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

23:45David:And they say, you know, you're doing 80 miles per hour. And Burgess supposedly replies going, I was doing at least 100, which is not what you're supposed to say. Presumably, he's drunk also. 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.

24:21David: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 through the police to the British ambassador. It's like, you know, that guy Burgess. Three speeding tickets. Two speeding tickets, hitchhiker in the car, drunk, you know. And I think he turns up, supposedly, at the Citadel for his thing, gives a speech which is slightly anti-American, and then goes and sits back 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.

24:58David:They're like, Burgess, you're out. You know, you're suspended. It's time to go. And Philby claims that this was a plan. This was the idea. But, I mean, do you buy it or do you think that Burgess was just getting drunk? Was he just because all of this feels in pattern for Burgess? 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 whether Philby sometimes, particularly when he tells his story, there's quite a lot of hindsight and making out everything is a master plan, when actually I think things might have been a bit more chaotic.

25:36David:But anyway, the result is that Burgess is being sent back and he's going to be able to warn Donald McClane. 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 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 thing I don't think that's a thing I don't think that's a thing.

26:13David:It's a thing in this restaurant. 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 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. But it's Burgess.

26:46David:It's Burgess. He might do the opposite of what you tell him to do. Yes, because Philby knows that would be a disaster. 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.

27:34You've done nothing!

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28:22Start today at equinox.com. This episode is brought to you by Palmolive. Family time isn't just the big moments. It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once. So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra. Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. Well, welcome back. Mark 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.

29:08David: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 dom, 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. What does that mean, surveyor of the pictures?

29:50David:So you are basically, you're in charge of the Royal Art Collection. Okay, you're the curator. You're the curator of the Royal Art Collection. and he's a kind of superior diffident character i think in many ways he's the mystery man of the spy ring i mean in 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 happen 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.

30:30David: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. 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 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.

31:08David:That's the best thing. And Filby, 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 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 signal it's a signal yeah philby knows that mi5 are watching and that at some point They're going to move towards picking up McLean and arresting him.

31:46David: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've been there? 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? 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. Okay. Is that slang for police?

32:23David:Maybe in those times, but that's the phrase he used. And he actually even points them out, the people who are following them. Oh, they don't like that when you point at them. 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, but he's watching them. But he is, McLean is under, like there actually is consistent surveillance on him at this point. Yes. So he's not imagining this. 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.

32:56David:McLean runs the America Department for the Foreign Office. So they're friends. So it's not a kind of intrinsically suspicious. and mcclain 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 yeah he now realizes this isn't just some random bit of surveillance they are really onto 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 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 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 but here's the slight i find this almost bizarre the the surveillance is on him but they don't work after 8 p.m or on weekends, the surveillance.

33:59David: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. It's too inconvenient? I mean, look, I find this odd now. And nowadays, I mean, I think we know if the Thebes or MI5 were onto you, they'd surveil you 24-7, wouldn't they? Or at least if they were really worried. But I guess the thing is, surveillance is a game of resources at the end of the day. They're not infinite. And so you do have to think about how you allocate teams and the timings that you'd allocate them and all of that.

34:40Because he's not the only person that MI5 is interested in this period. 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 truly made its way from the Venona trips into London, you would think, and you know this guy's cracking up, you would think it would be like a 24-7 operation.

35:07David:Yeah, and it's not. I think 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 of people who are in first class who all know each other by sight. So if you suddenly put MI5 watchers on that, actually people are going to go, who's the news people on the train? 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 we'll just follow him in London during working hours. This will prove to be a mistake.

35:42David:I mean, he's on an immigration watch list, so they can't get him false papers from the Soviet side. 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? 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 gives birth. But it's coming in the next kind of days, days or weeks.

36:21David: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. Are there rooms on the boat? Yeah. Okay. It's a kind of overnight boat where you have a cabin and you go around.

36:58David: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. Oh, interesting. So it's a very specific type of route or journey. Very convenient. Very convenient. From the KGB standpoint, if you're trying to exfil somebody. 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.

37:40David:Again, just like gets into some fights, 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 what do you think he's planning at this point 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 He doesn't want to go to Moscow.

38:38David:You know, it's Guy Burgess. This is not a guy who's, you know. His lifestyle might be frowned upon. His lifestyle might be frowned upon. He loves London clubs, drinking and, you know, picking up men. That's his life. So, 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. Because he's not under suspicion. He's not under suspicion or implicated. But of course, it's Guy Burgess, you know, 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?

39:20David:And also, they've realized that McLean is so fragile that he needs an escort to get across Europe after getting off the boat. Otherwise, he won't make it. Otherwise, he may not make it. 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. Hence the Jane Austen collected works. And the money and the dinner jacket. He's going to need some reading material along the way. And 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. Oh, okay.

40:02David:And there's a bit of ambiguity about this. And no one, I mean, to some extent, only Guy Burgess, who's 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. 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 9 p.m mclean goes upstairs kisses his kids good night 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 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 um and they sail off into the distance so you know this is the moment which they disappeared burgess and mcclain will get off the boat uh on the saturday morning at 9 a.m 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 because you know you don't want to be taken because the whole point is it's not supposed to be a stop where you get off he's not taking the collected works of jane austin i wonder if he left them on the boat and he probably did ah and he's surrounded by probably took the cash uh 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.

