Episode 1 Kim Philby - His Most Intimate Betrayal

RECORDING: 'They think I'm a bloody

communist.

You must fight like hell.

'I'm offering you a lifeline.'

'I rather thought it would be you.'

Intuition.

'Must be.'

The conversation that followed

is one of the

most important documents of the

Cold War.

A confrontation between two friends

and two spies.

The brutal culmination

of a deadly game.

'So, to what do I owe the pleasure?'

Unfortunately?

We've new information.

Lord, do we really have to go

over that rubbish again?

'Your past has caught up with you,

Kim. The game's up.'

So you're here to interrogate me?

To persuade an innocent man

to confess?

For God's sake,

we know you're a Soviet agent, Kim!

Don't you understand?

If you knew what I know...

Kim Philby is the most famous

double agent in history.

But a quarter century

after his death,

he has become a caricature,

the gentleman master spy.

The real Kim Philby was

a man of contradictions.

Charming and courteous, but also

a fanatic and a ruthless killer.

He deceived everyone around him.

'There's no getting away, Kim.'

RECORDING SKIPS:

'There's no getting,

there's no getting away, Kim...

'This is over my head.'

Yes. I suppose it would be.

I thought I was talking to a friend.

So did I, Kim, so did I!

You took me in for years.

I looked up to you, you know?

I was on your side.

My God, I despise you now.

I only hope you have the

decency left to understand why.

Philby had lived a double

life for decades.

And the key to his success

and his survival lay in his

friendship with Nicholas Elliott,

the colleague in MI6 who

befriended him, defended him

and unwittingly supplied him

with secrets...

until he discovered the truth.

Their showdown in a Beirut apartment

marked the final chapter

in an extraordinary story of

espionage, murder

and intimate betrayal.

The story began in Berlin in 1939.

The occasion -

Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday.

One of the largest military

parades in history.

An orchestrated exhibition of

Nazi hero worship.

The parade was watched by a

22-year-old Englishman

named Nicholas Elliott.

Standing on the balcony of a Berlin

apartment,

he viewed the Nazi celebrations

with a mixture of awe and horror.

Elliott was a young man of simple

but firm convictions.

He believed in king and country.

But he was also a romantic

and an adventurer,

brought up on spy novels

and tales of derring-do.

When Elliott left Berlin,

he returned home convinced

of two things - that Hitler must be

stopped at all costs,

and his best way of contributing

to that cause

would be to become a spy.

It was all very easy.

One moment, Nicholas Elliott was

standing here at Ascot

watching the favourite, Quashed,

come romping home at 7-2...

..and the next he was

sharing a drink

with his father's friend

Sir Robert Vansittart,

or "Van", who just happened

to have been

the Under-Secretary

of State for Foreign Affairs.

Elliott explained to

Van that he thought

he might like to join

the intelligence service.

Vansittart had close links with the

Secret Intelligence Service,

better known as MI6.

He simply smiled and said,

"I am relieved you have asked me

for something so easy."

"And that," as Nicholas Elliott

wrote many years later, "was that."

Elliott was born to rule,

and membership of the

most exclusive club in Britain

seemed like a pretty good place

to start.

By the time war broke

out in September 1939,

Elliott was already a member

of the British secret service,

and found himself, somewhat

to his surprise, in prison.

Wormwood Scrubs, the Victorian

prison in west London, had been

adopted as the wartime headquarters

of the British Security Service.

It was a bizarre place to work -

malodorous and dingy,

with some of the inmates

still in residence.

But Elliott adored his new life.

He was now running double agents.

These were enemy spies who had

been intercepted

and persuaded to spy for Britain.

Elliot was fighting a war

that was important,

exciting and deadly secret.

As the Blitz hammered London,

Elliott was elated by

the feeling of camaraderie

in the bomb-battered city.

One of his fellow

intelligence officers

was a man who would define

the rest of his life.

His name was

Harold Adrian Russell Philby,

better known as Kim.

Kim Philby and Nicholas Elliott

were cut from the same,

rather expensive cloth.

Both had been

formed by their public schools,

both their fathers had been to

Trinity College, Cambridge,

where they became friends, and both

sons had obediently followed

in their fathers' footsteps to the

very same college.

My father had a very conventional

English upper-class upbringing.

His father, Claude Elliott,

was a don at Cambridge.

He was raised by nannies,

and he was the kind of person who

actually was happiest in an all-male

environment all throughout his life.

He loved Eton, he loved

White's club, an all-male club,

he loved the gentlemen's

pavilion at Lord's.

