The Rest Is Classified - 197. Kim Philby: Under Threat from the FBI (Ep 2)

Episode Date: September 27, 2026

Kim Philby is MI6’s man in Washington - whilst also working for the KGB. But he’s about to discover that western intelligence is running a hunt for moles - one that could lead to him. Listen as David and Gordon go deep into the murky world of Kim Philby in Washington. ------------------- Sign-up for our free newsletter where producer Becki takes you behind the scenes of the show: therestisclassified.com/newsletter ------------------- Join the Declassified Club to go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠ or join on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- Get a 10% discount on business PCs, printers and accessories using the code TRIC10. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://HP.com/CLASSIFIED⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more information. T&C's apply. ------------------- EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/restisclassified Upgrade your online protection with an all-in-one security app! It’s risk free with NordVPN’s 30-day money-back guarantee 🌍 ------------------- Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified⁠ Video Editor: Joe Pettit Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books. Join the declassified club at the rest is classified.com. Kim Philby is MI6's man in Washington, and he's also working for the Soviet KGB. But he's about to discover that investigations by Western intelligence could lead directly to his demise. Well, welcome to The Rest is Classified. I'm David McCloskey. And I'm Gordon Carrera. And Gordon, last time we left off with Kim Filby, working for MI6 in Washington as the head of station. He's working directly with the CIA counterparts. He's also compromising all manner of covert action operations, in particular covert action operations that are being undertaken by the CIA and MI6 into Eastern Europe, places like Albania, where exile networks that are being smuggled in. Philby is compromising to his Soviet handlers. He's also got this very chaotic personal life going on at home, drinking heavily, of course, partying. He's got his friend Guy Burgess, an unwelcome house guest who has arrived in Washington and is living in Kim Filby's basement. Guy Burgess, of course, also working for the Soviet KGB. And Kim Filby is beginning to realize that there are investigations ongoing into

penetrations of the British Foreign Office in particular, and these are investigations that could lead directly to him. But first, a word from our sponsors at HP. This episode is brought to you by HP. In intelligence, you quickly learn that you are only as strong as the network around you. It's rarely a single major event that undermines an operation. It's the gaps between systems. That's where information leaks. It's the same in business. Leaders face a constant battle against. strict timelines, mismatch tools, and the worry their security isn't as tight as they think it is. Which is why HP approaches technology not as a collection of gadgets, but as an integrated system.

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And the link is in the episode description. Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion I'm not rigged on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heat to blame on me. Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

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Only the years October 2nd. So, Gordon, these investigations. What are they and how are they beginning to alarm Philby? Well, if you remember, when he was on his way out to Washington, September 1949, at MI6 headquarters, he's briefed about a very, very secret operation to look for leaks to the Russians during the war. And these investigations are going to have been continuing in the background as he arrives in Washington, but picking up pace. And he's going to be given a pretty unique and special

insight into it, because it's one of the deepest secrets that the West have. And it's something called Venona. And it's so secret that the existence of Venona was only declassified in 1995. That's wild. So that's 50 years basically after it starts. And actually, as for reasons we'll come to, many in the CIA and even the president of the United States, President Truman at the time, are not told about Venona because of its sensitivity. Why would the president need to know, right? Why would the president need to know? So what is it? During the war, that There were telegrams sent by Soviet spies back to Moscow, and they'd been intercepted.

Now, they were encrypted. They were encode. And the Soviets used something called one-time pads to encode the messages, which is supposed to be unbreakable. And I will note that I actually, as we were preparing this, went deep into how one-time pads work. And wrote down a bunch of notes and helpful examples of how they work. And Gordon said, too much. I think this is too much. So we will include some of that detail in our newsletter.

That's right. Which I would encourage everyone to sign up for at the rest is classified.com, but I won't go into it here. Exactly. And this is a rare case where I respond positively to being edited by Gordon Carrera. Thank you very much, David. But that's right, because the key thing to understand is that they're supposed to be unbreakable. If you use one-time pads correctly and the clue is in the name, use them once, then you can't break the codes. but...

It is actually impossible. It is impossible. It is literally impossible. But the US discovers that during the war, there'd been a printing error by the Soviets. And they'd reused some of their one-time pads. And so what they're now doing is going back over all the messages they've intercepted, effectively by hand, and seeing if they can break them using the fact that they might have reused some of the pads. It's really complex, slow, painstaking work. you get fragments of messages where there'll be something saying someone with a particular code name,

not their real name, is meeting their handler in New York or Washington on this date or this place. And then you've got to do all this detective work to try and work out, well, who might that be? Try and establish their exact identity. So this is really alarming, though, because as they start to do this, the Americans are going to realize that they are deeply penetrated by the sovereign. Soviets and that there had been something like 200 agents operating on behalf of what's effectively the KGB, Soviet intelligence, in the US during the war. Many of them are in government.

