07/29/2003 Entry: ""
Posted by Maynard @ 08:39 PM MST
My Silent War, by Kim Philby
There are some books that intrigue you with their subject matter but then go on to disappoint with their content. Such was the case with Desire of the Everlasting Hills and such is the case with My Silent War, by Harold Adrian Russel ("Kim") Philby. He was the most infamous of the Cambridge Spies, high level communist agents in the British secret service during the 1940s and 1950s.
The book is regarded as a classic of written Communist propaganda, and I can see why. On the surface the book is bland and boring, just like Communist Russia. It has intrigue and adventure, but it is hidden beneath the surface. Actually, it is hidden beneath the first seven chapters, most of which deal with the boring (from a Cold War perspective) World War 2 period. Philby spends fully half of the book describing his position and the inter-office politics that occurred before the Cold War. If you are looking for information on what he did during the Cold War, whom he betrayed, and the like, look elsewhere. Philby was mum on the subject, which I suppose is good for people in his trade.
He tantalizingly gives slight details of his involvement in the Volkov case (Volkov was a would-be defector who tipped the Brits off to a leak in their intelligence service, who most likely was Philby; he was arrested before he could defect) but does not elaborate on them. Likewise on his involvement with Burgess and Maclean (two of the other Cambridge spies) and their flight from Britain to Russia in the early 1950s. At no point in the book does he elaborate on his espionage activities, which is the real meat and potatoes I was looking for.
He does, however, go into a (thankfully) short tirade against the FBI (especially Director Hoover), the CIA, and President Eisenhower in regards to their efforts against other Communist spies, most notably the Rosenbergs. He goes as far as describing Eisenhower as "the most pedestrian of United States presidents". I wonder what he would have thought of the Big Dub, but I think he put the answer to that in his description of Eisenhower. This perspective, by the way, is wholly inaccurate, according to no less an authority than Steven Ambrose in his book Ike's Spies.
By all biographical accounts, Philby was, what I would call, a mind idolater. It comes across in the writing as an arrogance, a condescension directed at those who could not figure out that he was the "third man" who tipped off Burgess and Maclean. He is cocky towards the SIS, who did not do a proper background check on him when he first became employed by them at the outset of World War 2. Ultimately, this condescension is directed towards the press, and finally, the reader, and it is not gentle. It ultimately makes the book a boring read: Philby presents himself as a superior mind playing a dangerous game but he fails to show himself superior or the game dangerous. Nonetheless, espionage is a deadly occupation. Philby was right to flee, because if I had ever caught him I would beat the snot out of him for being a spy and writing such a poor book.
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