And at close of play he was 55

not out, and half-cut at that!

'I think Kim and my father very much

did speak other's language,

'because of their similar

backgrounds.'

Kim was as close

a friend as he ever had.

War is going to play havoc

with the averages.

Did you know Eddie Paynter was

averaging 60 a test

before Adolf stopped play?

Well, at least there is

still some cricket at Lord's.

Jolly good for morale. Was thinking

we might set something up ourselves.

A team?

Yes, what do you think?

I haven't played

since prep school, old boy.

In any case, I'm rather

suspicious of all that exercise.

Heavy drinkers shouldn't make

sudden or violent movements

in my opinion - it upsets the body

system and causes headaches.

In addition to Kim's enormous charm,

he had a wonderful ability,

actually, to make you feel that you

were the most important person

in his world at that time...

to whom he would give his full

attention.

You're a Trinity man, aren't you?

Yes, went up in '30.

Oh, me too,

'35. Barely scraped a third.

Triumph over the examiners.

Sterling effort.

Philby loved to laugh

and he loved to listen.

He looked into your eyes with

perfect sincerity

and rapt curiosity.

As one contemporary said of him,

"You didn't just like him,

admire him,

"agree with him...

"you worshipped him."

Philby's admission into the secret

services had been as swift

and easy as that of Elliott, and by

much the same informal route.

He simply dropped a few hints

here and there

and waited for the old-boy network

to invite him into the club.

In the summer of 1940,

Philby arrived here

at St Ermin's Hotel,

just off St James's Park, in London.

Here he met Miss Marjorie Maxse,

Chief of Staff of Section D -

MI6's training school

for propaganda, sabotage

and covert paramilitary operations.

The D stood for "destruction".

Young Kim Philby was just the sort

of chap Miss Maxse was looking for.

He had been to the right sort

of school and the right university.

And she had a watertight guarantee

from the deputy head of MI6,

who gave what may be the

quintessential definition

of Britain's old-boy network -

"I was asked about him,

and said I knew his people."

Philby, like Elliott,

was now a member

of the most

exclusive club in the country.

The friendship between the two men

grew closer when they were

deployed to Glenalmond, a large

Victorian house in St Albans

codenamed "War Station XB",

some 20 miles north of the capital.

It is now, rather charmingly,

a nursery school.

XB was code for

"counter intelligence".

Elliott was responsible

for attacking German espionage

in the Nazi-occupied

Netherlands, while Philby

was in charge of

counter-intelligence

in Spain and Portugal.

In this line of work...

Yes.

I can imagine.

It goes with the job.

Philby and Elliott,

the Young Turks of MI6,

would now be fighting the spy war

shoulder to shoulder.

Did you say

we'd be sharing an office?

I believe so. It rather depends

on the formidable Miss Pettigrew.

So she's the boss, is she?

Philby was adored by one and all,

but nobody admired him more

than Nicholas Elliott,

who saw him as a role model,

the epitome

of the gentleman spy,

a man who played by the most

honourable rules.

In 1942, Philby's friend

Nicholas Elliott was promoted.

He left the leafy confines

of St Albans for

the rather more exotic climes

of Istanbul.

Here, he took up a new role -

combating German espionage

on the ground in neutral Turkey, and

reporting back to MI6...and Philby.

Once in Istanbul, Elliott was

technically attached

to the embassy as a junior diplomat.

But in reality, his task was to

attack the Abwehr,

German military intelligence,

which ran a large

and highly efficient network

of agents throughout the country.

The job was dangerous,

exciting and unconventional.

It involved a great deal of hanging

around in bars and nightclubs,

including the glamorous Pera Palace

and the seedy Taksim's.

Taksim's was a restaurant,

nightclub, cabaret

and casino all rolled into one.

But it was also the spy

centre of Istanbul.

It was run by a Russian who took

bribes from everybody

and did his best to seat

rival spies

at adjacent tables,

to makes eavesdropping easier.

As Elliott wrote, "There are more

people involved in skulduggery here

"than any other city in the world."

Elliott fell in love with Istanbul

and with his secretary,

a vivacious 21-year-old of

impeccable breeding

called Elizabeth Holberton.

My parents both talked about their

time in Istanbul with

a great deal of love and affection.

They wound up falling

in love and having a romance.

And of course it was the most

wonderful romantic milieu,

right out of Casablanca, in a way,

with all these dubious characters.

You know, Yaroslav Stenko,

Popovski - people,

you know, with marvellous names,

dubious Hungarian countesses,

intrigue, you name it.

