Master Spy, The : The Story of Kim Philby

Rating:
Summary: OK Effort, Nothing Really New
Review: Boy was MI5 asleep at the wheel. It is really something that this level of KGB penetration could take place, especially in a government that was so focused on the issue of stopping the spread of communism. This book details the Blunt, Burgess, Philby, Maclean and Cairncross USSR spy ring inside the British intelligence services. This books main theme is trying to tell the story of one of the 5 spies as the leader of the whole enterprise - Kim Philby. The book basically unfolds as a biography of Philby, instead of an overall review of the full ring. Philby being the subject of the book, the author goes out of his way to increase his involvement in the spy ring thus increase the readers interested in the book. He does a good job here, both with the detailed history and the way Philby interacted with the others in the spy ring. The book rather closely follows the other literature on the topic. I was a little put off by all the detail of Philby's best know personality trait, homosexuality
Regarding the telling of the story the author does a good job. The book was a bit jumpy, not the best construction of a story. It also tended to drag at times; the author did not have the skill to present a laundry list of facts in an interesting way. The author did do a very good job in documenting his sources. I have read a few books on this topic and this one would probably not be my first choice, I suggest Spy Catcher. This is a good book if you are deeply interested in the topic.

Rating:
Summary: OK Effort, Nothing Really New
Review: Boy was MI5 asleep at the wheel. It is really something that this level of KGB penetration could take place, especially in a government that was so focused on the issue of stopping the spread of communism. This book details the Blunt, Burgess, Philby, Maclean and Cairncross USSR spy ring inside the British intelligence services. This books main theme is trying to tell the story of one of the 5 spies as the leader of the whole enterprise - Kim Philby. The book basically unfolds as a biography of Philby, instead of an overall review of the full ring. Philby being the subject of the book, the author goes out of his way to increase his involvement in the spy ring thus increase the readers interested in the book. He does a good job here, both with the detailed history and the way Philby interacted with the others in the spy ring. The book rather closely follows the other literature on the topic. I was a little put off by all the detail of Philby's best know personality trait, homosexuality
Regarding the telling of the story the author does a good job. The book was a bit jumpy, not the best construction of a story. It also tended to drag at times; the author did not have the skill to present a laundry list of facts in an interesting way. The author did do a very good job in documenting his sources. I have read a few books on this topic and this one would probably not be my first choice, I suggest Spy Catcher. This is a good book if you are deeply interested in the topic.

Rating:
Summary: Solid reporting, poor analysis
Review: Knightley scored a tremendous journalistic scoop in 1988 -- the ability to interview Harold Adrian Russell (Kim) Philby, the KGB's greatest success story in penetrating the West's intelligence services, in Moscow. Philby rose throught the ranks of British intelligence to become the head of Soviet counterintelligence in MI6 (Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service) even though he was a Soviet penetration agent (a mole). As it happened, the interviews with the then 76-year old Philby took place shortly before Philby died. Knightley then fashioned the interviews and his own previous research on the Cambridge spies (Maclean, Burgess, Blunt, Cairncross and Philby) into this semi-sympathetic biography. Knightley quotes Philby extensively, even on issues not directly related to Philby's actions; and a result is that the book is often a soapbox from the grave for Britain's worst traitor.

To his credit, Knightley jams the book full of insider facts and information on operations of the CIA, MI5 and MI6 (which is always referred to as SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service). He also shows both how good and lucky Philby was to not get caught. The book has a great deal of information and Knightley's research is thorough.

Unfortunately Knightley's conclusions are suspect. He makes some rather inane asides: claiming the Rosenbergs did not give any valuable information to the Soviets (he was later proven incorrect after the CIA declassified the Venona files); claiming that British newspapers would not publish Philby's writings when he had journalistic non-official cover if they had been found anti-Semitic (which is preposterous on its face if you read the Independent or Knightley's own Guardian; for anti-Israel readers, you'd be outraged at the Telegraph); and the ludicrous concept that J. Edgar Hoover cleared Philby of espionage. Hoover blew the whistle on Philby and attempted to push the issue (as Knightley shows), but the British Foreign Office and SIS covered up and denied the undeniable -- Philby's spying for the USSR -- yet Knightley attributes blame for this bungling to Hoover.

Other problems are found in Knightley's repeated failures to connect cause and effect, generally in the area of American distrust of British intelligence agencies. The US "McCarthyite" aura in the FBI and CIA that Knightley claims existed, and which he claims made SIS so reluctant to investigate American allegations that SIS had been penetrated by the KGB, did not exist because of Joe McCarthy's railing against Hollywood, but instead was a justified reaction to fears of Soviet penetration. US intelligence had known since 1937, when Walter Krivitsky defected from the USSR, that the Soviets had a mole in British intelligence (Krivitsky's information clearly pointed to Philby, no one in Britain looked, and the US did not have a full-time counterintelligence agency until the CIA was formed in 1948; Philby first came into the US picture as SIS liaison in 1949). In 1944-45 US intercepted the Venona transmissions to the USSR and deciphered them to learn that a Soviet agent (Maclean) was moving up the ranks in the British Foreign Office. By 1951, the US was closing in on Maclean (who had been re-posted in Turkey in '49 and back in the US in '51) with no help from the British. Maclean escaped, with help from Burgess. In 1951-52, the FBI and CIA began connecting Philby to the USSR. In the face of this, the SIS did nothing, and MI5 repeatedly bungled the Philby investigation.

Despite the vague moral equivalence Knightley displays, he nonetheless tells a well-researched tale that is worth a look for espionage-history fans.