Episode 2 Kim Philby - His Most Intimate Betrayal

'Let's be gentlemen about this.'

I'm sure we can work something out.

'Your past has caught up with you, Kim.'

The game's up.

'We've penetrated the KGB.'

You see how foolish this seems.

It's astonishing, totally absurd.

You know it's absurd.

Do you want me to give you my version of your work for the Russians?

Do you want me to spell it out for you?

-Are you serious?

-Yes, Kim.

I am.

'Is Nedosekin your contact?'

'I don't have a bloody contact.'

Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby, fellow officers in MI6,

had been the closest of friends for more than 20 years.

These were spies cut from the same cloth.

Yet, they could not have been more different.

These friends were, in reality, bitter enemies,

fighting on opposite sides of the Cold War.

This peculiarly British friendship between two spies

offers an extraordinary insight

into one of the most important secret chapters of that conflict.

OK.

Here's...

PHILBY CHUCKLES

H-Here's the scoop.

'H-Here's the scoop.'

'H-Here's the scoop. H-Here's the scoop.'

14 years earlier,

37-year-old intelligence officer, Harold "Kim" Philby,

was bound to the US aboard one of Cunard's finest luxury liners.

He had been offered a top job.

Philby was a rising star in MI6,

Britain's secret intelligence service.

He arrived in Washington as the new Head Of Station,

one of MI6'S plum postings.

As the liaison between MI6 and the CIA,

Philby was now a key player in the Cold War,

with access to America's most closely-guarded secrets.

But Philby had a secret of his own, one that he did not share.

Philby led a double life,

one as a loyal and supremely charming British intelligence officer

and the other as a Soviet agent.

Philby appeared to be the quintessential English patriot.

But for more than 15 years,

he had been feeding British and American secrets to Moscow,

causing the deaths of hundreds of people.

Philby's code name was Stanley

and he was the Soviet Union's most important spy.

Moscow couldn't have been happier with Agent Stanley.

London was also pleased with him.

He was even being considered as a future chief of MI6.

He'd been always talked about as this wonderful man

who was a leading light in the office.

Of course, Philby just seemed so completely un-spylike,

you didn't think of him as a spy.

You believed in him.

But then came disaster.

This is the BBC Home Service and here is the news.

On Monday, 11th June, 1951,

Kim Philby was urgently recalled to London

and, as he put it, "I knew I'd landed in the soup."

A fortnight earlier, two British diplomats,

Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean,

had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared.

Mr Morrison has made a statement in the House of Commons

about the disappearance of the two Foreign Office officials.

He said there had been no confirmed news of their whereabouts,

security aspects of the case were being investigated

and it was not in the public interest to disclose them.

In the test match at Nottingham, England 419...

Philby knew the missing diplomats

and he knew that both of them were also Soviet spies.

Burgess was a close friend.

A few weeks earlier,

he'd been sharing Philby's house in Washington.

Through his work for MI6, Philby had discovered

that Maclean was under surveillance and about to be arrested.

So Philby had sent Burgess to London to warn Maclean

that his cover was about to be blown

and together they had fled to Russia.

Now, Philby's links with the two missing diplomats

had made him a target of suspicion.

He was invited to Leconfield House in Mayfair

for questioning by MI5, the domestic security service.

Waiting for him was Dick Goldsmith White,

the chief of counter-intelligence.

The son of a Kentish ironmonger, White was a veteran spy hunter,

polite, relentless and completely ruthless.

It was White's job to snoop and pry.

He had authority to bug, burgle

and spy on anyone he considered a threat to national security.

And what he needed to know was whether Philby was in league

with the two Soviet agents, Burgess and Maclean.

Had a third man tipped them off to flee to Moscow

and, if so, was Philby that third man?

Their meeting was a polite, slightly embarrassed affair,

but both men knew that a brutal game of cat-and-mouse had begun.

White began by telling Philby

that he was simply aiding an investigation

into this horrible business of the two missing diplomats.

He reassured him that he was not the target of an investigation himself.

