Why You Need to Read “My Silent War” to Understand a Spy’s Mind During World War II
Some may call him a traitor to his country for his perjury. Others may adore him for his ardent belief in communism, particularly for his belief in the Soviet Cause in the fight against Fascism. However, in this regard, both parties find Kim Philby the most intelligent, impossibly humble, and greatest spymaster who served as a Soviet intelligence officer working in disguise in MI5’s King Street Office.
In his memoir My Silent War, Philby wrote his personal account of being a spy in the MI5 (officially known as SIS). Penguin Random House published the 13-chapter book, sketching Philby’s journey from entering the premium British Secret Service (SIS), who contrived to become a British spy liaison officer in the American Secret Service (CIA).
The Venona Report busted the Cambridge spy ring. And exposed Philby with his comrades, who are more aligned with the Soviet Union than with British and the U.S. interests. The spy ring, Cambridge Five, had been active as a Soviet mole in the top ranks of MI5 and the CIA.
After the Venona report came to light, it forced Philby to fly away to Moscow. The report inflicted public embarrassment on these Secret Services. The Western press had started its media trial. The flurry of articles published in the Sunday Times and the Observer, as Philby stated in his book’s intro, prompted him to write his account of why he chose the Soviet side. The headline in the Sunday Times, 1967, reads I Spied for Russia from 1933: Philby.
Once a member of the famous Cambridge University Socialist Society (CUSS), Kim Philby started his clandestine political journey in the tumultuous years of Europe when Hitler and Mussolini began whipping the firing squad for total dominance over Europe. And to Philby, he couped against certain retrogressive conditions of his time. Philby managed to fool the oldest Secret Service in the world. The agency became a tool of the enemy in the hands of the Cambridge Five. Alternatively, Philby garnered praise from his opponents. Many see this as a brilliant feat of a cunning spy. “There has never been a spy like him, and now, the Cold War over, there never will be,” said Philip Knightly in the book’s introduction.
But what were the weakilings Philby exploited in such a top spy agency? From Philby’s account, the oldest and one of the premier Secret Services, like SIS, was poorly organised with slender resources and ill-intended narrow politics that ate the organisation’s strength inside out. The lackadaisical attitudes of the SIS were supported in Graham Greene’s foreword in this book. Greene wrote, “His (Philby’s) account of the British Secret Service is devastatingly true…There was even a moment when Philby wondered whether it really was the Secret Service which he had entered.”
Nevertheless, he craftily exploited the bungling Secret Intelligence Service and cultivated barricades from the unhealthy rivalry between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Investigative Agency (CIA) for his underlying intention.
Kim Philby grew up amid privilege and rebellion
Philby was born in Ambala, India. His father was an Indian Civil Servant and, later, an Arabist. Philby inherited his father’s exhilarating perspective towards life and felt that life should be lived to the hilt. Following the years, his coming youth developed powerful charms, attractive stutter, and fine wits. He had left the Trinity College of Cambridge University as a devoted communist and joined the International Workers Relief Organisation.
With the increasing footfall of fascists in Austria in 1934, the Jews and left-wing individuals were being systematically oppressed and tortured. Philby intended to observe the situation in Austria and assist his organisation in the relief work.
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After returning to London, the Soviet Secret Service NKVD recruited him as a spy and assigned him to cover the fascist war effort in Spain during the Civil War. Philby took a job in a far-right news organisation, disguising himself as a journalist. His accreditation with The Times newspaper gave him access to the war front from General Franco’s side.
As he had started his espionage debut in Spain’s Seville, he realised the lethal martial rule. One night, after a pulse-pounding day spent experiencing a bullfight in Cordoba, Philby was tired and soon deeply asleep. Suddenly, he was snapped awake by a ‘thunderous hammering’ on his door by the Civil Guards. What, why rushed through his head. He had nothing that could connect him with the Franco’s opponents. Then why was such a terrorizing act brought upon him? He only had a small piece of information that could be lethal in such a fascist time. He swallowed the small paper that had the info. That night, though he dodged the firing squad of Franco’s, he reflected that a meaningless event could bring ‘mortal hazards’ to an ordinary individual under such conditions.
That frightening incident under the fascist regime cemented his anti-fascist belief against the British approach towards the anti-Nazi-war. Philby wrote,
“It often appeared that the British wanted a simple return to the status quo before Hitler, to a Europe comfortably dominated by Britain and France through the medium of reactionary governments just strong enough to keep their own people in order and uphold the cordon against the Soviet Union.”
A staunch opponent of the Nazis, Philby believed that the Soviet Union, as quoted in Ronald Philip’s book A Spy Named Orphan, “seemed to have all the answers.” Philby wrote in his memoir,
“…Soviet Union which I regarded then, as I do now, the inner fortress of the world movement.”
With conviction, Kim Philby fought his war silently in his upcoming days at the Secret Intelligence Service. After the Rosenberg case happened, Philby’s involvement was met with howls of anguish from others who dotted the connection on the eve of the publication of the Venona Report.
Philby knew the case was poorly handled on his part. But Philby hadn’t expected that Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a mere courier to the Soviets, would be electrocuted. The ‘unflappable’ Philby raged and wrote,
“(President) Eisenhower refusal to reprieve Ethel Rosenberg on the grounds that, if he did, the Russians in future would use only women as spies. It was an attitude worthy of the most pedestrian of United State’s presidents.”
The book will settle you in the many swathes of espionage wars from an individual's eye. Philby betrayed the country he was born into. To him, it is an answer to the crisis of his time in WWII. The memoir answers all the bellicose and deceptive things Philby had heard and seen in the war-torn world. During the defining moment of this era, his conviction in communism played a significant role. It shows his convictions, logical mindset, and proactivity, all imbued with wit.
The writing beautifully sketches Philby’s tactics, analysis, and reflections that he incurred while maintaining double lives. As a skilled journo, Philby’s ability is reflected in the writing. The memoir is complete with comprehensive narration mixed with intriguing witticism.