At least five were in Office of Strategic Services, which is the forerunner of the CIA. They're fearful that some of them might still be in the CIA at senior levels. Now it started. Or be around the White House and people who are there, which is hence, why. They're really restricting who they tell, including the president, because, well, what if some of his aides might be amongst those potential Soviet agents? So this is a really sensitive operation. Makes sense. Let's let Kim Phil be in on it. Yeah, right. Because he's head of station for the the MS. The president doesn't know, but it is important to say, though, that some of the

suspicion around potential agents has fallen on on the Brits. Yeah, that's right. And so, hence why you would tell him. Yeah, because it's a joint project, a joint US-UK code-breaking project to try and break these codes. There's joint investigations because there's British leads as well. So they're working with MI5 as well as MI6 to kind of work out who people are. Some of the leads point to leakages in the US, but maybe from Brits. So for all those reasons, you've got to involve the Brits. And that means Kim Filby. What is wild is this incredibly secret operation. Kim Filby, actually has a pass. We talked about him having a pass to the CIA.

He's got a pass to Arlington Hall, which is home of the US codebreakers. So at various points, he actually goes to see the codebreakers working on Venona, and he stands over the shoulder of Meredith Gardner, who is the lead codebreaker,

and watches him as he's decrypting and working on Venona messages. Meredith, that's kind of interesting. Would you scoot over a little bit? Let me just have a little look at that. Show me what you're doing. I mean, and the messages are worrying because in 1950, so soon after Philby arrives, there's references, very vague references to a valuable London network and a spy called Stanley. Now, this is actually Philby himself, is Stanley.

Does he know? I don't, well, he must suspect that the London network is his network because he was in London during the war. Whether he knows his code now is a bit less clear. But fortunately for him, there's not much about Stan in the London network in the messages that are being broken. But there's lots of other interesting things. So one of the things is it points to why the Soviets were able to make such progress on the atomic bomb, much faster than everyone expected, because they were stealing secrets from the Manhattan Project, from Los Alamos. And actually, it's going to lead to Venona to Klaus Fuchs.

Friend of the pod. We did some early episodes on him, didn't we? We did. And Philby, it seems that he may have actually tried to warn Fuchs. Yeah. That he was compromised, maybe using Guy Burgess as a career. Yeah, to try and get a message back. But they couldn't get the message back in time. It seems to have failed to get back via the Soviets to Fuchs that he was under suspicion. So Fuchs gets arrested and breaks and, you know, is caught.

But there's another even bigger problem. And that's that there is also a legal. from Venona from these decryptive messages into a spy through the Soviets code name Homer. Guess the Odyssey? It's interesting, isn't it? And Homer was leaking secrets from the British embassy in Washington, 94 to 5.

The Phoebes are leading this with MI5 involved. And Philby is, he's been aware of that from when he went out to Washington, but he's going to watch it develop. And at first, it's really funny because the investigators are like, Well, it couldn't possibly be a proper diplomat. Yeah.

Obviously not. It's got to be some low-level. It's got to be some low-level. Cleaner, perhaps. And so, you know, no proper person from the foreign office would ever be a spy. So they look at like local hires in Washington. I think Philby says that there's a char lady, so kind of effectively cleaner, with a Latvian grandmother who had a 15-page report compiled on their private life. Because they're like, it must be someone with, you know, Soviet links like that.

But the problem for Philby is they're soon going to zero in that it might be someone more significant. And it's someone who Philby knows because Philby talent spotted this guy at Cambridge years earlier. It's Donald McLean. Exactly. And it's Donald McLean, who is another one of those Cambridge spies who had been at Cambridge with Philby at this period in the early 30s, who Philby had suggested to the Soviets, you know, who would be a good recruit, who's an ardor. communist. And Donald McLean is another one of these really curious characters. I mean, all the Cambridge spies, I think, are kind of, they're all kind of interesting and weird in a

very British way. But Donald McLean is, to some extent, had been the golden boy at the foreign office, you know, son of a cabinet minister, incredibly smart, high flyer. What people don't realize is he's an absolute ideological communist. And he is really, you know, we talked a bit about Philby being a kind of romantic communist, but definitely a communist and others, there's anti-fascism going, I think McLean is a communist. You know, he's a kind of Marxist ideologue. And you think that's different from Philby? I think it's a good question. I think Philby there's a bit of anti-fascism, there's a bit of adventure. I think how much Philby really digested the works of Marx? You know, I think McLean definitely did. I think he's the most

committed of them. And the problem is he had been in Washington at this time, 1944 to 45, and the truth is he'd been an incredibly important spy for the KGB, for the Soviets. Being in Washington during the war, he's seeing all the kind of the traffic between, you know, President Roosevelt and Churchill, you know, about plans, about the negotiations with Stalin, about the early atomic bomb plans, and he's feeding all of that to the Soviet Union. He is a lot. He is a big spy. But the problem is McLean is now in a bad way. The pressure has gone to... Also a theme of this

series, I think. It's people sort of beginning to crack under pressure. And McLean's crack up is pretty spectacular. Because after the war, after Washington, he goes to Cairo. And he's promoted very fast to a senior position in Cairo at the Foreign Office. But he's starting to

self-destruct. He drinks a lot. Another theme for the podcast. He loses it when drunk, though. And I find It's interesting because I think Philby somehow managed to keep control when he's drunk. Which is astounding when you consider how much he's drinking. Yeah. But it does seem a pretty consistent read on Philby by those around him is that he's not becoming someone else.

Yeah. When he's drinking, he's very much in control. Yeah. Of what he says and what he does. Whereas McLean, I think, loses it when he's drunk. And, you know, in Cairo. Exhibit A. Exhibit A.