"Was it remotely possible," White asked,

"that Burgess could have been a secret Soviet spy?"

"Absolutely inconceivable," said Philby,

he'd known Burgess since Cambridge.

The man was a drunk, a flagrant homosexual

and totally unsuitable to be a spy, let alone a Soviet one.

Dick White suspected that Philby was lying,

but the case against the MI6 man was circumstantial.

MI5 needed hard evidence.

Despite his growing certainty that Philby was a spy,

Dick White had to tread cautiously.

Philby's powerful friends in the foreign intelligence service, MI6,

were already rallying to his side in Westminster,

and one in particular.

Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby were birds of a feather.

Products of public school and Cambridge,

born into Britain's ruling elite,

they had risen together through the ranks of MI6.

Elliott shared everything with Philby,

but Philby had never revealed his own secret,

the one that really mattered.

This was an old-fashioned sort of friendship,

between two upper-class Englishmen, who seldom discussed their feelings.

It was based on cricket, clubs, alcohol and jokes.

But this most intimate of friendships

disguised the most intimate betrayal.

Kim probably meant as much to my father, apart from my mother,

as anybody in his life.

They had tremendously convivial times together.

And so, in that circumstance,

it was such an incredibly disturbing thought to him

that Kim could possibly be a traitor.

My father couldn't countenance the idea of betrayal.

Elliott flatly refused to entertain even the possibility

that his closest friend could be a Soviet spy.

They had joined MI6 together, they'd both been to Cambridge.

For God's sake, the man was a member of the Athenaeum.

71 runs. Oh, to be at Trent Bridge.

It was a damn fine display, though.

Those South African chaps, they are a jolly good bowling outfit.

I hope you can join me at Lords next week.

I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Who would have thought they'd be one up?

I rather hope all of this with Burgess will be sorted by then.

I don't know.

Dick White wants to talk to me again.

And he wants me to surrender my passport too.

Oh, Kim, you must fight like hell.

If I were accused of treachery, I'd complain to the Prime Minister.

Nick, they think I'm a bloody communist,

how would I get close to the PM?

Well, we are not going to stand by and let your reputation

be traduced by a... a bunch of half-baked rumours.

I can't drag you into this mess.

It's OUR mess, Kim.

And we will sort it out, no matter what Dick White says.

Elliott defended his friend against all accusers,

loudly declaring his innocence and bombarding MI5 with complaints

about the way Philby had been treated.

With the MI5 investigators closing in,

Philby was now given his own code name, Peach.

Dick White summoned Philby to his Mayfair office

to give him another grilling, this time much less courteous.

After the interrogation, Peach headed home,

but now he was no longer alone.

Officers from MI5's surveillance unit, the watchers,

were on his tail.

Most of the watchers were ex-policemen,

selected for their sharp hearing, good eyesight

and average height, in order not to be conspicuous.

But they were also instructed to wear trilby hats and raincoats,

which made them look exactly like spies.

As an experienced intelligence officer,

Philby quickly sensed that he was being followed.

But the watchers also had company.

The streets of Mayfair were witnessing

a Cold War battle of wits

because the Russians also had Philby under surveillance,

and his watchers.

Moscow was alarmed, worried that its top mole, Agent Stanley,

might be exposed, captured and even turned and used against them.

The investigation into Kim Philby drove a wedge between MI5 and MI6.

MI5 were convinced that Philby had tipped off Burgess and Maclean.

The head of MI6 refused to believe it, but he was left with no choice.

Philby had to go.

With great sadness, Major General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies,

or C for short, called Philby in to give him his marching orders.

Reluctantly, the head of MI6 told Philby that he must do

the honourable thing and resign, for the good of the service.

Philby's glittering career as an intelligence officer was over.

Elliott was outraged by his friend's dismissal from the firm.

He vowed that Philby wouldn't be frozen out of MI6 for long

and he promised to get him back into the service as soon as possible.

Only weeks earlier, Philby had been a key player

in the glamorous American capital.

Now unemployed, he found himself house-hunting near Rickmansworth

in the quiet Hertfordshire commuter belt.