I mean, it's paradoxical

because the war was being fought.

It was a wonderful time

in their lives.

The war made it impossible

for Philby to get to Istanbul

for the wedding.

But within months,

the two old friends were working

together again

on what would turn out to be

one of the greatest

intelligence breakthroughs

of the Second World War.

In 1943, a young German Catholic,

Erich Vermehren,

decided to take a personal stand

against Adolf Hitler.

He believed that the Fuhrer

was destroying his beloved homeland.

As an officer in

German military intelligence,

based in Istanbul,

Vermehren had access to

a treasure trove of Nazi secrets.

Now, after months of soul searching,

he decided to hand this cache over

to British intelligence.

Two days after Christmas,

at about seven in the evening,

Erich Vermehren made his way here,

to an apartment in

a smart residential area

of central Istanbul.

Nicholas Elliott was about

to pull off

the biggest coup of his career.

Vermehren was

understandably nervous

but Elliott and handled him

with skill and patience.

He reassured him that defecting

was an act of supreme moral courage

that would inflict

a devastating blow on Nazism,

but arranging his escape to Britain

would take time.

Under Elliott's direction,

Vermehren began to gather

every scrap of damaging information

in the files of German intelligence,

including a complete description of

the German spy network in Istanbul.

But time was running out.

The Germans already suspected

Vermehren of disloyalty

and they were closing in.

On 27th January,

Erich Vermehren and his wife

attended a cocktail party

at the Spanish Embassy in Istanbul.

As they were leaving,

they were seized by two men

and bundled into a waiting car.

The scene was stage-managed

by Nicholas Elliott,

to buy time by making it seem

as though they had been kidnapped.

The couple were driven to a remote

point on the Turkish coast

and transferred to

a fast motor launch.

Within hours they were in Cairo,

still wearing their party clothes.

From there, they were flown

to London

where they were greeted

by none other than Kim Philby,

who had offered his mother's flat

in South Kensington

as the ideal spot

to debrief Vermehren.

For the next fortnight,

Kim Philby and Nicholas Elliott

extracted every detail

from this high-level

German defector.

This is an absolute treasure trove!

If it's all true.

If?

What if he's a double agent?

Hasn't it occurred to you?

If this is a set-up...

You've looked in his eyes

the same as I have, Nick.

What did you see there?

Conviction.

That man would do anything to stop

the Reds taking over his country

as soon as this is all said and done.

And who can blame him?

This is an absolute bloody triumph,

Nick.

It's your triumph.

Hitler exploded with rage

when told of Vermehren's treachery.

He was now convinced that

the German intelligence service

was riddled with traitors.

In a matter of weeks,

the German secret service

was dismantled

and its leaders ousted,

leaving Germany vulnerable

at a critical moment,

with just three months

to go before D-day.

Elliott was now the darling of MI6.

But Nicholas Elliott's great triumph

was not really a triumph at all.

Philby had a secret

that his friend

knew nothing about.

Two years earlier,

Kim Philby travelled

from St Albans to London

carrying a bulging briefcase.

After completing a round of visits

to MI5 and MI6,

he descended into the depths

St James's Park Tube.

He let the first train leave

without boarding.

Then he waited until

every other passenger

had boarded the next train,

before slipping on

just as the doors closed.

Two stops later,

he alighted

and caught a train

in the opposite direction.

When he was certain that

he was not being followed,

Philby made his way

to Regent's Park.

Here, a stocky, fair-haired man

was waiting for him on a bench.

They shook hands,

Philby handed over

a bundle of papers

and then returned home to St Albans.

Had his good friend Nicholas Elliott

examined the papers,

he would have been first shocked

and then mortified.

Here was a detailed description

of British counter-intelligence,

its personnel, operations, aims,

successes and failures,

all written out in Kim Philby's

neat, tiny handwriting.

But there was one passage

in particular

that would have left Elliot aghast.

"Mr Nicholas Elliott. 24, 5' 9",

"brown hair, prominent lips,

black glasses.

"Ugly and rather pig-like

to look at.

"Good brain, good sense of humour.

"Likes a drink but

was recently very ill and now,

"as a consequence, drinks little."

Elliott would have been

still more astonished

to discover that

his so-called friend

was an agent of Stalin's

intelligence service,

an experienced Soviet spy

of eight years' standing,

with his own codename - "Sonny."

So, while Philby and Elliot

may have seemed like brothers,

they couldn't have been

more different.

