Declassified Documents Show Cambridge Spy Admitted to Being Soviet Agent and Would Repeat Actions
In newly-declassified documents, it was revealed that Harold ‘Kim’ Philby had been a double agent for decades, as conversations between him and his colleague Nicholas Elliott showed.
After finally admitting to being a Soviet agent for 30 years, a Cambridge spy said he would have done it all again, according to newly-declassified documents.
These transcripts and other documents from the 1960s detailed how Harold “Kim” Philby confessed his treachery to his friend and MI6 colleague, Nicholas Elliott.
Parts of the materials released by the National Archives included transcripts of the recorded conversations between the two men that took place in an MI6-owned flat in Beirut, Lebanon, on Jan. 9, 1963.
During his time as a high-ranking member of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Philby had even been speculated to become the future chief of the foreign intelligence agency.
Philby revealed to Elliott that he likely would not have divulged this information with anyone else, as he expressed his loyalty to MI6 but confessed that the driving force behind his actions was for the other side.
Philby mentioned to Elliott, “I really did feel a tremendous loyalty to MI6… But the over-ruling inspiration was the other side.”
Elliott observed in his report that Philby, if given the chance, would probably act the same way throughout his life.
Despite admitting to being a double agent, Philby’s confession was marked by falsehoods and evasions, including claiming to have stopped spying for the KGB in 1946 when, in fact, he had never ceased working for them.
Cambridge Five
After their conversation, Philby met Elliott again and handed him a six-page typed account of his recruitment and collaboration with the communists before slipping away on a Russian steamer to defect to Moscow.
These transcripts form part of a collection of previously top-secret MI5 files released to the National Archives, which encompass the security service’s formative years from pre-First World War to the 1970s.
Philby belonged to the infamous Cambridge Spy Ring known as the Cambridge Five, together with Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Sir Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross, who had all been influenced by Soviet agents while at the University of Cambridge or afterward.
Acting between the 1930s and 1950s during WW2 and the early Cold War era, the spy ring infiltrated senior positions in Whitehall, British intelligence, and the Foreign Office.
Amid suspicion, Burgess and Maclean fled to Russia in 1951 after being found out as spies, Philby too came under scrutiny and subsequently resigned from MI6, following which he informed Maclean of his impending arrest.
Philby the ‘Enigma’
Despite the suspicions against him, MI5 couldn’t conclusively prove Philby’s guilt, leading to his quiet reinstatement to MI6 in 1956 and deployment to Beirut under the guise of being the Middle East correspondent for The Observer.
By late 1962, new evidence emerged, prompting MI6 head Sir Dick White to send Elliott to confront Philby in Lebanon, with MI5’s interrogators baffled by his behavior, finding him more perplexing than ever.
Ultimately, Skardon, MI5’s top interrogator, found Philby an enigma, impressed by his composure and lack of reaction to the accusations, leaving officials admitting they had no concrete evidence to back their suspicions.
Blunt later confessed in 1963 in exchange for immunity, allowing him to continue in his role until retirement, while Cairncross admitted to espionage in 1964 without facing charges, finally being publicly named as the fifth member of the spy ring in the 1990s.
PA Media contributed to this report.
