly and convincingly answers all these pointed questions from reporters, saying like, "My two friends deceived me. Everyone ended up believing him." And while this made him like technically a free guy, he didn't have that job anymore.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  And he thrived on that job. So he was pretty miserable at this point and drinking way, way too much.

• 43:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for not the last time in his life, he almost drank himself to death between 1951 and 1956, when he was just totally unmoored and adrift. He was no longer in MI6. The Soviets had cut off contact with him. And his friend Nicholas Elliot, one of those guys who would stake their reputation on Kim Philby not being a Soviet spy, he pulled some strings. He used to be this MI6 station chief in Beirut. And he got in touch with some friends at The Observer and at The Economist and said, "Why don't you take this guy, Kim Philby, as one of your reporters? He's a longtime journalist. He used to be a journalist and covered the world. Why don't you put him to work in Beirut?" And they did.

• 44:16Josh Clark?

  They put him in as a Middle East correspondent for both of those papers.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  And while this happened, or sort of shortly after this happened, Elliot said, "And you know what? You can start working for MI6 again, just on the down low. We'll throw you some bones here and there. You can go to work." So now Philby has this, once again, he's a journalist again. He's quietly working for MI6 again. And he could have just, you know, played it straight from this point forward and been like, "All right, I got back on track." But he calls up the Ruskies and is like, "Guess what?" What old boys. Guess who's back in. And immediately, you know, because of his, his love of communism is one thing, I think. But the, the author of that book McIntyre also makes a point that, and I think a good one, that he was, he was sort of addicted to this kind of lifestyle.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  The deception lifestyle of, of drinking and philandering and leading these two lives. Like, he seemed to really thrive off of that subterfuge and could not give it up.

• 45:15Josh Clark?

  Right. So he was back in it again. He was happy to be alive once again. And I think this lasted for about a year. A woman named Flora Solomon came forward. She had been reading some of Philby's articles in either the Observer, the Economist or both, that were unflattering toward Israel. And Flora Solomon was dedicated to the cause of Israel and did not like that. So she said, you know what? I've had this thing in my pocket for 30 years. Kim Philby approached me when we were back at Cambridge and asked me if I wanted to become a Soviet spy. And I said, no. And then I just let it go for 30 years until he ticked me off. And so this was, this was it. Like, she said, this guy is a Soviet spy.

• 46:01Josh Clark?

  Told an editor at one of the papers, either The Economist or The Observer, again. They turned around and told MI6 and Kim Philby was in, again, in trouble. And this time, he had nobody to swoop in to help him out. He was, he was basically cooked.

• 46:18Speaker 02

  I feel like those kind of loose ends don't happen in intelligence anymore. Like, oh, this woman who you tried to recruit as a spy is just out there with this information.

• 46:28Josh Clark?

  I read why.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  Why?

• 46:30Josh Clark?

  Because MI6 at the time was doing something called negative vetting. They would look at your record, your, your file, whatever they had on you. And as long as nothing, no red flags popped out, you were in. Rather than positive vetting, where they conducted an actual background, like a, a, a background investigation on you. They went to the trouble of like doing research. As long as there's no problems, you're in. So that was one reason why it changed.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Hmm, okay, well, that makes sense.

• 46:59Josh Clark?

  Thanks.

• 46:59Speaker 02

  I'm glad you knew that. Thank you. So, uh, where were we? Okay, so he was in trouble. He couldn't deny, you know, what was going on any longer. His buddy Nicholas Elliot was pretty upset, obviously. He volunteered to go to Beirut and get a confession out of Philby. And he tried to deny it to him still, but Elliot was, he was super upset at this point. And he was like, you're my friend. You pulled a charade over my eyes.

• 47:27Josh Clark?

  Charade.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  The charade over my eyes, the wool, the woolly blanket has been pulled over my eyes, old boy. And he was, he was, he was ticked off. And finally, he was like, hey, listen, give me a full confession. I can make sure you're not prosecuted for this. Philby knew that like, even if that happened, he wouldn't be like a free man. Like, MI6 was all of a sudden gonna put the thumb screws on him to try and get all the information he ever had about the Soviets.

• 47:54Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  The Soviets were probably gonna try and snuff him out.

• 47:57Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  So he's like, I gotta just leave. I gotta get the heck out of here.

• 48:00Josh Clark?

  Well, he compromised. So just this past January, they declassified the confession that he gave to Nicholas Elliot. And in it, he basically said, yes, I spied for the Soviets, but only while they were allies to the UK.

• 48:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 48:14Josh Clark?

  Just in World War II.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:16Josh Clark?

  And in 1946, I stopped. So he compromised. He had to give him something, but he also didn't give him enough that the Soviets would wanna kill him, right?

• 48:24Speaker 02

  Right. Well, hopefully.

• 48:26Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. And Nicholas Elliot had a great quote when he went to Beirut. He said, "I once looked up to you, Kim. My God, how I despise you now. I hope you've enough decency left to understand why."

• 48:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:40Josh Clark?

  So.

• 48:40Speaker 02

  Painful.

• 48:41Josh Clark?

  Philby's sitting there. He's doing three days of interviews with Nicholas Elliot. And on the third day, he's like, that's enough. I'm outta here. And he vanished from Beirut in January of 1963, shortly after telling his wife he'd meet her at a diplomatic dinner party that evening. And he hopped on the Soviet freighter and slipped away, slipped away so easily that even the KGB was like, "We're pretty sure Nicholas Elliot let him slip away."

• 49:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, and he may have because just to let him quietly leave was a lot less embarrassing for England than to put him on trial and to go through this big public spectacle where all these people are trotted out and asked like, how did this guy get away with this for so long under your watch?