Kim Philby led a life

that Nicholas Elliott,

his dear friend

and closest colleague,

knew nothing about.

He did not know that Philby

had joined MI6

not as an eager patriot like himself

but in Philby's own words

as a "penetration agent

in the Soviet interest".

Did you say we'll be

sharing an office?

I believe so. It rather depends

on the formidable Miss Pettigrew.

Oh, so she's the boss, is she?

He didn't know that during their

long, convivial evenings together,

Philby was hard at work,

absorbing his friend's secrets

as fast as the gin,

and passing it all on to Moscow.

Elliott had spent his time

at Cambridge enjoying himself,

immune to the violent political

currents which swept up Philby

and many other clever, angry,

ideological young men.

Among them was Guy Burgess,

a flamboyant homosexual

with a streak of devilry,

who had also wormed his way

into British intelligence.

And Donald Maclean,

a highly strung

and highly intelligent linguist

who had already distinguished

himself at the Foreign Office.

With Fascism on the march

across Europe,

to many, communism seemed

the only viable alternative.

Philby and his friends believed

they were taking a moral

and ideological stand.

At least, that is how

their secret revolution began.

These three men left Cambridge

secretly and entirely

committed to communism.

They were the most unlikely

of revolutionaries,

members of the British Establishment

hellbent on destroying it.

The recruitment of Kim Philby

was straight out of

a cheap spy novel.

In June 1934, he came here,

to Regent's Park,

to meet a man he knew only as Otto.

Otto would induct him

into the Russian secret service

and set him on the path

to high treason.

Otto's real name was Arnold Deutsch.

He was short and stout,

in his early 30s,

with curly fair hair

and piercing blue eyes.

He would become the prime architect

of what would later be known as

the Cambridge spy ring.

Otto instructed Philby

in the art of spy craft -

how to arrange a meeting,

where to leave messages,

how to detect

if his telephone was bugged.

Otto also presented Philby

with a new camera to copy documents.

Philby memorised Deutsch's lessons

like poetry.

His double life had begun.

One of his first jobs

was to spy on his own father.

St John Philby was

a noted explorer and scholar

who the KGB wrongly believed

was also in intelligence.

But if asking Philby to spy

on his father

was a test of his resolve

and commitment,

Philby passed it easily.

He did whatever was asked of him.

He even reported on his wife

Aileen.

"Her views are like the majority

of the wealthy middle class,"

he wrote,

"bourgeois and philistine."

"She believes in upbringing,

the Royal Navy, personal freedom,

"honour, the constitutional system

and democracy.

"I am sure I can cure her

of these confusions."

This, then, was Kim Philby,

a man who was happy to

spy on his father, his wife

and his best friend.

This is an absolute treasure trove!

If it's all true.

When, in 1943, Elliott brought in

the German defector Erich Vermehren,

all was not quite as it seemed.

This is an absolute bloody triumph,

Nick.

And it's your triumph.

One of the most important items

of information

passed on by the Vermehrens

to Elliott and Philby

was a list of influential Germans

who opposed communism

and were determined to build

a new Germany

without Soviet influence.

With the Red Army poised

to march into Germany from the East,

MI6 did not pass this list

on to Moscow.

But Philby did.

He supplied a ready-made

shopping list of undesirables

to be liquidated

as the Red Army advanced.

After the war, Allied officers

went in search

of these anti-communist activists

and found none of them.

The Vermehrens believed

they were alerting MI6

to the men and women who would save

Germany from communism.

Unwittingly, they handed them over

to Moscow's death squads.

Thanks to Kim Philby's betrayal,

Elliott's moment of greatest triumph

was a secret, sordid tragedy.

With the Allied defeat of fascism

in 1945,

Philby and Elliott,

like so many others

who had come of age in the war,

began to wonder what

they would do with their lives

now that it was all over.

They decided to remain

in the intelligence game

and make a career of it.

Both had distinguished themselves

in the arcane arts of espionage,

both were destined

for rapid promotion.

And both saw

their ambitions realised

when a new war, the Cold War, began.

From Stettin in the Baltic

to Trieste in the Adriatic,

an Iron Curtain has descended

across the continent.

The West's new enemy

lay behind the Iron Curtain.

The game had changed.

But Kim Philby's allegiance had not.

To cope with the looming

Soviet menace,

MI6 set up a new section,

Section IX.

Philby, the Soviet mole,

set to work to ensure

that HE was chosen to run it.

Everybody spoke well of him,

people who worked with him,

and he would be an obvious choice.