When he comes home late, rather than ring the bell, he stands outside, and he's obviously drunk, and barks like a dog in Cairo until he's led in. I mean, that's not normal behavior. That's how you get into the Gullhanger offices here in London, right, Gordon? Exactly. We're doing that this morning. On a boating picnic down the Nile, which sounds very fun, he gets drunk, he tries to throttle his American wife, Melinda, and he breaks the leg of a colleague by falling on him after arguing with some of the sailors.

it's all weird behavior. And I think part of it is that he may at this point realize he's self-destructing. He may want out from the working for the KGB. And he's an abuser. I mean, there's a lot of abuse in this.

I mean, and he's an example of it. But I think it's also, he doesn't, I think he wants out. The pressure's got to him and he's trying to tell the KGB, I want out. And he's trying to break off contact.

And he is breaking off contact to some extent. And then he goes on the, I mean, we talked about the great drunken dinner party with Guy Burgess last time, didn't we? Really an atrocious. I mean, perhaps one of the worst dinner parties ever. And McLean has his own version of a really bad night out where he goes out with a kind of another Brit. And he goes on a 48-hour bender.

Is there a bender an American woman? Yeah. Yeah. In May 1950. And they go to the flat of an American secretary from the American embassy in Cairo and they trash it, these two Brits. I mean, they take a mirror and they try and smash the mirror

on the bath, but the bath breaks and not the mirror, which I find a bit weird. And then... Why are they doing this? But then by some accounts, they rip up the clothes and potentially the underwear of the American secretary and flush it down the toilet.

Which is, again, weird behavior. And is it because she's American that they're trashing her place? I think so. I think there's like a really interesting undertone of anti-Americanism. Absolutely. Yeah. We're talking about this last time with Burgess.

Yeah, with Burgess, who kind of loves insulting America. Yeah. While being posted to Washington. To Washington. And McLean is the same. And I think it is that bit of their, I don't know, it's the kind of class warrior, weird bit of them, the kind of anti-capist because they're communists. There's a real undercurrent of that.

And I think McLean's got it as well. It explains why my underwear is always ripped up when I visit London. I come back to my hotel room and it's the bath is destroyed my underwear has been torn to pieces so now I'm realizing it's just it might be other reasons David it's the latent anti-Americanism here in the UK that's one plausible reason there might be others anyway after this massive night out

McLean's recalled he gets sent to the foreign office psychiatrist who thinks repressed homosexuality is his problem which was very much you know a theme of the times but then after a few months he's made head of the America's desk for the foreign office in London. Yeah. You know, in November 1950. So there's a lot going on.

He's fragile. His wife, Melinda, is possibly at some point having an affair with an Egyptian prince. Clearly. As you do, he's trapped on the edge. He's getting to fights in Soho bars where he's nicknamed the Lurcher, which is again. So this is Donne McLean. Philby can see the investigation is leading to him and he knows he's cracking up. up and this is a problem because Philby can see the net closing in on McLean because more and more details are coming through Venona which are pointing to him and by the end of 1950 the number of suspects for Homer is down to about 35 the shortlist narrows even more and Philby of course is worried that if they work out its McLean then they might work out well either McLean might crack he might crack and just say and just say well we're

Philby recruited me. Yeah. Yeah. Or talent spot him. Or they'll even be able to go, well, maybe he was recruited at Cambridge. Who else was Cambridge at the same time? So the real worry for Philby is this could all lead back to him. And Philby's trying to cover his tracks as he's watching the investigation.

So at some point he does suggest, well, maybe Homer, this spy, is a diplomat rather than a support officer. And he tries to point it perhaps at someone else. but also make it look like he's helping the investigation. So that if it eventually comes out, you know, it is McLean, people will go, well, Philby was quite helpful in that investigation. So he's trying to be, you know, smart about it. But eventually they're narrowing it down, you know, who is in Washington. They come up with six names, including McLean. And it's getting closer and closer.

And he realizes at this point he hasn't got long, Philby. Because particularly in the spring, in April of 1951, there's a really big breakthrough. in these Venona decrypts because it says Homer, the unknown Soviet agent, had a pregnant wife who was seeing her mother in New York. Because they've kind of pieced little bits and piece as they're slowly decrypting these messages at Arlington Hall. They're getting little bits and pieces of biographic detail that is allowing them to narrow the short list kind of month after month.

Exactly. And now this is pretty much, you know it's McLean. Exactly. Because Philby knows that this is really specific. Because, you know, Melinda, McLean's American wife, was, you know, in New York while he was in Washington, staying with her mother. And that points at him very clearly. So at this point, Philby knows he's not got much time. The clock is really ticking on McLean being identified.

This is where I think it's so interesting because Bonona is so secretive and sensitive that in order to convicts, to McLean, you would almost have to use, you would have to introduce Venona into the legal system, which you can't do. Which you can't do. Exactly. So that's the one reason why Philby knows he's got a bit of leeway

is because they can't reveal that Venona exists because they're trying to catch more spies and work out who they'd have to tell the president. Yeah, they'd have to tell people. So even if they do zero in on McLean as the suspect, Philby knows what they'll end up doing is watching McLean and trying to catch

him in the act, rather than just simply arrest him immediately. So he thinks he's got a bit of time to warn McLean and get a message to him. But the problem is McLean's breakdown has been so bad that he stopped contact with his Soviet handlers. He's kind of out of touch. So how do you warn him? Why do I feel like Guy Burgess is about to come back into the story? I mean, we've got an errand for Guy Burgess.