He and his wife, Aileen, and their five children,

were crammed into this rented Victorian cottage called Sun Box.

The name hardly matched Philby's mood.

Eventually, Philby found a job, filling out paperwork,

importing Spanish oranges.

The work was boring and the commute was dreary.

He was miserable, argumentative and frequently drunk.

Philby was out in the cold.

Month after month, MI5 watched Philby at home and bugged his telephone.

The recordings of Philby's home phone,

Chorleywood 9-7, remain secret.

But one intimate source of information

has recently been declassified.

In 1951, the deputy head of MI5 was Guy Maynard Liddell.

He kept a meticulous diary,

chronicling the daily incremental progress of the investigation.

Liddell's diary was so secret, it was locked in its own safe,

and even had its own code name - Wallflowers.

But if MI5 had hoped to catch Philby

chatting on the telephone to his Soviet masters,

they were disappointed.

Philby was too canny to say anything incriminating.

instead he was often overheard in conversation

with his friends in MI6.

Philby knew that his every word was being recorded and analysed.

Eventually, the telephone intercepts would fill 33 volumes,

but Philby never gave anything away.

He was pathologically discreet.

But the intercepts do contain a fascinating new insight

into the effects of Philby's betrayal.

Philby's wife, Aileen, was a woman of conventional patriotic loyalties

and she had become a close friend of Nicholas Elliott.

But she was also unstable and unhappy.

Unlike Elliott, she suspected

that her husband HAD tipped off Burgess and Maclean,

that he really was the third man.

This entry is dated 4th August, 1951,

shortly after Philby was asked to resign.

TC, that's telephone intercepts, disclosed

that Philby was going yachting from Chichester with a friend.

His wife had said, apparently in jest, to Nicholas Elliott,

"I don't suppose he's doing a dis?" A disappearing act.

Elliott reassured Aileen there was no danger of her husband defecting,

since he was entirely innocent.

but Aileen was not convinced of Philby's loyalties.

In her increasingly agitated state,

she began to believe that her husband was plotting an escape.

One day, Aileen made another urgent telephone call

to Nicholas Elliott, in a state of hysteria.

"Kim's gone" she said. "Where?" asked Elliott.

"To Russia."

"How do you know?" "He sent me a telegram."

At this, even Elliott's granite loyalty to his friend began to crumble.

"What did the telegram say?" he asked.

"It said, "Farewell forever, love to the children."

Elliott was stunned. He immediately called MI5.

An alert was issued to all ports and airports with instructions

to intercept Philby if he attempted to leave the country.

But when Elliott then checked with the Post Office

to try to find a copy of Philby's telegram,

he was told it did not exist.

So where was Philby?

TELEPHONE RINGS

Chorleywood 9-7.

Oh, Kim, it's you, thank God.

'Who were you expecting?'

Er...I'm just glad you're at home.

Where else would I be?

'Ha.'

The next time I see you

I'll tell you where else you could have been tonight.

HE CHUCKLES

'Good night.'

-'Chorleywood 9-7.'

-'Kim, it's you, thank God!'

-'Who were you expecting?'

-'I'm just glad you're at home.'

'Where else would I be?'

'The next time I see you I'll tell you where else you could have been tonight.'

'Good night.'

Aileen's warning turned out to be a false alarm,

but she had been remarkably close to the truth.

Philby had often considered making a run for Moscow.

Anxious and uncertain, he relied on Elliott more than ever.

Elliott supported his friend unconditionally.

He paid Philby's bills and he bolstered his flagging spirits.

Philby genuinely valued this friendship.

In his strange double world, he relied on Elliott's kindness

and advice, while lying to him and betraying him.

On Tuesday 25th October 1955,

Philby took a morning train into Central London.

He had an important appointment in town.

Philby knew he was still being watched by MI5,

so on arrival, he went shopping for a new hat and raincoat.

And then, he performed something rather more out of the ordinary.

What Philby called the cinema trick.