He was very quick and very vocal,

he could talk well, you know?

He could put his ideas

into words and be convincing.

Philby was seen as a rising star

in British intelligence.

And in late 1944, he was told

that he would be in command

of Britain's new anti-Soviet unit.

The fox was now not just

guarding the hen coop

but building it, running it

and planning its future.

Moscow was ecstatic.

And so was Nicholas Elliott,

still completely unaware

that his friend Philby

was playing for the other side.

As the new conflict grew chillier,

Soviet defectors began to flee

to the West,

bringing with them some of

the Soviet Union's

most precious secrets.

On September 4th 1945,

a senior Soviet intelligence officer

named Konstantin Volkov

appeared at the British Consulate

in Istanbul.

In a state of terror,

he announced that he wished to

defect to the West with his wife.

Here was a potential espionage coup

of spectacular proportions,

a treasure trove of secrets

that could alter the balance

of power in international espionage

at a stroke.

But there was more.

Volkov also offered to identify

a key Soviet spy

inside British intelligence.

The spy in question,

he tantalisingly announced,

was currently the head of

a counter-espionage section

within MI6.

When Volkov's report

arrived in London,

it was delivered to the desk

of the new head of anti-Soviet

intelligence operations.

Philby read it with mounting horror

as it sunk in that the spy hinted at

by Volkov must be him.

This lone defector

had enough information

to expose and destroy him.

"That evening I worked late,"

Philby later wrote.

"The situation seemed to call

"for urgent action of

an extra-curricular nature."

He then arranged a hasty meeting

with his Soviet controller

and told him what had happened.

His instructions were,

"Stall, stall, stall."

Volkov would be dealt with.

The ruthless machinery

of Soviet intelligence

swung into action.

The next morning,

Philby was in his boss's office

to discuss what to do about

Volkov's extraordinary offer.

The obvious candidate to handle

the case was Nicholas Elliott,

who had already extracted one

important defector from Istanbul.

But the competent Elliott

was the very last person that Philby

wanted to take over the case.

Instead, he suggested

that he should go to Istanbul

and handle the defection

of Volkov himself.

His boss agreed,

and Philby was given the job.

He then did everything

he could to drag his feet

and give the Soviets time to act.

For three more days, he dawdled.

He was still packing

when the Turkish consulate in Moscow

issued visas

authorising two Soviet

diplomatic couriers

to travel to Istanbul.

It was not until 26th September

that Philby finally

arrived in Istanbul,

some 22 days

after Volkov's first contact.

The city was looking particularly

beautiful in the late-summer sun.

Philby reflected that if he could

not stop Volkov's defection,

this might be

the last memorable summer

he was destined to enjoy.

When Philby was asked why MI6

had not sent someone sooner,

he offered a bland lie.

"Sorry, old man, it would have

interfered with leave arrangements."

It was not until many years later

that officials began to question why

it had taken Philby quite so long

to get to Istanbul.

We all completely trusted him.

And nobody ever thought anything,

nobody had a suspicion.

Even people who'd known him

a long time.

He must have been

an extremely good actor.

When a call was eventually made

to Volkov,

Philby and his colleagues

at the embassy were told...

Then there was the sound

of a scuffle

and the line went dead.

To Philby, it all made

perfect sense.

The case was dead.

And so, by this point, was Volkov.

Volkov left no traces behind.

No photograph,

no file in the Russian archives

and no evidence about

his real motives.

Neither his family,

nor that of his wife,

has ever emerged from the darkness

of Stalin's state.

Volkov was not merely liquidated,

he was expunged.

Philby told his bosses

back in London that Volkov

had mysteriously disappeared,

and the case was closed.

But he knew perfectly well what had

really happened.

He later wrote that Volkov was

a "nasty piece of work"

who "got what he deserved".

The failure of the Volkov case

did nothing to impede Philby's

rise up the ranks.

He was now a prime

candidate to run MI6.

In 1946, he was informed

that he was to follow

in Elliott's footsteps,

as MI6 Station Chief in Istanbul.

He was briefed by Elliott.

Any tips?

Yes, watch out for the

guards on the Anatolian Express.

They're all in Soviet pay.

And spend a lot of time in Taksim's.

It's a rather...exciting place.

Absolutely crawling with spies.

I was there one night.

There was this beautiful

belly dancer with jet black hair,

shimmying about and all sorts.

The next thing I know, I look up

and she's collapsed in a heap, must

have turned her ankle or something.

Know what she said?

"Bugger!"

Well, so much for the exotic

East.