I mean, reliable career. A reliable messenger is. is our favorite kind of drunk, roguish spy. And it's a kind of fateful decision to use Guy Burgess. But I guess, I mean, there's a logic to it, even though it's... No, there is a logic to it. I mean, and Philby has been using Burgess as a courier occasionally in the US. Yeah.

And Burgess knows about McLean. Yeah. So they're all part of a group together. So you're not introducing another risk there. But it's... Go down in the basement and... But it's Burgess. He approaches with his Navy jackets and send him to Warren McLean.

Yeah. And it's interesting because in the, there's a tape of Philby talking about his career and club members can listen to that. And if you're not a club member, join at the rest is classified.com. Where Philby talks about this period and he talks about arguing with Burgess about, you know, what should they do? And, you know, Philby is confiding with Burgess. And he says that there's an argument about, you know, how do we warn McClein? What's the best way of doing it? But eventually, you know, they come up with a plan.

and that is Burgess will go back to London and warn McLean and get a message to him. The thing is, it would be odd if Burgess suddenly runs back to London for no reason. So this is a bit with, there's a little bit of mystery about this because Philby says there was a plan in which Burgess was going to get thrown out of the embassy in Washington for bad behaviour and use that as a reason for why he was going back and then be able to warn McLean. Which it wouldn't seem difficult to get Guy Burgess thrown out of the embassy in Washington.

I mean, it's actually shocking that Burgess hasn't already been thrown out of the embassy. Yeah. But the way supposedly, you know, this is Philby's claim of how Burgess gets thrown out, is that, I mean, this is another one of those Guy Burgess stories, which we could do in huge detail. Maybe we should when we do Guy Burgess on the phone. Because he's going to the Citadel, which is a military training college in South Carolina. So he's driving from Washington through Virginia to the Citadel. And he gets booked for speeding three times in Virginia on the way. I think you'd have to be driving really fast to do that.

I mean, well, one time when he stopped by the police, he's doing 80 miles per hour. And they say, you know, you're doing 80 miles per hour. And Burgess supposedly replies going, I was doing at least 100, which is not what you're supposed to say. Presumably he's drunk also. He's drunk, but not only as he's drunk, he's picking up hitchhiker's men on the way as well. So at one point he's got a kind of male who's driving for him because I think Burgess is so drunk. I mean, it's like this one journey sounds like the maddest journey, but it's Burgess. And he does get stopped.

And of course, each time what he does is when they stop him for speeding, goes, I'm a British diplomat. I've got diplomatic community. And as you can imagine, I don't think this goes down very well with the American authorities, because this is going to get reported back eventually to, you know, through the police, to the British ambassador. It's like,

you know, that guy Burgess. Three speeding tickets. Three speeding tickets. Hitchhiker in the car, drunk, you know. And I think he turns up supposedly at the Citadel for his thing, gives a speech which is slightly anti-American and then goes and sits back,

at the kind of podium and someone else starts to speak and he just kind of falls asleep in the chair. The result is news gets to the British Embassy by April, 1951. They're like, Burgess, you're out. You know, you're suspended. It's time to go. And Philby claims that this was a plan. Yeah. This was the idea.

But, I mean, do you buy it or do you think that Burgess was just getting drunk? Was he just because all of this feels in pattern for Burgess? Well, that's the thing. And so it is a bit weird because he starts to. doing this in February and then he only gets thrown out in April. So there's quite a kind of long delay. So it's a little bit odd. And so it's a, you know, whether Philby sometimes, particularly when he tells his story,

there's quite a lot of hindsight and making out everything as a master plan when actually I think things might have been a bit more chaotic. But anyway, the result is that Burgess is being sent back and he's going to be able to warn Donald McLean, they have this last dinner. Philby and Burgess which is a kind of very in some ways this is going to be a very sad moment

because it's as we'll later find out the last time these two people actually ever meet these two people who've been friends fellow spies they don't realize it's going to be the last time they meet but they dine at a Chinese restaurant in the US where the music is individually piped into the booths I don't know whether that's a anyway a thing

I don't think that's a thing it's a thing of this restaurant It was a thing in this restaurant, but the reason is it's perfect for a clandestine conversation because there's music in the booth. So they figure even if there's a kind of surveillance on them or a bug somewhere, it's not going to pick it up because the music is coming so directly into it. Burgess is going to go back. He's going to brief his Soviet handlers. The Soviet handlers will warn McLean. Philby is worried, though.

And when he drives him to the station the next morning, his last words, Philby says, spoke only half in jest were, don't you go to but it's Burgess he might do the opposite of what you tell him to do because Philby knows that would be a disaster and then a few days later Philby is going to get a message which will

change absolutely everything for him so maybe there let's take a break when we come back we'll see how things are about to go spectacularly wrong for the Cambridge Spies flight with 350 passengers we assess Prime Minister

With high confidence, it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people. Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself, you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done... Nothing!

