Sardonic self-portrait of a KGB superspy.

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Product Description

In the annals of espionage, one name towers above all others: that of H.A.R. 'Kim' Philby, the ringleader of the legendary Cambridge spies. A member of the British establishment, Philby joined the Secret Intelligence Service in 1940, rose to the head of Soviet counterintelligence, and, as M16's liaison with the CIA and the FBI, betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians, fatally compromising covert actions to roll back the Iron Curtain in the early years of the Cold War. Written from Moscow in 1967, "My Silent War" shook the world and introduced a new archetype in fiction: the unrepentant spy. It inspired John Le Carre's Smiley novels and the later espionage novels of Graham Greene. Kim Philby was history's most successful spy. He was also an exceptional writer who gave us the great iconic story of the Cold War and revolutionized, in the process, the art of espionage writing.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #210044 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

The Times
‘Of all the books written about Philby and his associates, Philby’s is still the one most worth reading.’

About the Author
Harold Adrian Russell 'Kim' Philby was born in Ambala, India, in 1912, where his father was a high-ranking civil service officer. After graduating from Westminster School in 1928, Philby went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became one of the 'Cambridge Spies'. After working as a journalist, Philby was recruited into the British Secret Intelligence Service in 1940 where he rose through the ranks. He was, however, working as a double agent for the KGB, continuing to do so until his defection to the Soviet Union in 1963. He wrote My Silent War in 1968 and lived out the rest of his life in Russia, where he died in 1988, an official Soviet hero.

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Customer Reviews

Thoroughly Enjoyable; a Must for Spy-Buffs!
"My Silent War" presents a witty and literate glimpse into the subtle mind of one of the KGB's most successful spies, Kim Philby. The Cambridge graduate had thoroughly penetrated MI6 and was being groomed to be its chief--although some writers including Nigel West dispute this--during World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, when he was finally unmasked because of the flight of his fellow Cambridge spies, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess.

Kim Philby, according to Seale and McConville, has become a "caricature" of "Western demonology," a "byword of reproach," the deadly "viper" in the "trusting bosom of his country" ("Philby: The Long Road to Moscow," 1978, 13). Nigel West's characterization of "My Silent War" as a "vitriolic" memoir illustrates this proposition (even though his assessment of Philby in "The Friends" [1988, 51-68], is otherwise balanced). As evidence of "vitriol" he presents Philby's judgment ("MSW,"109) of Sir Stewart Menzies ("C" of MI6) as an intellectually "unimpressive . . . fairly cloistered son of the upper levels of the British establishment" whose attitudes [as far as counterespionage was concerned] were "schoolboyish-- bars, beards, and blonds"--an assessment that West himself corroborates in "The Friends" (117). Vitriol in this instance and truth do not seem to be mutually exclusive. Was Menzies truly "hounded" by Philby's words? In retrospect, they seem rather mild when compared to those of John Le Carré (a.k.a. David Cornwall of MI5--eternal rival of MI6) in respect to Philby in the MI5-agent-turned-best-selling-author's introduction to Page, Leitch, and Knightley's "Philby: The Spy who Betrayed a Generation" (1969, 24). Le Carré writes: "In ten year's time [Philby] may be stopping British tourists in the Moscow streets. Imagine that leaky-eye and whisky-voice, that hesitant, soft-footed charm [.]"

Now THAT is vitriol!

Demonizing only impedes historical truth, as far as it can ever be discerned. Yes, Philby wrote in Moscow under the noses of the KGB, and was therefore selective in his reminiscences, but "My Silent War," written in lucid prose, never ceases to fascinate. Raising as many questions as it answers, the book never sinks to Communist Propaganda-- Philby is too clever by far, and too competent a writer. An absorbing read, Kim Philby' s autobiography fully deserves its niche in the thesaurus of western literature.

Fascinating
Of all the entertaining spy stories written, this is the original and true version. Clearly an educated writer it also reads well. He presents his case well and will add value to your understanding of the Cold War- whatever you personally may think of Philby.

WHERE SHALL THE TRAITOR REST?
Treason tends to get rather an unflattering press, however successful and elegant-minded the traitor. The basic question of loyalty goes back, I guess, to time immemorial. Moral philosophers have flailed at it incessantly, all to no purpose whatsoever in my own view. The issue comes down to this - each and every one of us recognises different, and often conflicting, loyalties. Socrates let himself be framed in court on a nonsensical charge and accepted the death penalty in the name of upholding the Law. More fool Socrates, I can only reflect, for all my general enthusiasm for the Rule of Law. Under what circumstances would any of us denounce others for what we would agree was wrongdoing? That would vary, I guess, but I never heard of anyone whose answer was `under any and all circumstances'. In particular, where national laws are involved, they are all in the last resort, as Britain's eminent late Lord Chancellor Quintin Hogg Lord Hailsham observed, `a con'. Nations are not some be-all nor yet any end-all unless we decide for ourselves that they shall be so.

The case of Philby is one where I find the opinions of the Great and the Good more enlightening and useful than I usually find them. Graham Greene goes straight to the main point - Philby has a chilling and unshakable certainty in his adopted communist faith. He offers no apologia for Stalin's atrocities, he just presents the faith to himself as more important and lasting; and that, as Greene says, is what Catholics have done for centuries. What did Philby have against his native land? Frankly, little or nothing that I can see. He is the English of the English. He despises Baldwin and Chamberlain, but so did many without giving their main loyalty to the Soviet Union as Philby did. John le Carre is too outraged to talk sense or fact (?Philby had `no women'? Apart from his being married four times, just read Muggeridge on Philby's proclivities as a womaniser. ?Philby had `no faith'? Well done Philby, if I understand that). Le Carre acknowledges some primacy of patriotism, whereas Greene does not. Nigel West has a different slant, and one that I find interesting. Philby, says West, was fundamentally an ego-tripper, embracing communism by way of exercising his superiority complex. That could be right, but I wouldn't bet much on it.

I simply cannot assess the `sincerity' of Philby's communist convictions: indeed I would not claim to know what I mean by that term. What I do say is that I find the personality put across in Philby's way of expressing himself to be enormously attractive and engaging. In another context, this might be absolute exemplar of the English public-school product - articulate, elegant, witty, showing a sense of proportion and a delightful sense of the ridiculous. About his private life there is absolutely nothing in this book. He was widowed on one occasion, for all you could tell from this narrative - I found this fact out from the brief curriculum vitae at the back - and I can only wonder what it can have been like to live with a man living this kind of double life, indeed how he slept at all, let alone with someone else. The story-line is as good as Greene says it is - completely riveting and better than most spy novels (Mr le Carre please note). He got away with it all for 11 years after his elite Cambridge lefty friends from the 30's Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess fled to Russia on being unmasked as spies, and they never brought him to trial because he had gone to Moscow via Beirut when the rumbling suspicions were finally confirmed, never to leave.

Philby never really made the headlines in the way Burgess and Maclean did, partly because their discovery was at the height of the early cold war and the baleful era of Joseph McCarthy; partly because they were both homosexual, Maclean of the closet variety, Burgess a complete roarer. After their disappearance I still recall the cartoon by Bud Neil in the Glasgow Evening Times. Two workmen in flat caps were emerging from a manhole in the street, and one of Bud Neil's shapeless women says to another `It widnae be them?' Distance lends enchantment to the view, but Philby has brought a lot of the enchantment back. Eleu loro.