He bought a movie ticket,

but instead of sitting back to enjoy the show,

he surreptitiously surveyed the audience.

Before the film was over, Philby slipped out,

making sure he wasn't being followed.

He had other plans, a meeting with his Soviet controller.

The MI5 watcher couldn't give himself away by simply

standing up and following him out.

Philby had thrown off his tail.

The KGB had arranged a meeting with Philby to reassure him

of their continued moral and financial support.

The rendezvous went according to plan, but then Philby got a shock.

Returning home,

Philby saw a headline that made his blood run cold.

He'd been identified as a Soviet spy during a parliamentary debate

and his name was all over the Evening Standard.

The accusations against Philby, kept secret for so long from the public,

were now out in the open.

TELEPHONE RINGS

-Elliott.

-'Nick. It's me.'

Have you seen the Standard?

'My name's all over the papers. I have to do something.'

They're calling me the third man.

-'It's absurd.'

-Yes, it's outrageous.

There was a reporter outside the kitchen window today.

He scared the cook to death.

I've had to disconnect the doorbell.

Someone's even ripped the door knocker off.

'Kim, calm down.'

We need to think about this for a day or two, at least.

'Until then, you need to keep silent.'

-Keep silent?!

-Kim, please, you need to trust me.

'We will respond in due course. Don't do anything now, all right?'

I am being hung out to dry, Nick.

'You're not alone, you know that. I'll call you tomorrow.'

'People who had known Kim really well

'simply would not believe that he could be a Communist spy.

'He was charming, sympathetic and intelligent,

'fun to talk to, a family man.'

He seemed so genuine and so...

Well...one trusted him completely.

Scenting an enormous story,

the press accused the Tory government of a cover-up.

The authorities would now have to either prosecute Philby

or clear his name.

On Monday 7th November, Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan

addressed the House Of Commons.

Macmillan was emphatic.

He said there was no evidence

that Philby had ever betrayed the interests of his country.

He had been an able and conscientious diplomat

with not a stain on his character.

Philby was not the so-called third man, if there even was one.

Why did Macmillan exonerate a man that MI5 believed was guilty?

Because once again, Philby's friends in MI6 had rallied to his cause

and convinced the Foreign Secretary of his innocence.

Careful, rigorous and impartial.

That's what he said, Kim.

And no evidence, no evidence.

Well, that's a relief, I can tell you.

This whole squalid affair is almost over with. Thank you.

Oh, there's no need, no need.

The whole thing was ridiculous, a storm in a teacup.

The only mark against you is your association with Burgess

and you know what I've always thought of that.

Thankfully, I have other friends that I CAN rely upon on.

Time for a swift one?

Tomorrow, Kim. Tomorrow.

You should go home, get some rest.

You need to prepare, the world will be watching.

On Elliott's advice,

Philby called a press conference for the very next morning.

It was to be held at his mother Dora's fourth floor flat,

here in Kensington.

The conference was scheduled for 11 o'clock on the dot.

When Philby opened the door,

he was greeted with proof of his new celebrity -

the stairwell was packed with journalists.

Philby ushered the world's press into Dora's sitting room.

What followed, as the camera bulbs popped,

was a dramatic tour de force,

a display of unrivalled public dishonesty.

Philby was in control.

Holding court, charming, smiling, supremely confident.

Mr Philby, Mr Macmillan, the Foreign Secretary,

said there was no evidence that you were the so-called third man

who allegedly tipped off Burgess and Maclean.

Are you satisfied with that clearance that he gave you?

Yes, I am.

Or if there was a third man, were you in fact the third man?

No, I was not.

Do you think there was one?

No comment.

Philby looked the world in the eye with a steady gaze

and lied his head off.

I'm debarred by the Official Secrets Act

from saying anything that might disclose to unauthorised persons,

information derived from my position as a former government official.

It was such a brilliant demonstration of lying,

that MI6 still use the footage as a training tool.

Mr Philby, you were asked to resign yourself from the Foreign Office,

a few months after Burgess and Maclean disappeared

and the Foreign Secretary has said that in the past you'd had

Communist associations, is that why you were asked to resign?