• 49:24Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  So, he left. He lived in Moscow for the rest of his life, for 25 years. You can Google pictures of like, an elderly Kim Philby walking around Moscow. He eventually would die in a Russian hospital in 1988 and never said a bad word about the reign of terror from Stalin or anything like that. He got the Order of Lenin, like you said, was awarded the highest honors in three different very opposing places.

• 49:52Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly.

• 49:53Speaker 02

  Because he was so good at lying and his spycraft.

• 49:56Josh Clark?

  He also, I mean, he was considered, and I think still to this day is considered a national hero in Russia. He was featured on a postage stamp in 1990 as part of the Soviet Intelligence Agent series of postage stamps. And I think he got full military KGB honors when he was buried in Moscow. And yet, I read this blog called Cypher Brief, and they basically say, the big problem that he did in addition to all the lives lost because of him, was just the damage he did at creating paranoia in all of the intelligence agencies, which tore themselves apart looking for Soviet spies. Because they found out that there were not just three, but five.

• 50:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:42Josh Clark?

  And they tore themselves up for decades to come looking for that fifth one because they didn't know who it was. And it turned out it was a guy named John Carncross. And then there was another one named Anthony Blunt, who was the art curator for The Crown. But he was a traitor. At any rate, that was one of the big lasting legacies Kim Philby left behind him was just utter paranoia.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, if it could have been them, it could have been anyone. And it was also this sort of, this bedrock thing of, up until then had been, you know, if you come from the right family, if you come from the right world, then you're to be trusted as an insider.

• 51:19Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  It rocked them to the very foundation.

• 51:23Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm. Well put, chap.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 51:27Josh Clark?

  You got anything else?

• 51:28Speaker 02

  Well, no, but since you said chap, I think you know what that means.

• 51:32Josh Clark?

  It means that I've unlocked listener mail.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  That's right. This is from, it says Emily, but there's a little, is it accent on goo or grav? Which is the one that goes from northeast to southwest?

• 51:49Josh Clark?

  Like I know.

• 51:51Speaker 02

  Okay. That's above the E, so I'm not sure how Emily pronounces the name there. Might be Emil.

• 52:00Josh Clark?

  No, like you would pronounce the E if it has an accent. There's something to it.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  Emil.

• 52:06Josh Clark?

  There you go.

• 52:08Speaker 02

  All right. Hey, guys. Been listening since around 2018. Provided me much comfort, entertainment, and knowledge. So, thank you. I'm from Montreal, and I love your poutine short stuff episode. I'm somewhat of a poutine superfan and purist. It's been on my mission to try and rate as many poutines as possible throughout Quebec to find my favorite. I thought I'd share my personal poutine rating system with you because I've found it to be a rigorous method.

• 52:29Josh Clark?

  Nice.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  Four criteria. Number one, cheese curd. How squeaky? Are the curds too big or too small?

• 52:36Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Number two, gravy sauce. Too sweet? Tomatoey? Not salty enough? Too runny?

• 52:42Josh Clark?

  Tomatoey?

• 52:44Speaker 02

  Eh, I don't know.

• 52:46Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Uh, french fries. Too limp? Ugh. Is the cut too thick? Ugh. Are they tasteless? Boo.

• 52:54Josh Clark?

  Yeah. Do they taste like Wendy's tasteless fries?

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Oh, not on the Wendy's fries, huh?

• 52:59Josh Clark?

  No.

• 53:01Speaker 02

  Pretty good dipped in a Frosty, though.

• 53:02Josh Clark?

  Yes.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  Uh, assembly. Is the cheese gravy fry ratio just right? That's a big one.

• 53:08Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 53:09Speaker 02

  Is the portion too big or too small? And bonus fifth criteria, the value for money.

• 53:15Josh Clark?

  Oh, that's a good, good extra one there at the end.

• 53:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty good. Even though poutine is a simple dish, guys, the beauty of it is so that it can be adapted to everyone's own personal taste. Thank you very much for the podcast. To all the team. Have a nice day. That is from Emil.

• 53:30Josh Clark?

  Thank you very much, Emil. Emily. That is a great test, a litmus test, if you will, for poutine. In my opinion, it would be really tough for the gravy to potato ratio to be too much gravy. It'd be easy to be too little gravy, but too much gravy would be hard to achieve, in my opinion.

• 53:50Speaker 02

  Hmm, that could lead to a soggy fry, though.

• 53:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that just means you're not eating them fast enough.

• 53:56Speaker 02

  Ah, good point.

• 53:57Josh Clark?

  All right. Well, if you want to be like Emily and send us your own personal litmus test for something or other, we love that kind of stuff, you can send it to [email protected].

• 54:10Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, MyHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 54:25Josh Clark?

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• 55:07Josh Clark?

  Hosted by Andrew Stratton, these perspectives highlight that life is more than a moment, a condition, or a tough day. Living with a rare disease can be challenging, but it does not define the Voices of Vivart. In these episodes, they share their stories, from diagnosis to working with their care team on their treatment plan. Listen to Voices of Vivart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  Empower is all about helping you invest well so you can go out and live a little. And their Free Empower Personal Dashboard shows you your full financial life in one place. You'll be able to see your net worth, monitor budgets, analyze your portfolio, set retirement goals, and more. Whether you're saving for something big, want to treat yourself, friends, or family, or meet long-term goals, Empower helps you see where you stand. You've worked hard for your money, and Empower can help you make the most of it. Download the Empower Personal Dashboard or visit empower.com.

• 55:58Speaker 05

  Not an Empower client, paid or sponsored.

• 56:01Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.