Well, quite!

Philby, like Elliott before him,

was pleased with his first

foreign posting.

He rented a villa on the shores

of the Bosphorous

and installed his growing family.

Armed with Elliott's introductions,

he slipped easily

into the spy society of Istanbul.

His main task was

infiltrating anti-communist agents

into the Soviet bloc

along a broad front -

the Ukraine, the Crimea, Georgia,

Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Philby found the work

fascinating...

and so did Moscow.

So, with one hand, Philby set up

infiltration operations,

and with the other,

he unpicked them.

According to his Soviet controllers,

they knew in advance

of every operation that took place

by land, air or sea.

Philby later wrote,

"I do not know what happened

to the parties concerned,

"but I can make an informed guess."

Philby's work for MI6 and the

Soviets was going swimmingly.

The same could not be

said for his marriage.

His wife Aileen knew

nothing of his spy activities.

She thought he was

a straightforward diplomat.

But she, too, had her secrets.

In March 1949, Aileen was found

lying by a country road

bleeding from a nasty

wound to the head.

She claimed she had been

attacked by a Turkish man,

who had hit her with a rock.

But Turkish police could find no

evidence of the crime

and when questioned, Aileen became

increasingly evasive and hysterical.

Her doctors were baffled.

In this moment of crisis,

Philby turned to his old friend,

who was now based in the Swiss

city of Bern.

Two days to see this chap,

this...specialist,

and he doesn't even have

the results.

What did he say?

Nothing that makes any sense.

There's not a doctor here can

find a damn thing wrong with her.

I'll find someone, old chap.

The clinics here are top notch.

Give me a day or two. You can

rely on me, Kim.

Thanks, old chap.

Elliot sprang into action and within

days, Aileen was settled into

a comfortable clinic in Bern, while

Philby moved in with the Elliotts.

But within days of her arrival,

Aileen tried to set fire

to her hospital room

and slashed her arm with a razor.

The Swiss doctor quickly established

that the head injury

was also self-inflicted.

The story of the attack in Istanbul

had been entirely invented.

Philby was livid.

For years, unknown to her husband,

Aileen had been suffering from what

we now call Munchausen syndrome,

a severe psychological condition

that meant

that she craved the attention

that came with illness and injury.

She would often inject

herself with urine,

causing her body to erupt

with boils.

Philby complained bitterly to

Elliott

that Aileen had hoodwinked him,

and he could never forgive her.

Elliott believed it was an affront

to Philby's professional pride,

that he, an intelligence officer

trained to spot deception,

had been tricked, as he put it,

by his own wife.

The deceiver had been deceived,

and he hated it.

In the summer of 1949,

British intelligence awarded

Philby its top foreign posting...

..MI6 Station Chief

in Washington DC.

Philby was now at the centre of the

international intelligence world,

with access not only to

the secrets of MI5 and MI6,

but also those of the CIA

and the FBI.

Philby was delighted

by what he called

the "unlimited possibilities"

for espionage

on behalf of his Soviet masters.

In the US, Philby would be

responsible for maintaining

the Anglo-American intelligence

relationship,

linking up with the FBI and CIA,

and even handling secret

communications between the British

Prime Minister and the President.

MI6 could not have given him

a more emphatic vote of confidence.

Philby did not even consult

Aileen before moving his family

into a large, two-storey house at

4,100 Nebraska Avenue,

which was soon a riot

of children's toys,

full ashtrays and empty bottles.

Philby loved Washington,

and Washington loved him.

Here was a family man,

the quintessential English

gentleman, a man you could trust.

Within weeks he had made contact

and, frequently, friends

with just about everybody of note

in American intelligence.

Philby's charm was transatlantic.

Philby charmed one CIA

officer in particular.

Both Philby

and Elliott had got to know him

in London during the war,

and they had all got on famously.

His name was James Jesus Angleton.

In intelligence circles, Angleton

was thought to possess more secrets

than anyone else, and to grasp their

meaning better than anyone else.

Philby saw him as

the driving force within the CIA

and couldn't have been happier

with their renewed friendship.

Philby and Angleton used to

dine in the smartest restaurants

in Washington, to gossip

over the starched tablecloths

and full glasses.

Once again, Philby used friendship

and charm to extract secrets.

This time, American secrets.

Angleton told him

all about the CIA's

covert operations

in Cuba, Chile, Greece, Iran,

but perhaps most significantly,

they discussed Operation Valuable.

Operation Valuable was

one of the most ambitious

Cold War missions of them all.