I was asked to resign because of an imprudent association.

-That was your association with Burgess?

-Correct.

-He gave you no idea that he was planning to go?

-Never.

Would you still regard Burgess, who lived with you for a

while in Washington, would you still regard him as a friend of yours?

How do you feel about him now?

I consider his action deplorable.

On the subject of friendship,

I prefer to say as little as possible because it's very complicated.

Philby played the part of a man

wrestling with his own conflicted feelings of duty,

conscience and personal loyalty.

A man who had been betrayed by his friend.

It was a virtuoso performance.

After some polite chitchat, Philby invited the newsmen

through to the dining room for drinks.

There was even time to meet Dora, his proud mother.

This was Philby's moment of triumph. His finest hour.

He had been officially exonerated by the British Government,

the world believed him innocent.

It was a complete vindication for Philby and for Elliott,

who had insisted on his friend's innocence for so long.

'Mr Kim Philby, please.'

'Kim, it's Nick. Why don't you pop down to the front?'

Something unpleasant again?

'Quite the opposite, old boy. I may have a new post for you.'

The Middle East, Beirut.

Beirut?

Under what cover?

'A journalist.'

Who would send me?

I've persuaded an old friend on The Observer to take you.

They'll pay you a salary and so will we.

How could I say no?

Good. The country can ill afford to be without a man of your abilities.

Elliott had used his influence to get Philby a new job.

He would be working as a foreign correspondent,

while simultaneously, secretly, gathering intelligence for MI6.

Kim Philby's re-entry into MI6 showed the old boy network

running at its smoothest.

A word in the right ear, a nod, a drink with one of the chaps

and Philby was back in the club.

Philby set off for Beirut alone,

leaving behind his wife Aileen and five children.

With the Suez Crisis looming, the Middle East was fast becoming

a new front in the Cold War.

And Beirut was a city of intrigue.

Exotic, tense and dangerous, a fertile ground for journalism

and an even better place for espionage.

30-year-old Dick Beeston

was working in Beirut as a foreign correspondent.

One was rather suspicious of Kim when he arrived, but actually,

when we got to know him very well, one sort of,

dropped one's suspicions and

he used to come round to our house

and we used to go on picnics and things.

He was very disarming, I mean,

he was very relaxed and, you know, easy going.

He got to know the children, and became a sort of family friend.

He never let his guard down.

He's a sort of split personality.

Just a few months after his arrival,

Philby began an affair with 42-year-old Eleanor Brewer.

Eleanor was tall, slim, sweet-natured

and married to one of his friends.

But Philby was untroubled by convention.

In one of the many love letters Philby wrote to Eleanor,

he told her that he loved her

because she accepted him for what he was.

But of course, she had no idea who he really was.

Then, in December 1957, Philby received an urgent telegram.

His wife, Aileen, had died.

She had been found alone at home.

Just before Christmas, we were in the flower market in Beirut

and Kim came up to us and said,

"Darling, I've had some rather wonderful news,

"let's go and have a drink and I'll tell you all about it

"at the Normandy Hotel," which was his sort of place.

And then he produced this cable saying that his wife had just died,

which was rather sort of chilling.

But, he said, "Oh, it was, you know, the best for everybody,

"she'd been very ill," and he was quite light-hearted about it.

It was rather strange really.

As a KGB agent, Philby was relieved.

He was now free of the one person

most convinced that he was a traitor.

Kim Philby and his new girlfriend, Eleanor Brewer,

oblivious to his treachery, were soon married.

For the Philbys, it was a new beginning.

The couple moved into a fifth floor apartment in downtown Beirut.

It's abandoned now, but when Philby lived here,

it was luxurious, even equipped with its own bar.

And to complete Philby's happiness, who should arrive in Beirut

but Nicholas Elliott, as the new MI6 Station Chief

and now, his new boss.

The two friends met for lunch

on the very first day that Elliott arrived in Beirut.

It was he said, "A most agreeable reunion."

I remember parties at our beach house outside Beirut.