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It means their safety and your piece of... No. In Swedish, Natapa means night monkey. Mom! He's back! IKEA, 50 years of Swedishness at home. Look, he's wearing little pajamas. So, Well, welcome back. Burgess is back now in the UK, and he is going to try to get a message to the Soviets about what is going wrong in the States. That's right. He's back 7th of May, 1951. He's met first by Anthony Blunt. Now, Blunt is another one of the Cambridge spiring, another one of the Cambridge spies. Very interesting character. Again, we're not going to delve too deep into him, but he had been at Cambridge as a Don, you know, kind of academic, had known Burgess very well, then is in MI5, in a very influential

role in the war, but then steps back from intelligence work afterwards and becomes an art historian, surveyor of the pictures at Buckingham Palace to the king and then the queen. So a serious establishment figure. What does that mean surveyor of the pictures? So you are basically, you're in charge of the royal art collection. Okay, you're the curator. You're the curator of the Royal Art Collection. And he's a kind of superior, diffident character.

I think in many ways he's the mystery man of the spy ring. I mean, he's the most mysterious and actually one of the most interesting because he has huge access in World War II to MI5 material, really important. But then now is part of the establishment. And he often seems to be the one in the background, I think pulling the strings about some of the things that happen with the Cambridge spies. but I think partly, primarily, especially in this period, to protect himself, because he's now got this position in the British establishment, which he wants to protect. So he meets Burgess, and Blunt then gets a message to their Soviet controller in London for the KGB, a guy called Yuri Modin.

Blunt meets Modin. Blunt is panicked because Blunt is worried as well. You know, he's part of the same ring. They're onto McLean, then they'll be on to Burgess and maybe Philby and maybe him. And Blunt is saying, look, it could be just hours or days before. or, you know, the authorities get to McLean. And McLean could break if he's arrested and implicate us all. So Modin, the KGB controller tells Moscow, there's meetings in Moscow. They agree McLean is so kind of fragile.

They need to get him out. That's the best thing. And Philby, of course, is watching this. This is May 1951 in Washington. And he's going to learn that McLean is now in the sites of the investigators. He's going to be under surveillance by MI5. he's trying to warn Burgess. He sends Burgess a message,

basically saying, Burgess, you know, remember you've left your car here, you know, what do you want to do with it? But it's also got a line at the end, it's getting very hot over here. And I think that's not the weather. Signal. It's a signal.

Philby knows that MI5 are watching and that at some point they're going to move towards picking up McLean and arresting him. They're hoping that they can get him out beforehand. So Burgess and McLean then meet. First, they try and meet at the refrae. reform club, which is a fine British establishment.

You've been there? I've never been to a decent number of interesting clubs here, but never the reform club. How does it fit into the club hierarchy? It was very much a fave for the Cambridge spies. They loved the reform club. And McLean knows he's being watched and knows he's under surveillance. He says to Guy Burgess at one point, I'm being followed by the Dix, which I think is a reference to the police. Okay.

Is that slang for police service time? But that's the phrase he used. And he actually even points them out, the people who are following them. Oh, they don't like that when you point at them. When you point at the police. Because I think when they're having lunch at the clubs, they're like, you know, look at the guy over there. He looks like a cop and he's watching them. But he is, McLean is under, like there actually is consistent surveillance on him at this point.

So he's not imagining this. No, there is surveillance. We'll come to how consistent it is. They don't suspect Burgess at this point. And actually, the two of them having lunch. makes sense because of course Burgess has been in the British Embassy in Washington. McLean runs

the America Department for the foreign office so they're friends. So it's not a kind of intrinsically suspicious. And McLean visibly sags when Burgess, you know, tells him that the reason MI5 or the police are watching him is because of these Venona decrypts and the fact that he now

realizes this isn't just some random bit of surveillance. They are really onto him. And he actually says, you know, I will probably break if I'm interrogated. Melinda, his wife, is due to have a baby in just a few weeks. I mean, he's going to talk to her about this and she seems to know about his espionage, which is interesting.

But he's nervous about whether he's going to be able to survive this. So I guess the question is, given that he is under surveillance, how do you get him out? Because nothing could be more incriminating than attempting to escape while surveillance is watching you. But here's the slight

I find this almost bizarre. The surveillance is on him, but they don't work after 8pm. Or on weekends, the surveillance. I mean, or follow him to his home. So he lives in the kind of outskirts of, you know, in a village actually way out of London in Tatsfield. And the surveillance don't go out to Tatsfield to his home. It's too inconvenient?

I find, I mean, look, I find this odd now. And nowadays, I mean, I think we know if the Fibs or MI5 were on to you, they'd surveilled you 24-7, wouldn't they? Or at least if they were really worried. But I guess the thing is, the surveillance is a game of resources at the end of the day. Yeah. They're not infinite. And so you do have to think about, you know, how you allocate teams and the timings that you'd allocate them and all of that. Because he's not the only person that MI5 is interested in in this period.

But I guess what doesn't quite make sense to me, is because presumably MI5 is certain that he is a Soviet spy, or are they not? That's the question, because if they are certain, if the information has truly made its way from the binocid trips into London, you would think, and you know this guy's cracking up, you would think it would be like a 24-7 operation. Yeah, and it's not. I think it is you're right, it's a resource question. There are reasons like they say, for instance, he gets on the train in and out of Tatsfield every morning. And it's a small train, small carriage, probably of people who are in first class who all know each other by sight. So if you suddenly put MI5 watches on that, actually people are going to people are going to go, who's the news people on the train?

