Ben Macintyre - A Spy Among Friends: Philby and the Great Betrayal @ 5x15
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ต.ค. 2018
- Ben Macintyre is a historian and documentary presenter. Here he tells the story of his book A Spy Among Friends. Kim Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet mole in history. Agent, double agent, traitor and enigma, he betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians in the early years of the Cold War.
Philby's two closest friends in the intelligence world, Nicholas Elliott of MI6 and James Jesus Angleton, the CIA intelligence chief, thought they knew Philby better than anyone, and then discovered they had not known him at all. This is a story of intimate duplicity; of loyalty, trust and treachery, class and conscience; of an ideological battle waged by men with cut-glass accents and well-made suits in the comfortable clubs and restaurants of London and Washington; of male friendships forged, and then systematically betrayed.
With access to newly released MI5 files and previously unseen family papers, and with the cooperation of former officers of MI6 and the CIA, this definitive biography unlocks what is perhaps the last great secret of the Cold War.
Ben Macintyre's other hugely successful books include Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and Double Cross. His books have been made into BBC documentaries.
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Really enjoyed this talk. Could listen to this guy for hours. Why don’t I have people like this in my life
Reading this book now. I had no idea such a great writer could present so well. Ben would be a fabulous professor.
You can't be fabulous and a professor at the same time. One has talent, the other has tenure.
Brilliant talk. I love Ben's books.
Great writer, always interesting. I loved Operation Mincemeat.
Three quarters of the way through the book. Superbly written btw.
Utterly brilliant and well delivered - loved the book!
Why did Flora not speak up sooner? Just how many lives she could have saved?
Great clip
The old boy network is a real security flaw, probably still is being manipulated.
My understanding is that MI 5 suspected Philby but its agents were more working and middle class and could not penetrate the old boy class system of MI 6 !
That sounds about right.
"I know his people..." God help us.
Quite simply, this book is brilliant. Could not put it down.
Same!!!
Excellent summary, both the book and the movie are well worth the time.
Excellent lecture, most informative, many thanks.
Finished this book today - it’s excellent, as is the talk!
Fascinating and a great presentation. Thanks very much!
John le Carré described Ben Macintyre's fact based novel, The Spy and The Traitor, as "the best true spy story I have ever read". It was about Kim Philby's Russian counterpart, a KGB Colonel named Oleg Gordievsky, codename Sunbeam. In 1974 Gordievsky became a double agent working for MI6 in Copenhagen which was when Bill Fairclough aka Edward Burlington unwittingly launched his career as a secret agent for MI6. Fairclough and le Carré knew of each other: le Carré had even rejected Fairclough's suggestion in 2014 that they collaborate on a book. As le Carré said at the time, "Why should I? I've got by so far without collaboration so why bother now?" A realistic response from a famous master of fiction in his eighties!
Gordievsky never met Fairclough, but he did know Fairclough's handler, Colonel Alan McKenzie aka Colonel Alan Pemberton. It is little wonder therefore that in Beyond Enkription, the first fact based novel in The Burlington Files espionage series, genuine double agents, disinformation and deception weave wondrously within the relentless twists and turns of evolving events. Beyond Enkription is set in 1974 in London, Nassau, Port au Prince and the Americas. Edward Burlington, a far from boring accountant, unwittingly started working for Alan McKenzie in MI6 and later worked eyes wide open for the CIA. What happens is so exhilarating and bone chilling it makes one wonder what the point of reading espionage fiction when facts are so much more breathtaking.
Len Deighton and Mick Herron could be forgiven for thinking they co-wrote the raw noir anti-Bond narrative, Beyond Enkription. Atmospherically it's reminiscent of Ted Lewis' Get Carter of Michael Caine fame. If anyone ever makes a film based on Beyond Enkription they'll only have themselves to blame if it doesn't go down in history as a classic espionage thriller.
He wrights Brilliant books
4.34 AM Came across this.
Good stuff.
Great book
Bravo
Just finished listening to this book. More exciting (to me) than any le Carré or Ludlum yarn, and more fulfilling.
And better prose, for that matter.
Sad Elliot loved Philby like a brother, what a shame Philby did not appreciate his admiration.
Philby was a complete and utter shit. A Communist and a crashing snob and elitist. Vetted by 'I know his people.' Can see that happening today.
It was a terrible shame Philby was treated with such reverence because of his posh accent and top class education.
Nevertheless, it is very important for English people to speak English properly, with a Queen's English accent. If you speak with a British lower-class accent and you have children, take immediate steps to have them trained how to speak properly and, preferably, join in the classes. Interestingly, much as I am sure you don't want to hear this, there are uneducated/lower-class accents and educated/upper-class accents in all societies, although they are more subtle than in Britain. A working-class accent immediately reflects badly on a person, always will and dampens opportunities.
@@normamimosa5991
And in those few gibbering sentences we see exactly why Philby, and all the others, worked for Russia.
Correct (posh) upbringing and you join MI6. Less 'correct' and you join MI5.