The target was Albania.

Sandwiched between Yugoslavia

and Greece, the tiny,

sparsely populated country was to

become a rather unlikely

battleground in the undeclared

war between East and West.

Politically volatile,

Albania had fallen under the iron

rule of the hard-line Marxist

Enver Hoxha,

who set about transforming

the country into a Stalinist state.

Hoxha's brutal rule had forced

thousands of Albanians into exile.

Many of these were now itching to

return to their homeland

and oust the communists.

So, for the spy masters

of Washington and London,

Albania seemed the perfect place to

wage secret war on communism.

The idea was simple.

Trained anti-communist guerrillas

would be slipped into Albania

to start a civil war that would

topple the communist regime.

And the man in charge of passing

the details between MI6 and the CIA,

and then on to Moscow,

was Kim Philby.

Philby served his two masters

with brutal efficiency.

Anti-communist insurgents did

indeed arrive in Albania,

but when they did, the Albanian

security forces were primed

and waiting, tipped off in advance.

Carnage ensued.

For each guerrilla, dozens of family

members were shot

or thrown into prison,

where many died.

The precise death toll

will never be known.

Operation Valuable was

a stunning disaster,

of which the British and American

public remained entirely unaware.

But Philby later gloried

in what he had done -

"They knew the risks they were

running," he said.

"I have no regrets."

Back in London, with the fear

of communism growing, there was some

anxiety that official secrecy was

not quite as tight as it might be.

Among those called in for a friendly

chat was Nicholas Elliott,

who later described

the conversation.

Come in, sit down, I want to have

a frank word with you.

As you wish, Colonel.

Does your wife

know what you do?

Yes.

And how did that come about?

She was my secretary for two years

and I think the penny must have

dropped.

Ah, quite so.

And what about your mother?

She thinks I'm a member of the

Secret Intelligence Service.

Good God!

How did she come to know that?

She was told by a member

of the Cabinet,

at a cocktail party.

And what about your father?

Ah, he thinks I'm a spy.

Why should

he think you're a spy?

The Chief of MI6 told him

at the bar at White's club.

Ah!

And that, once again, was that.

But in America,

code-breakers were closing

in on some REAL communist spies.

Due to a single blunder by

the Soviets, Russian intelligence

messages sent by wireless

during the war could now be read,

at least in part.

What they revealed was staggering,

and terrifying -

Soviet spies had

penetrated both the US

and the British Government

at a senior level.

One name in particular

stood out - Homer,

the codename of an agent who had

been leaking secrets

from within the British

Embassy in Washington in 1945.

The identity of this mole

was still a mystery,

but it was assumed that Homer

was most probably

an embassy employee -

a cleaner, perhaps, or a clerk.

Philby knew better.

Donald Maclean,

his old Cambridge friend

and fellow Soviet spy,

had been First Secretary at

the Washington Embassy in 1945.

Maclean was Homer.

If Maclean was exposed, Philby knew

he would not be far behind.

The net was closing.

Fearing the worse, he discreetly

lobbied London to send him

advance notice of any decoding

breakthroughs.

But as he prepared for the worst,

Philby received a letter that would

change the rest of his life.

"Dear Kim, I have a shock for you.

"I have been posted to Washington.

"Can I come and stay with you,

only for a few days,

"while I find somewhere to live?"

The letter was from another

of the Cambridge spy ring,

the irrepressible Guy Burgess

who, like Maclean,

was now working

at the Foreign Office.

Philby and Burgess had been

friends for more than 20 years.

They had discovered communism

together at Cambridge

and they remained

locked in service to Moscow.

Burgess was one of the only people

to whom Philby could speak openly.

And, crucially, Burgess was also

a friend of Donald Maclean.

But Aileen Philby,

still in a fragile state,

hated everything about Burgess,

and the last thing she wanted

was this dissolute drunk

as a house guest.

Philby insisted.

His old friend must be made welcome.

A furious row followed,

duly reported back

by both parties to Elliott.

I hear Burgess is with you.

Yes.

It's the very least we can do

for an old friend.

It's only for few days.

Two weeks at the absolute most.

Have you gone raving mad, Kim?

He'll be drunk all the time,

and Aileen does detest him.

He's not worth your marriage, is he?

I can keep my eye on him better here

than if he's roaming the streets,

and besides, he is rather fun.

Don't you remember our boozy

evenings a trois in Pruniers?

If insulting everyone

he meets is entertaining,

I suppose you're right,

but don't say I didn't warn you.

I've got to Kim.

