Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess

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Summary: Ex U.S. Envoy Questions Philby Legend
Review: S.J. Hamrick's study of an associated trio among the most infamous British 20th Century spies is a major step forward in Cold War history. He starts what may become the cracking of the myth surrounding Harold A. R. (Kim) Philby, the Soviet agent many blame for failures of several paramilitary operations the West mounted within the Soviet empire. Unfortunately, Hamrick offers little hard evidence to back up his attack on this outsized mythical spy.

But the author is also able to turn that lack of evidence into the basis of his assault on Philby's storification. Much of the Philby legend was created by the subject spy himself in his book, "My Secret War". In the mid-1980s, British journalist Lord Nicholas Bethell added to the Philby legend by giving the Cambridge University-educated double agent credit as the main reason a British-American paramilitary operation in Albania failed. Bethell offered little or no evidence besides Philby's book, some comments from retired intelligence officers, and lots of airy speculation that Philby must have been to blame. Hamrick correctly offers a timeline that shows how unlikely that Bethell's thesis was accurate.

"It is impossible to believe Philby had the means for any timely disclosure of OPC (a U.S. psychological warfare agency overseen by the CIA, State Department and military) individual operational plans or that he would even have found it necessary," he wrote. Hamrick echos other observers and participants - British and American - who view the Albanian projects as carrying the weight of their own ultimate failure in the "futility of their numbers and purpose". There were too few bravely enthusiastic, but naive, Albanian mountaineers sent home by air, land and sea to overthrow a nasty Communist regime whose internal security forces were trained by the Soviet NKVD.

Two storm flags must be raised about the Hamrick work. One is the theory he postulates that the U.S. and British militaries used Philby as a conduit to pass disinformation to the Soviets. Thin evidence is the problem. The second is Hamrick's apparent failure to consult several works that contained major materiel germane to the Philby-Albania case, such as those by Burton Hersh, C.L. Sulzberger, Noel Malcolm and Enver Hoxha. He writes about the oft-criticized CIA counterspy James J. Angleton and the Office of Special Operations, a CIA branch that competed with the OPC for foreign agents and resources. But he also misses the most successful Western infiltration of Albania by agents sponsored by the CIA/OSO and Italian Naval Intelligence.