Kim made a very, very vivid impression on me.

He was tremendously charismatic,

enormously charming, extremely convivial

and I have to say that I was fascinated with him.

I still feel, oddly enough, a genuine kindness that came from him.

That I remember quite well.

Elliott put his friend to work hurtling around the Middle East

gathering intelligence for MI6, under journalistic cover.

He was now Elliott's unofficial advisor.

His guide to Middle Eastern skulduggery.

The friends were once again inseparable,

professionally and socially.

Elliott often took his camera with him and his family albums are filled

with images of the intermingled Philby and Elliott clans.

Philby is in many of the photographs.

Often in his bathing trunks, relaxed,

smiling and frequently very obviously drunk.

Philby and Elliott were closer than ever.

They now met a couple of times every week to share a drink

and to share secrets.

Elliott has entitled this photograph,

'Dining with the Copelands'.

Miles Copeland was a CIA agent, you can see him here in the middle.

On the right is Nicholas Elliott smiling at his friends.

And here is Kim Philby.

MI6, CIA...

..KGB.

This is the Cold War captured in miniature,

a cosy image of gentlemen spies sharing the world's secrets.

An image of clubbiness that disguises a great betrayal.

Because once again,

Philby was handing everything that Elliott told him to Moscow,

playing his role dutifully as a loyal friend

and, simultaneously, a traitor.

But soon, the wheel of their friendship turned again.

In 1962, Elliott was recalled to London to take up a new post.

The friends were sad to part.

Elliott was losing one of his best agents

and Philby had lost his best source of information for the KGB.

BIG BEN CHIMES

Number 54 Broadway

was apparently home to the Minimax Fire Extinguisher company.

In fact, it was MI6's London headquarters.

And the extinguisher company had a new boss.

Dick White, the MI5 officer who hunted Philby throughout the '50s,

had by now been promoted to head MI6.

And just as Elliott returned,

White found the evidence he'd been seeking for over a decade.

The revelation did not come from detective work,

it came from a broken friendship.

In 1937, Philby had tried to recruit Flora Solomon,

a left wing friend, who'd introduced him to his future wife, Aileen.

Solomon refused to join his cause,

but she never forgot Philby's unusual offer.

In the intervening years, Flora had followed Philby's career

and the controversy surrounding it,

and she was appalled by the way he had treated Aileen.

In a chance encounter with one of Philby's former colleagues,

she remarked, "How is it The Observer uses a man like Kim?

"Don't they know he's a communist?"

Solomon was interviewed by the mole hunters,

and they believed they finally had the proof they needed.

Within days of Elliott's return to London, he was summoned to the firm.

Dick White told Elliott that there could no longer be any doubt -

Philby was a traitor.

He'd betrayed his country, his class and his club.

But no-one had been more comprehensively betrayed

than his best friend, Nicholas Elliott.

An intense debate now began over how to take Philby down.

A trial would be embarrassing.

Philby could be abducted or even killed,

but that was not really MI6'S style.

Elliott demanded the opportunity to confront Philby.

He'd known him for over half his life

and if anyone could extract a confession, it was surely he.

In January 1963, Elliott set off for Beirut in secret.

Before confronting Philby, he stayed with his friend, Rozanne Colchester.

Nicholas came out to catch Kim and tell him that his time was up,

that he'd been found out.

He was quite excited, quite tense,

you know, het up about it, about having to do it.

And, but also, completely convinced that he had to go,

I mean, because Philby was a terrible danger.

Philby was invited to take afternoon tea

with the new MI6 head of station, Elliott's successor.

It was a ruse, intended to catch Philby off guard

and to make him talk.

When Elliott answered the door,

Philby reacted with remarkable composure.

"I rather thought it would be you," he said.

So, how are you, Kim?

The two men exchanged pleasantries.

Perfectly tolerable.

Elliott asked after Philby's health

and Philby in turn enquired after Elliott's children.

But both knew what was coming.

Elliott secretly recorded their extraordinary conversation.

'To what do I owe the pleasure?'

