With the willing consent of Mr Harold Wilson, Mr Macmillan has put an end to further discussion of the Philby affair in the House of Commons. The newspapers have also been silent on this question mainly because they have nothing new to disclose. Most if not all the questions that arose as a result of the original statement made by Mr Edward Heath, Lord Home’s deputy in the Foreign Office, three weeks ago, remain unanswered. The general assumption that Mr Philby was a double agent working simultaneously for the Soviet and British intelligence, has not helped to answer these questions. All that we can be certain about is that Mr Philby s name like the names of Mr Burgess and Mr Maclean, will rankle in British memory for years.
What is intriguing Fleet Street and the foreign correspondents alike is not the timing but the manner of the disclosure that Mr Philby had defected to the Soviet bloc. This disclosure by Mr Heath came a day after the meeting between President Kennedy and Mr Macmillan at Birch Grove. He sprang it on an unsuspecting House of Commons. The American magazine, Newsweek, carrying the story of the defection had then reached Britain though not the newsstands. Now they have the statement of Mr McGeorge Bundy, President Kennedy’s Special Assistant, that “we used all our influence to try and kill the story but were not successful when Newsweek triggered it off.” Thus it is a fair inference that the admission by Mr Heath at that stage was unavoidable,
Confession
What is not clear are the reasons which impelled him to claim that the intelligence services had never closed the file on Mr Philby and that he had confessed to being the third man in the Burgess-Maclean affair. It could easily be anticipated that this effort to claim credit for the intelligence services, though badly needed in view of the mounting criticism at home and in America, would provoke embarrassing questions which the Government was in no position to answer satisfactorily. The stand that Mr Macmillan took earlier this week that the questions impinged on national security could have been taken three weeks ago and the Government would have escaped the consequent embarrassment.
Members of Parliament naturally asked: Why was Mr Philby given a clean bill by Mr Macmillan as the Foreign Secretary in 1955 if he was still being investigated? Why was he recommended for employment by the Observer and The Economist by the Foreign Office? When did he make the confession? Was an effort made to get him back to this country so that he could be tried? When was his passport renewed? The Government could not answer any one of these and other similarly embarrassing .questions. One can only speculate why Mr Heath was given such a bad brief. He did not even know that Mr Philby came home every year. Apparently the Government acted in panic and panic is a bad counsellor.
Long before the present controversy arose Mr Philby had himself volunteered information which clearly established his association with the escape of Mr Burgess and Mr Maclean. He had told a researcher collecting material for a book, Burgess and Maclean, by Mr Anthony Purdy and Mr Douglas Sutherland that he had discussed with Mr Burgess a Foreign Office report which listed Mr Maclean as one of three officials suspected of leaking information to Russia. He claimed that there was no reason for him not to do so since Mr Burgess was also engaged in security work at that time. Mr Philby was then first secretary at the British embassy in Washington and Mr Burgess was also posted there. Mr Burgess was living with Mr Philby. It is relevant to recall this admission to show that his part in the Burgess-Maclean affair could not have come as a complete surprise to the British Government if indeed he made the confession at all.
Double Agent
Mr Philby defection and the widespread suspicion that he was a double agent has inevitably recalled attention to the case of another double agent. George Blake, who was sentenced to 42 years’ imprisonment on May 3, 1961. Mr Blake was in Beirut before being recalled, tried and convicted on the charge of passing on information to Russia. My reason for referring to him is that an interesting version of his case has recently appeared in a book, Spy Mysteries Unveiled, by one Colonel Vernon Hinchley.
Colonel Hinchley has rejected the official prosecution version that Mr Blake broke down when he was captured and arrested in Korea in June 1950. He has quoted the testimony of reliable witnesses in support of this view. According to him, Mr Blake was betrayed by one of his agents in East Berlin much later and fell into Russian hands. He agreed to spy for Russia to escape imprisonment but immediately informed his superior. His career was cut short when a German named Mr Horst Eitner, also a double agent for Britain and Russia, was discovered by the West German secret police and he denounced Mr Blake. Colonel Hinchley has it that Mr Blake was given the savage sentence so that the Russians could continue to believe the reports he had fed them on the Middle East.
Colonel Hinchley’s story may not be true but it is not altogether implausible. Mr Khrushchev was just joking when he told Mr Allan Dulles, former chief of America’s Central Intelligence Agency, that it was about time they stopped paying two salaries to spies working for both of them. Double agents are as much in business as agents. In the case of Mr Philby it looks as if the Russians turned the tables on their British counterparts – that is they inspired reports which were fed to the British. In this kind of business one cannot be too sure. It cannot be ruled out that the British intelligence placed him in the Middle East precisely because it was aware of his Russian associations or encouraged him to develop such an association. It is likely that it was a highly delicate operation that went wrong at some point. Whomever Mr Philby might have served primarily the Observer is greatly embarrassed.
Once masters in the game of espionage and counter-espionage the British Intelligence Services have been floundering for some time. It will take them a long time indeed to be rehabilitated after the current series of scandals starting with Mr Vassal and ending with Mr Anatoli Dolnystin with a corporal thrown in between. Corporal Patchett was assigned to secret work with the British army on the Rhine. When he was vetted the opinion of the vicar of his parish church was considered so conclusive that the former employer, who had dismissed him for unreliability, was not even approached. In Mr Vassal’s case the testimony of two old ladies was regarded sufficient. Mr Dolnystin is a category apart.
Last week, the Daily Telegraph came to know of the presence of a Russian defector in this country. It made a routine check and promptly came the “D” notice, which is a request not to publish something in the national interest. It said: “You are earnestly requested not to mention the fact that a Russian defector, Mr Anatoli Dolnystin, is in this country and is providing important intelligence information. Apart from national security it is essential no detail should be published about Mr Dolnystin because of possible danger to his life”.
Biggest Catch
This was the first time that newspapers other than The Daily Telegraph heard about the defector and even The Daily Telegraph had no details to divulge. It is interesting that all British newspapers put the same interpretation on this unintended disclosure. It was reported to be the biggest catch since Mr Petrov’s defection in Australia and Mr Gouzenko’s in Canada. It was claimed to be a British achievement. The Americans were furious that while they had kept his presence in their country a secret for one year, the British had, even if indiscreetly, blurted out his name.
It bears mentioning that on the slender evidence of President Kennedy’s friendship with Mr Benjamin Bradley and Mr Charles Bartlett, the American journalists who broke the Philby story, Mr Robert Kennedy, the Attorney-General, is being blamed for the leaks. His purpose is “said to be to arouse reaction in the Senate and the Congress against giving Britain the Polaris’ secrets and leading to the scrapping of the Nassau agreement” and “to force Mr Macmillan out of office so that American plans for a nuclear weapons monopoly in the West can go ahead”. The speculation is absurd but quite appropriate in the atmosphere in and around Whitehall, Westminster, Fleet Street and the fashionable clubs in Saint James’s Street.
The Times of India, 20 July 1963