Who are you? You know, they probably talk to each other on the train in the morning. So there's a view which is you can't put people on the train and, you know, we'll just follow him in London during working hours. This will prove to be a mistake. I mean, he's on an immigration watch list, so they can't get him false papers from the Soviet side. But they have come up with one option. Now, in the meantime, Philby is still watching this investigation. And as May ticks by, Philby learns on May 24th that there is a plan to detain McLean soon. And even potentially for this to go up to ministers for a decision, you know, do we bring him in for questioning?

Now, when exactly that will be, it's not entirely clear. And maybe they're going to wait to do a search before Melinda goes into the hospital. and, you know, gives birth, but it's coming in the next kind of days, days or weeks, and Philby knows this in Washington. But they've got a plan, because they've worked out there's a boat which goes from Southampton. It's a kind of weekend pleasure boat, which leaves Southampton on a Friday night and goes around the channel between England and France on the weekend and returns on Sunday. And it's used, primarily, it seems, by people having affairs.

and particularly it seems by some of the accounts civil servants having affairs I know why they would particularly use this boat Are there rooms on the boat? Yeah, okay. It's a kind of overnight boat that you have a cabin and you go around. And what's crucial about this is there are no passport checks because it's not supposed to stop in France. It's not officially taking people to France to get off the boat.

But everyone knows it stops in France for a few hours and if you want to you can get off. Oh, interesting. So it's a very specific type of route or journey. Very convenient. Very convenient. From the KGB standpoint, if you're trying to expel somebody. I mean, it's perfect. So Friday, May 25th, in the morning, the Foreign Secretary, that morning, that Friday morning, gives the go-ahead for MI5 to interrogate McLean.

McLean, on that Friday, has a big lunch in Soho, oysters and champagne. Again, just like... Gets into some fights, lurching around Soho. Friday afternoon the MI5 surveillance team sees McLean carrying a large cardboard box which is a bit weird

but he takes the 610pm train from Victoria back to where he lives now meantime Guy Burgess has gone to his flat in central London this is also weird he picks up to take with him a tweed jacket and a dinner jacket 300 pounds in cash

and the collected works of Jane Austen if I was about to do an exfiel operation, that's exactly what I take. What do you think he's planning at this point? Well, this is one of the big mysteries about what happens. It's worth addressing this now because is Guy Burgess going to flee as well? What the signs are are that he doesn't want to go to Moscow. You know, it's Guy Burgess. This is not a guy who's, you know, his lifestyle might be frowned upon.

His lifestyle might be frowned upon. He loves London clubs drinking and, you know, picking up men. That's his life. So, you know, he doesn't want to flee. But it looks like there's a kind of question mark about whether the KGB have decided that they want him to go. Because he's not, he's not under suspicion. He's not under suspicion or implicated. But of course, it's Guy Burgess, you know, who is one.

and out of control, and the KGB know this. Now, all the signs are that the KGB at one point might have asked him, do you want to go? Do you not? And also, they've realised that McLean is so fragile that he needs an escort to get across Europe after getting off the boat. Because otherwise he won't make it. Otherwise, he may not make it. And so the plan looks to be that the KGB have decided that the, that the, the

They'll ask Guy Burgess to escort McLean across Europe to get eventually to Russia. Hence the Jane Austen. And the money and the dinner jacket. He's going to need some reading material along the way. And he might be doing stuff on the way. But it looks like possibly they mislead Guy Burgess into thinking you're then going to come back. Oh, okay. And there's a bit of ambiguity about this.

And no one, I mean, to some extent, only Guy Burgess, who's, you know, long past, really knows the truth. of what he was expecting to happen. But it may be that he thought, I'm going to take my dinner jacket, Tweed jacket, weekend in Europe, get McLean over as close as I need to, and then come back. But the KGB are going to have other plans.

So Burgess picks up Jane Austen and the dinner jacket. He's rented a car. He drives out to McLean's house that evening. It's looking like he's staying for the weekend. 9 p.m. McLean goes upstairs, kisses his kids good night. Melinda, his wife.

Yeah, I mean, that's a weird moment. Melinda says she thinks the two men are going to the pub, but then the pair, they have to drive off fast in the rented car to Southampton to catch this boat. And they are, I mean, again, it's the kind of like in a movie,

they are racing to get to the dock at a time before that boat goes. And they arrive, I mean, as the crew are preparing to pull up the gangplank, so Perjus drives the car basically onto the docks right by the gangplank so that they can race onto the car. and one of the sailors shouts at him and says,

you know, you can't park there. And he says, back on Monday, I'll pick up the car then. And they sail off into the distance. So, you know, this is the moment which they disappeared. Burgess and McLean will get off the boat on the Saturday morning at 9 a.m. It's raining.

Most people stay on the boat. But they leave their luggage on the boat. So I guess maybe he leaves his dinner jacket and things. Because, you know, you don't want to be taken. Because the whole point is it's not supposed to be a stop where you get off. He's not taking the collected works of Jane Austen with him. I wonder if he left them on the boat.