What follows is based on extracts from various sources.

'It's business, unfortunately.'

'Unfortunately?'

We've got some new information.

Lord, do we really have to go over that rubbish again?

Your past has caught up with you, Kim. Game's up.

We've penetrated the KGB.

'So you're here to interrogate me?'

To persuade an innocent man to confess?

Oh, for God's sake, we know you're a Soviet agent, Kim!

Don't you understand?

If you knew what I know...

-If you were in my position...

-If I were in your position,

I wouldn't be talking to you the way you're talking to me.

How would you talk to me?

I'd offer you a drink.

Instead of this lousy tea.

Philby had prepared his whole adult life for this confrontation.

He had always feared that one day, he might be called to account.

But he didn't know whether Elliott was bluffing.

He could only guess how much his friend really knew.

A brutal dual now ensued.

The Cold War conflict was about to be played out in a small,

hot room, in the heart of Beirut.

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've enough decency left to understand why.

You see how foolish this seems?

It's astonishing.

Totally absurd, you know it's absurd.

Do you want me to give you my version of your work for the Russians?

Do you want me to spell it out for you?

-Are you serious?

-Yes, Kim!

I am.

Elliott played his first card.

If Philby refused to cooperate, his life would be made intolerable.

His passport would be withdrawn, he'd never get another job.

Philby would spend the rest of his life as a leper.

But, explained Elliott, there was an alternative.

Elliott offered to make a deal.

We can only offer you immunity

if you give us all the information you have.

Firstly, we need the names

of all of those who've been working for Moscow.

I KNOW who they are, by the way.

Philby was in turmoil.

Trapped and tempted by Elliott's proposition.

But if he struck a deal, he would have to reveal the identity

of every other mole in Britain,

every secret he had ever passed to Moscow.

His every instinct resisted telling the truth.

OK.

Here's...

HE CHUCKLES H-Here's the scoop.

'But, first, you owe me a drink. I haven't had a drop for ages.'

I tipped off Burgess.

And Maclean.

It was out of loyalty.

Loyalty to a friend.

I'm sure you understand that much, don't you?

Is Nedosekin your contact?

'I've got no bloody contact.'

'I haven't been in contact with the KGB for years.'

Philby was still prevaricating.

Offering Elliott a blend of truth, half-truth and lies.

He'd admitted to treachery, but by raising the issue of friendship,

he was trying once again to manipulate Elliott's loyalty.

Now...

Let's be gentlemen...about this.

Why don't you come over tonight for dinner?

I'm sure we can sort something out.

I'll be in contact once I've made my report.

Later, Elliott made his way to Philby's apartment.

Elliott found Philby here, passed out on the floor,

having consumed an entire bottle of whisky.

Not for the first time, he and Eleanor carried Philby to bed.

That night, Elliott sent a cable to London

saying that his friend had finally broken.

Philby's career as a Soviet spy was over.

And then, around midnight on 23rd January, Philby vanished.

After one last drink alone in a hotel bar,

he headed to the Beirut docks

where he was smuggled aboard a Soviet freighter

en route to the Black Sea.

Nicholas Elliott was now dealing with a defector.

But how surprised was he?

Elliott could hardly have made it easier for Philby to escape.

He didn't tap his telephone

and he didn't have him watched.

The door to Moscow was left wide open.

Now, that was either monumentally stupid

or exceptionally clever.

MI6 and Elliott had avoided

an embarrassing public trial.

Philby was now securely behind the Iron Curtain

and unlikely ever to re-emerge.

Remarkably, news of his defection

was hidden from the British public for six months.

Then, in June, the Soviet press announced

that Philby had been welcomed in Moscow as a hero.

Philby hid behind a mask for 30 years,

but now, the truth was finally out.

He'd been a Soviet spy since the age of 20.

He was the "third man".

For me, it was extraordinary.

I was at Eton

and I walked down the stairs one day

and picked up the Daily Express

and emblazoned on the front page

was "Kim Philby in Moscow, Third Man Revealed", the whole nine yards.