@@graemecatty9921is/was that true or are you just joking?
Philby had a lot of blood on his hands!!! Awful man.
He has done nothing better than this book on philby and elliott
at 3:28 the photo of Litzi Friedman looks as if it could easily have been taken in what was then called Palestine. The stark light and pines suggest that . However I guess it was more likely taken in Greece or Southern Italy. IN the book this photo is not dated. Flora Solomon passed her suspicions re Philby and his communism on to Viscount Rothschild at some Do in Israel. She knew Philby's ex wife, second wife, and was disgusted at the way KP treated her. .. so there might have been a little bit of payback involved. It is always possible that the information went back to the UK via Mossad. It was part of the jigsaw but au fond, only hearsay. Probably the worst Philby crime was to pass over the details of the anti nazi Catholics to the soviets but he had plenty of other blood on his hands.. perhaps 1000 lives if you include all the damage from the Albanian business and the drops into Russia. Hush my mouth - the photo is almost certainly from a Spanish trip - "Litzi and Kim Philby visited Spain on behalf of the NKVD in February 1934. "
Dreadful for those Catholic German nobles. Dreadful.
Philby sounds deeply narcissistic and almost psychopathic .
Almost?
Much like most American presidents.
An absolute sh$t
Ben knows how to tell a story, that is for sure.
Yes, a "story".
I'm a long time fan of non fiction espionage books. I have had a longtime acquaintance with the Cambridge Spy Ring and had no recollection of hearing the name Nicholas Elliot. Interesting. I'm looking forward to reading more about the Cambridge spies.
I recently purchased this book. I have started reading it. Interesting. Great purchase.
why was Philby not under suspicion sooner after all these leaks which lead to many deaths?
After reading A Spy Among Friends, I think the answer comes down to respect. Philby was this massively respected individual for most of his career and unless you had a personal grudge against him (a particular example would be Bill Harvey, a CIA officer whose wife Guy Burgess drew an insulting cartoon of at a dinner party hosted by Philby), you respected him. While there were a few people who suspected Philby early on, most of them being Americans who didn't understand the importance of social background in MI6 (as Macintyre touches upon here), most people with any power there couldn't really believe that Philby had any links to the Soviets until his defection.
He had the right school ,the right friends , the right family , his social circle believed in the Devine rights of Kings , old money in the Queen's court , house of Lord's , it's a boongoggle..see Hugh lauribin p j wood house.... Jeeves! Wooster an Jeeves!
There is no-one more blind than those who do not wish to see
Philby was prolly compromised , both ways , used to feed Soviets bad info , a disposable spy , ...mad world .
Class
Why did the audience laugh at 8:06?
MY SILENT WAR by Kim Philby---During my youth in the 1930s two paths were presented to me---the rank appeasement of nazis by PMs Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain or the opposition of USSR. But for the power of the USSR and the Communist idea, the whole world would now be ruled by hitler and hirohito. It is a matter of great pride to me that I was invited at so early an age, to play my infinitesimal part in building up that power. How, where and when I became a member of the Soviet intelligence service is a matter to myself and my comrades. I will only say that when the proposition was made to me, I did not hesitate. One does not look twice at an offer of enrollment in an elite force.
What a dangerous, naive, misguided traitor. And he got in because some other idiot knew 'his people'. That's why de Gaulle didn't want us in common market. We couldn't be trusted.
@@stephenreeds3672 Dangerous, yes. Misguided, perhaps. Naïve? He got in because he was the one person who was not.
@@tzenophile I mean naiive because he supported Stalinism while knowing nothing about it. A true intellectual communist who sent people to their deaths for a system of which he was ignorant.
@@stephenreeds3672 You're making excuses for him. Surely someone at the top of MI5 knew something about Stalinism. Or, let's just agree, if anyone there knew, it would be him.
@@tzenophile For people like Philby and Blunt, the whole communism /fascism argument was one of philosophy. No connection with real life. If they'd lived in Soviet Russia their behaviour would have meant a bullet in the back of the head. Especially Blunt with his homosexuality. That's what outrages me. They betrayed a society that benefited them and their class.
The bad mic placement is a real shame.
I wish l had a friend like Elliott
I wish I WAS a friend like Elliot.
Wish he could have slowed down a bit, to like 33rpm.
Level up, kid.😊
Elliot should not sent to Beirut, he probably let him escape when he should have been dragged back to London.
Jaded Elitist
What a shame Philby died before the fall of the Soviet Union,it would have been poetic justice if he had seen the waste of his life a hideous man
He was instrumental in the fall.
His comment that Philby was miserable in Russia seems to be speculation . Perhaps the writer felt he had to prove his bonafide to the crown. Philby with all his faults was faithful to his political ideas. His courage was a trait I find admirable.
The statement that he was miserable in Moscow is one thats pretty much on record, it was established after his english languageinterview in the 80's. His embrace of communism was lifelong but he never did get used to the place
@@bigpapi8529 On record by whom?
Philby gave lectures to KGB spies in training