41:59David:Monday morning, Melinda McLean, Donald's wife, calls the foreign office saying her husband is missing. So she's probably in on it. I think the view is she knew he was a spy 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 already some messages which are going around government on Saturday going, has McLean fled? 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.

42:35David:We were suspicious about McLean, but Burgess? Yeah. It's a shock. 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 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. 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?

43:24I think so, yeah. Is it sort of like if you're at the KGB, you look at him and you say, if we leave him in place, he's going to blow things up. He's going to blow things up.

43:32David:And of course, also Burgess, remember, he's just got suspended from the Foreign Office. you know he his career is also on a very much downward path so his value as an intelligence asset is pretty limited 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 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 Cairncross who's another one of the Cambridge spying.

44:32David:I mean, Blunt has also been asked by the KGB, don't you want to flee? But Blunt, surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, has got no interest in going to Moscow. This is not a man for whom... So he's like, no, no, no, I'm not going. And of course, Sir Philby, I mean, this is an absolute disaster. Burgess has been living in his basement. Yeah. And Philby can recollect the moment he finds out, because 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. Kim, could your secretary help decrypt this telegram?

45:08David:Because it's a bit of a pain to decrypt it. And when the work is complete, the man reads the telegram and looks gray. And he says, Kim, the bird, meaning McLean, has flown. There's worse than that. Guy Burgess has gone with him. Does Philby talk about this in the tape that you unearthed from the Stassi archive? Because he's such an impactful moment. Yeah. He says it's like a thunderclap because he suddenly knows this is a disaster for him. Because actually he hadn't been very close to McLean. He hadn't been friends with him. He hadn't seen him socially. There's not much contact. But he'd just been living in his flat.

45:48David:In his house, yeah. I mean, it's a disaster. 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 fled. So there's somebody else. I mean, immediately it raises this question of there's at least a third man. 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 there is an escape plan in which he would flee via either the Caribbean or Mexico.

46:29David:But it is interesting because he thinks, no, I'm not going to run. Yeah. I think 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 seems like there are multiple points in this story where he could have cracked up. He could have decided, I'm out and I've had enough. But he kind of just decides to tough it out and figures that by facing it and essentially when questions are put to him denying everything and pushing the blame elsewhere that he can outlast. Yeah. And I think it's one of the absolutely fascinating characteristics of Filby is he's, whatever you think about his morality, he's got guts to kind of, he doesn't choose to run.

47:16David: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 been ahead of counterintelligence against the Soviets and he's been in Washington watching the mole hunts.

47:51David:So he kind of knows that if people are going to 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. Yeah. Well, if you run the counterfactual and think about what might have happened if McLean had actually been arrested, Philby has to understand that the decrypted Venona messages would not have been introduced in court. So the eventual case against McLean would have hinged very much on McLean eventually confessing while being interrogated.

48:35And of course, because he was in such a chaotic mental state, he probably would have. I mean, he said so himself.

48:40David:But maybe not implicating others. And so Philby knows that he has the advantage of he has not been identified specifically from the Venona decrypts. Yeah. And he also knows that even if he were, he wouldn't crack under pressure. Yeah. And the evidence against him is is circumstantial. Right. So he knows, OK, 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 into their sights so on that day that he finds out about burgess and mcclain having fled you know gets that telegram first thing in the morning he says i'm going off i need a drink because this news has shocked me which i think it has so he says i need a stiff drink uh but instead of going to the bar he goes home goes down into the basement Burgess's den 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 yeah classic intel officer behavior of you know you want the you want a walk in your pattern of life for some movement.

50:13So anyone who's watching him is going to think, he always does this. He always does this. It's also why intelligence officers like to have dogs. Because you take a dog out, walk the dog around a park. So there's a reason for him to do this.

50:25David:This doesn't look suspicious. Yeah, it's perfect. 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. 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. And he's on his normal walking route. There's absolutely nothing, you know, anyone watching or trying to reconstruct his day would say he got this calamitous news.

51:08Goes for a walk. He goes for a walk to clear his head. Peas on the walk. There's nothing weird at all about this day.

51:14David: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 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, does he suspect Philby? Has he already heard that there's suspicions? Not clear? Is it a test? I don't think that's entirely clear whether he trusts him or not.

51:54Does the institutional angle matter here? Because both Burgess and McLean were foreign office guys. Yeah. And obviously all of the intelligence that MI6 or the CIA is collecting, not being passed to the foreign office.

52:09David:Yeah. So in Angleton's mind, in the mind of the Americans more generally, you could sort of say, this is a foreign office problem. Not an MI6 problem. Not an MI6 problem. Right. Who knows? And I think Angleton's always, when Angleton begins to suspect Philby is 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. Who probably now looks at Burgess leaving and saying, I knew he was a deranged pervert. Yeah. Now I know that he was a spy. And where did I meet him last? Kim Philby's house on Nebraska Avenue.

52:52David:So, you know, so Bill Harvey, as everyone's going like, well, who tipped off Burgess and McLean? You can see Bill Harvey, the man whose wife got caricatured by Burgess at Philby's house, is like, I've got my suspicions of who did it. And I mean, Harvey now legitimately does think that Philby is involved. 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 Declassify 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.

53:58David:We'll see you next time.

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