He probably did. Ah. And he's probably took the cash. They take a taxi to a train station. Then they go to Paris, Bern, Switzerland. They get fake passports from the Soviet embassy, train to Zurich,

flight to Stockholm, Prague, finally Moscow. Yikes. Monday morning, Melinda McLean, Donald's wife, calls the foreign office, saying a husband is missing.

So she's probably in on it. In on it, right? I think the view is she knew he was a spy and had known for some time and that she's in on it. And she'll come back to our story and Philby in an interesting way later. It's interesting.

The authorities may have already worked out by Saturday that he's gone because there's already some messages which are going around government on Saturday going, has McLean fled, and they're worried about that. But then, of course, they find the abandoned car at Southampton

see it's hired by Guy Burgess. And they're like, hang on a sec. We were suspicious about McLean. But Burgess? Yeah. It's a shock. It's a shock.

This is in a way the pivotal moment for the Cambridge spies, the fact that Burgess flees as well. Because if it had just been McLean, I think, you know, it may have been that they could have kept a lid on the investigation, which is now going to spiral out. But as soon as Burgess goes as well, it suddenly looks like this is something bigger. And I mean, the KGB will admit later that they think this is,

their big mistake was getting Burgess to flee as well, rather than leaving him in place. And just to think about it from the KGB's perspective for a moment, the reason you would get Burgess out too is that you think he's a crack up risk as well? Is it that sort of like, if you're at the KGB, you look at him and you say, if we leave him in place, he's going to blow things up. He's going to blow things up. Yeah. And of course, also, Burgess, remember, he's just got suspended from the foreign office. You know, his career is also on a very much downward path. So his value as an intelligence asset is pretty limited.

But I think the KGB will later view this as a mistake because it will suddenly draw attention to the fact, well, how did these two know each other? And, you know, could there be more? And then, of course, the question of how they got tipped off. But there's lots of things suddenly moving very fast because Anthony Blunt, another one of the Cambridge spies, Anthony Blunt goes around to Burgess's London flat with two MI5 office. And he tells them, well, I've got a key, so, you know, I can let you in. You don't need a warrant. He's already been there once and tried to remove anything incriminating, which relates to him.

And he's because he's so close to Burgess. I mean, he gets most of the stuff and he kind of hides it, but he misses a couple of documents. And actually, they will point suspicion at John Cancross, who's another one of the Cambridge spiring. I mean, Blunt has also been asked, like, by the KGB, you know, don't you want to flee? But Blunt surveyor of the Queen's pictures has got no interest in going to Moscow. You know, this is not a man for whom so he's like, no, no, no, I'm not going.

And of course, to Philby, I mean, this is an absolute disaster. Burgess has been living in his basement. Yeah. And Philby can recollect the moment he finds out because he's at the embassy in Washington. A colleague comes in who says, I've just had a very long, most immediate secret telegram from London. My secretary's away, you know, Kim,

could your secretary help decrypt this telegram? Because, you know, it's a bit of a pain to decrypt it. And when the work is complete, the man reads the telegram and looks gray. And he says, Kim, the bird, meaning McLean, has flown. There's worse than that. Guy Burgess has gone with him. Does Philby talk about this in the tape that you unearthed from the Stasiarch? Because he's such an impactful moment.

Yeah. It's a, you know, he says it's like a thunder clap. because he suddenly knows this is a disaster for him. Because actually he hadn't been very close to McLean. He hadn't been friends with him. He hadn't seen him socially. There's not much contact. But I just been living in his flat.

In his house. Yeah. I mean, it's a disaster. So, I mean, I guess the question that has to be running through the heads of everybody inside MI5 and then through the liaison, I'm sure, to the FBI and CIA is who tipped these guys off. They've just fled. So there's somebody else. I mean, immediately it raises this question of there's at least a third man.

Exactly. And who could that be? So Philby is worried it's going to point to him. I mean, he's right. So he's got a decision now. Do you tough it out or do you run? And there is an escape plan in which he would flee via either the Caribbean or Mexico. But it is interesting because he thinks, no, I'm not going to run.

Yeah. I think this is, it's such an interesting theme of really a consistency in Philby's personality is that he's got a lot of nerve, doesn't he? And it seems like there are multiple points in this story where he could have cracked up. He could have decided I'm out and I've had enough. But he kind of just decides to tough it out and figures that by facing it and essentially when questions are put to him denying everything, and pushing the blame elsewhere that he can he can outlast.

Yeah. And I think it's one of the absolutely fascinating characteristics of Philby is he's, whatever you think about his morality, he's got guts to kind of, he doesn't choose to run. And I think he knows he's got some advantages and they're really interesting because he kind of processes this in his own head. He knows, first of all, it would be really embarrassing if he was proved to be a spy. People won't want to believe he's a spy culturally. Secondly, he knows the evidence better than anyone. You know, he's kind of seen it himself.

It's evidence about him, but also he knows what investigators know because he's been in this position. And he knows how they go about investigating moles because he's, you know, been ahead of counterintelligence against the Soviets. And he's been in Washington watching the mole hunts. So he kind of knows that if people are going to try and get someone, they need to catch them in the act or they need to catch them in the act or they need to confession. And so he understands that well enough from the inside to know I'm a player at this game with advantages because I'm on the inside. Yeah. Well, if you run the counterfactual and think about what might have happened if McLean had actually been been arrested, Philby has to understand that the Venona, the decrypted Venona messages would not have been introduced in court.