I was obviously quite shocked.

The scandal of Kim Philby

would hang over British intelligence for a generation,

and it rumbles on today.

It would test friendships and alliances

on both sides of the Atlantic to breaking point.

Yet, his betrayal also left a legacy of suspicion in Moscow.

When he fled to Russia, Philby had expected to be made a KGB colonel...

..an active, high-ranking officer in Soviet intelligence.

But the Russians never fully trusted him.

He was extensively debriefed, applauded, rewarded

and then quietly put out to grass.

An Englishman in exile,

Philby spent his days wandering the city with a KGB minder in tow.

He still read The Times, but his copies arrived weeks out of date,

containing accounts of cricket matches long since over.

Philby lived in secret near Moscow's Pushkin Square.

His friendship with Elliott was over,

but the relationship between the two spies was not.

Shortly after Philby surfaced in Moscow,

an anonymous letter arrived in Elliott's letterbox.

The identity of the sender was unmistakable.

"I wonder if this letter will surprise you," wrote Philby.

"Our last transactions were so strange,

"I cannot help thinking that perhaps you wanted me to do a fade."

Fade is spy jargon for a defection.

Philby had become convinced

that Elliott had deliberately forced him to flee to Moscow.

And he was probably right.

The letter continues, "I am more than thankful..."

..for your friendly interventions at all times.

I would have got in touch with you earlier,

but I thought it better to let time do its work.

It is invariably with pleasure that I remember our meetings and talks.

They did much to help one get one's bearings in this complicated world.

I deeply appreciate now...

..as ever, our old friendship.

Philby's charm had not deserted him.

He suggested a secret meeting for old times' sake

in a neutral country.

I am enclosing an unsealed addressed envelope.

In the event of your agreeing to my proposal, would you post it,

including some view of Tower Bridge?

On receipt of your letter,

I will write again through the same channel.

But what was Philby up to?

Was this an elaborate KGB sting

to lure Elliott into a trap?

Or was Philby trying to worm his way back into MI6,

by offering to work as a triple agent?

Or was he simply trying to rekindle an old friendship

and draw Elliott back into complicity with him?

'Let me hear from you soon. Love to Elizabeth...

'to whom, by the way, you had better not disclose

'the contents of this letter, or to anyone else, of course.'

Whatever Philby was trying to do, it didn't work.

Elliott immediately informed his bosses at MI6.

Elliott's response to Philby was disdainful,

a retort to all the years of betrayal.

He reminded him of just one of the many, many agents

he had sent to their deaths.

"Please, put some flowers from me on poor Volkov's grave."

For two decades, Philby had called the tune.

But the days of manipulating

and betraying his friend, Elliott, were over.

They would never meet again.

My father disguised his feelings

about Kim being a traitor very, very well.

But I think the sense of betrayal had to be enormous.

He buried a lot of how he really felt.

My father had a wall around him that was unapproachable.

For the rest of their lives,

Philby and Elliott would remain locked in ideological battle.

Just as they had once seemed locked in friendship.

On 11th May 1988, Kim Philby died of heart failure.

His open casket was put on display

and he was buried in a Moscow cemetery,

with full military honours.

Just a year later, the Berlin Wall,

the great emblem of political division, was torn down.

Philby had always believed in the inevitability of a Soviet victory.

He did not live long enough to see communism fail.

Soon after, Nicholas Elliott went public.

Philby is often described in the press as a double agent.

In point of fact,

Philby was a straightforward, high-level, disreputable traitor.

Outwardly he had very considerably charm.

But, of course, underneath it all,

there was a total ruthlessness.

"I am really two people", Philby said, soon after arriving in Moscow.

"I am a private person and a political person.

"Of course, if there is a conflict, the political person comes first...

"whatever the consequences."

In some ways, the Cold War was a civil war,

a conflict that turned friends into enemies

and sometimes made it impossible to tell the difference.

The entwined lives of Kim Philby and Nicholas Elliott

represent a defining chapter of that war,

a story of bloodied friendship and intimate betrayal.