Soon after Burgess was

installed in Nebraska Avenue,

Philby told him about the hunt

for Homer,

and the increasing risk that Maclean

might be exposed and confess all.

Both Burgess and Philby knew that

Maclean was a liability.

He'd recently got drunk,

smashed up a flat belonging to two

embassy secretaries, ripped up

their underwear, and hurled a large

ornamental mirror into their bath.

He'd been sent home and then,

amazingly,

promoted to run the American

desk at the Foreign Office.

Even drunken, unhinged

knicker-shredding, it seemed,

was no bar to advancement

in the British Diplomatic Service...

if you were the right sort.

In March 1951, the news that Philby

had been dreading came through -

the identity of Homer

had been confirmed.

Philby immediately told his Soviet

handler and demanded that Maclean be

extracted from the UK and spirited

off to Moscow before he compromised

the entire British spy network,

most importantly, Philby himself.

But first Maclean needed

to be warned

that he was in acute danger.

The ideal messenger,

Philby concluded, was close at hand,

in the disreputable

shape of Guy Burgess.

The two spies dined in downtown

Washington to rehearse the plan.

Burgess would return to London,

pass on the warning

and the Soviets would arrange

Maclean's escape to Moscow.

"Don't you go too," said Philby, "If

you do, that'll be the end of me."

But unknown to Philby, the Soviets

had insisted that Burgess must

accompany Maclean to Moscow.

Burgess had at first objected,

pointing out that he had no desire

to defect and found the prospect

of life in Moscow quite ghastly,

but finally, he was persuaded to go.

With the news that Burgess

and Maclean had disappeared,

the Foreign Office sent out

an urgent telegram to embassies

and MI6 stations throughout Europe,

with instructions that Burgess

and Maclean must be apprehended

"at all costs and by all means".

Elliott gave orders that the Soviet

Embassy in Switzerland

also be placed under surveillance.

One of his colleagues prepared a

decanter of poisoned Scotch,

just in case the notoriously

thirsty fugitives turned up

and needed to be immobilised.

But by that time,

Burgess and Maclean were being

toasted by the Soviets...

in Moscow.

Back in Washington, Philby was

called to the embassy

by Geoffrey Paterson, the MI5

representative, and told the news.

Patterson told Philby,

"The bird has flown."

"What bird?" asked Philby, feigning

surprise. "Not Maclean?"

"Yes, Maclean," replied Paterson,

"but worse than that,

Burgess has gone with him."

Philby was now genuinely alarmed.

Philby told Paterson he was going

home for a stiff drink, behaviour

that anyone who knew him would have

considered perfectly normal.

But once back at Nebraska Avenue,

Philby headed

not for the drinks cabinet,

but for the potting shed.

Here, he extracted from its hiding

place a Russian camera,

given to him

by the Soviets to copy documents.

Next he got a trowel.

He then placed the camera,

a tripod and some film in the boot

of his car, gunned the engine,

and drove north up Nebraska Avenue.

Philby knew that his association

with Burgess was a time bomb.

Very soon, the FBI and MI5 would

come asking questions.

On a deserted stretch of road,

with woods on one side

and the river on the other,

Philby parked,

extracted the containers and trowel,

and headed into the trees.

Philby emerged a few minutes later,

casually doing up his flies, just in

case anyone happened to be passing.

Somewhere in these woods,

in a shallow hole,

lies a cache of Soviet Spy equipment

that has remained buried

for more than 60 years, a secret

memorial to Philby's spy craft.

If Philby was going to

make his escape

and join Burgess and Maclean

in Soviet exile, now was his moment.

But he did not run.

He decided to stay and bluff it out.

He knew that when the mole-hunters

started to look into his past,

they would find the evidence was

mostly circumstantial.

To his masters in MI6, Philby had

always been an exemplary officer

with an unblemished record.

And Philby had one other

weapon in his arsenal

and that was his talent

for friendship.

He had powerful allies on both

sides of the Atlantic who had

known him and trusted him for years.

Philby knew he could

rely on his friends to defend him,

and one above all.

Nicholas Elliott.

But friendship

and loyalty only stretch so far.

Could a man with

so many secrets really carry on

deceiving everyone around him?

In the next episode,

the net tightens...

Nick, they think I'm a bloody

communist!

..MI5 closes in...

They're calling me "the third man".

..and Philby is out in the cold.

The only mark against you

is your association with Burgess.

Thankfully, I have other friends

that I CAN rely upon.

Once again Elliott,

stands by his friend,

but for how long?