Yeah. So the case, the eventual case against McLean, would have hinged very much on McLean eventually confessing while being interrogated. And of course, because he was in such a chaotic mental state, he probably would have. I mean, he said so himself. But maybe not implicating. Right. And so Philby knows that he has the advantage of he has not been identified specifically from the Venona decrypts. And he also knows that even if he were, he wouldn't crack under pressure.

Yeah. And the evidence against him is circumstantial. Right. So he knows, okay, suspicion might come on me because Burgess has fled and Burgess has been living in my house. But it's also going to take a day or two for the message to come from London to the FBI to watch him. And so he knows he's got this kind of short gap before he really comes into their sights. So on that day that he finds out about Burgess and McLean having fled, gets that telegram first thing in the morning. He says, I'm going, oh, I need a drink because his news has shocked me, which I think it has.

So he says, I need a stiff drink. But instead of going to the bar, he goes home, goes down into the basement. Burgess's den. Burgess's den. Train set, Burgess's kind of stained naval jackets, all these things. And there he's got some of his spy kit. So he takes a secret camera and other accessories, and he puts them in waterproof containers. and he drives out to Great Falls.

And it's interesting, he's established a routine that he often drives there for a walk. Yeah, classic Intel officer behavior of, you know, you want a walk in your pattern of life or some movement. So anyone who's watching him is going to think. He always does this. It's also why intelligence officers like to have dogs. Because you take a dog out, walk the dog around a park.

So there's a reason for him to do this. This doesn't look suspicious. Yeah, it's perfect. So he parks his car on a deserted stretch of road. He's scouted this in advance near the Potomac River on one side, some forest on the other, goes a few hundred yards into the bushes and then begins digging with a trowel, and he buries his spy camera and the evidence of his espionage. He walks back out, and I do love this detail, he does up the fly buttons on his trousers.

So he's basically making it look to anyone who's watching as if he's just been out into the forest and done a pee. And he's on his normal walking route. There's absolutely nothing. Anyone watching or trying to reconstruct his day would say he got this calamitous news. He goes for a walk to clear his head. P's on the walk. There's nothing weird at all about this day. Exactly.

Eventually, the message does come from MI6 back to the embassy in Washington. And it says, Kim Filby, we need you to come back to London. he knows now he's going to be questioned about Burgess. On his way, as he leaves Washington, he goes to see. Who does he go to see? James Jesus Angleton. And he says they pass a pleasant hour in a bar. It's interesting because Angleton gives him some documents

and asks Philby to give them to counterintelligence in London. At this point, is Angleton, does he suspect Philby? You know, has you already heard that there's suspicions? Not clear? Is it a test? You know, I don't think that's entirely clear whether he trusts. or not. Does the institutional angle matter here? Because both Burgess and McLean were foreign office guys. Yeah. And obviously all of the intelligence that MI6 or the CIA is collecting, not being passed to the foreign office. Yeah. So in Angleton's mind, in the mind of the Americans, more

generally, you could sort of say, this is a foreign office problem. Not an MI6 problem. Not an MI6 problem. Right. Who knows? And I think Angleton's always when Angleton begins to suspect Philby is very unclear. But Angleton at this point does seem to, you know, perhaps, you know, still have some trust in him. Other people do not, including Bill Harvey, who probably now looks at Burgess leaving and saying, I knew he was a deranged pervert. Now I know that he was a spy. And where did I meet him last?

Kim Philby's house. So exactly. Exactly. So, you know, so Bill Harvey, as everyone's going like, well, who tipped off Burgess and MacLean? You know, you can see Bill Harvey, the man whose wife got caricatured by Burgess at Philby's house, is like, I've got my suspicions of who did it. And I mean, Harvey now legitimately does think that Philby is involved. So there, with Philby, trying to play it cool, but knowing the investigation has him in its sights as he heads back to London. he knows he's going to need to face down an interrogation. The question is, can he survive?

So join us next time as we look at that Philby interrogation and a reminder that if you're a declassified club member, you can hear all the bonus episodes we've got to go alongside this Philby series, including a tape of Philby himself talking, people talking about mole hunts, the legacy of Philby, a really fascinating collection to understand and get to grips with what Philby really meant, even into the worlds of spy fiction.

So do sign up at the rest is classified.com. But otherwise, we'll see you next time. We'll see you next time. Hey, David here with some exciting news. My next novel, London Station, is out of the US on September 29th, and available for pre-order now. The book explores an unsettling question.

What if the CIA and MI6 began spying on each other? In the novel, a new US administration has taken office, installing a brash and unconventional CIA director, skeptical of old alliances. When the axe falls on the chief of London Station, the agency veteran decides to spy for the Brits, a betrayal uncovered by his replacement, Artemis Aphrodite Proctor.

Caught between a turncoat spymaster and a ruthless new boss back at Langley, Proctor must now navigate a tense environment as old friends become adversaries and no one knows whom to trust. When assets begin dying, Procter and her team in London Station must find out who is leaking the source's identities

and why, before both agencies go blind. And soon they'll have to decide whether loyalty to the mission means disobeying the agency they serve. Pre-order London Station now, wherever good books are sold, there's also a link in the episode description box.