‘A clever agent': notes from ‘watchers' of spy Kim Philby made public for first time

The Guardian

22-03-2025

Secret surveillance of Britain's ­notorious double agent, Kim Philby, made public for the first time in archived documents, reveals how keenly the Security Service wanted to confirm or disprove early suspicions of his high-level treachery.
In daily bulletins submitted to MI5 in November 1951, undercover operatives describe how Philby, codenamed Peach, moved about London.
They said he gave 'no outward sign of being either nervous or on the alert, but your well trained man should not do so; every movement is natural – again as it should be'.
The notes, from official ­'watchers' who were tailing Philby and bugging his phone, raise a key question about how the arch-traitor eventually escaped justice: did the British establishment deliberately protect him, or simply hope to avoid a public scandal? Mark Dunton, of the National Archives, believes the ­documents, which go on display in the ­exhibition, MI5: Official Secrets, next week at Kew, west London, shed light on one of the most shady ­periods of British ­espionage.
During the cold war period, a group of 'Cambridge Spies' managed to compromise the top ranks of British Security and Secret Intelligence Services, MI5 and MI6. 'All the layers of description and detail in these documents make the complexity and the mistrust clear,' said Dunton.
'The original transcripts of Philby's interrogations later can be read by the public for the first time. They will be displayed alongside some extraordinary new loans from MI5. Philby's movements around London in 1951 make fascinating reading.'
Tracking him that winter between the Athenaeum Club, the Arsenal stadium, Harvey Nichols and The Goring Hotel, officers sought evidence. Signs of a relaxed demeanour were no proof of innocence: 'Such behaviour, however, should not be taken as an indication (a) that his mind is at ease, or (b) that he is not on the look-out for followers. On the contrary he has used the corner of a street into which he was turning in such a way that it would not be difficult to spot a careless watcher: on a bus he has adopted the procedure of a clever agent – although it is impossible (as it should be) to say whether this (or the street corner manoeuvre) was deliberate or otherwise. For the present we are confident that our methods will combat such tactics – if indeed they are tactics, and in any case at the first sign of Peach becoming suspicious (the repetition of recognised spotting manoeuvres will be interpreted as such) we shall withdraw.'
Harold 'Kim' Philby, an Etonian, had become a committed communist as an undergraduate and was recruited by the Russian intelligence services in 1934. He joined the British intelligence service six years later, serving in Washington from 1949 until 1951, when he first came under suspicion, after the defections of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean.
Philby, who later worked for the Observer as a Middle East correspondent, has been called the 'Third Man' because he was suspected by both MI5 and the Americans of being the elusive double agent who had tipped off the two spies before they could be questioned, allowing them to flee to Moscow via France.
Philby was, however, publicly cleared of complicity due to a lack of evidence, or perhaps because of a ­protective MI6 strategy.
The new surveillance documents show Philby was being bugged and followed in this period. Ironic, since Philby's own memoir, My Silent War, revealed that he himself had bugged many communist sympathisers on behalf of the British government.
Philby drove a black cab that he had bought as a ­private vehicle.
The 'watchers' made fun of their target, describing his 'weatherbeaten face' and 'untidy hair'. They added in their notes: 'He is inclined to grin when driving; this is almost certainly due to the fact that his vehicle is an ex-taxi and it might well be called a self-conscious or shame-faced smirk.
'We have noticed this previously with drivers of similar 'models' at which small boys and their like are inclined to jeer.' They later note that he has no mirror, 'in breach of law', which makes tailing him easier. 'With our radio-equipped cars behind him it is extremely unlikely that he will see us so long as he is at the wheel.'
The five Cambridge spies – Philby, Burgess, Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross – all passed information to the Soviet Union from key citadels of the British establishment.
Under suspicion again from 1962, Philby finally fled to Moscow a year later, handing over a written confession to his old MI6 friend, Nicholas Elliott. He had been accused by Flora Solomon, a former girlfriend, who said he had once tried to recruit her.
Solomon was prompted to speak out, she claimed, by what she saw as the anti-Israel stance of his ­articles in the Observer. This sealed the case against Philby, who had already been named by a Soviet defector, according to the Spycatcher author, Peter Wright.
Philby spent 25 years in Moscow, instructing trainee spies in the techniques of 'tradecraft'. When he died, in 1988, he received full KGB honours.
The transcripts on display in Kew will include Philby's admission that he had passed on information leading to the presumed execution in Russia of the potential defector Konstantin Volkov and his wife.