sen_no_ongaku (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sen_no_ongaku) wrote2006-07-16 10:14 am
sen_no_ongaku) wrote2006-07-16 10:14 am
Entry tags:
My Silent War
One of my birthday presents from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sigerson was My Silent War, Kim Philby's account of his career as a Soviet double agent in the British secret services.
Kim Philby is notorious as perhaps the most successful Russian spy during the Cold War. A British national, he was recruited by the Soviets in the mid-1930s, infiltrated the SIS during World War II and eventually became head of Soviet counterintelligence, as well as liaison with the CIA and FBI, giving him access to the entire West's intelligence operations. He was forced out of the service in 1951 when his association with two fled spies was uncovered, but freelanced for SIS and MI6 in the Middle East until he was called home by the KGB in 1963. My Silent War was published in 1968, after he had been living in Moscow for five years.
The book is fascinating, but not for the reasons it should be. He never answers -- or even acknowledges -- the most compelling questions: why and how. As the book had to be cleared by the KGB, it's unsurprising that the methods by which he communicated with his handlers, the circumstances of his recruitment, the particulars of his escape, etc., are absent.
What is surprising that he doesn't take the opportunity to spout propaganda; he declines to explain his reasons for allying with the Soviets, to express contempt for the values of the West, or to tout the superiority of the Communist way of life.
No, what makes My Silent War compelling is that it ends up being an oblique character study of Philby himself. The way he talks about his exploits, while hardly revealing, nevertheless does hint at some aspects of the man.
When he talks about his exploits, he never discusses the larger ramifications of the operations he undertook, the impact they had on the geopolitical scene; he only brags about his ability to manipulate his colleagues and (so-called) superiors, and always has a word to say about the weaknesses and foibles of the people he worked with.
I find the way in which he talks about his activities chilling. For example, in an account of an operation in which American and British agents paratrooped into the Ukraine to try to foment dissent, he closes by saying:
Of another incident, in which an important defector he was assigned to personally escort was captured before making it to the West, he writes:
Men died because they trusted him, and he recalls the incidents with a a wink and a knowing smirk. He seems to have no concern for the meaning of his actions, either for himself or those men -- or, on another level, for the Balance of Power -- but uses the failed operations as a way of expressing his cleverness, and as a sort of inside joke with the reader.
It's been said in other places that Philby lived his double life not so much to aid the Soviet cause as to prove that he was a master spy, to shout to the world his ability and superiority. What little there is about the USSR seems to evince genuine affection and dedication for his adopted home...but there is little of it. In My Silent War, Philby -- inadvertently or not -- painted himself as an arrogant, smug man who played the spy game as nothing but a game, and whose greatest pride was in having mastered it as no one else. His impact on the political shape of the world is simply not relevant.
In his support of a brutal expansionist regime, Philby helped make the world a worse place to live. Perhaps what's most disappointing is that he died four months before the collapse of all he had worked for.
sigerson was My Silent War, Kim Philby's account of his career as a Soviet double agent in the British secret services.Kim Philby is notorious as perhaps the most successful Russian spy during the Cold War. A British national, he was recruited by the Soviets in the mid-1930s, infiltrated the SIS during World War II and eventually became head of Soviet counterintelligence, as well as liaison with the CIA and FBI, giving him access to the entire West's intelligence operations. He was forced out of the service in 1951 when his association with two fled spies was uncovered, but freelanced for SIS and MI6 in the Middle East until he was called home by the KGB in 1963. My Silent War was published in 1968, after he had been living in Moscow for five years.
The book is fascinating, but not for the reasons it should be. He never answers -- or even acknowledges -- the most compelling questions: why and how. As the book had to be cleared by the KGB, it's unsurprising that the methods by which he communicated with his handlers, the circumstances of his recruitment, the particulars of his escape, etc., are absent.
What is surprising that he doesn't take the opportunity to spout propaganda; he declines to explain his reasons for allying with the Soviets, to express contempt for the values of the West, or to tout the superiority of the Communist way of life.
No, what makes My Silent War compelling is that it ends up being an oblique character study of Philby himself. The way he talks about his exploits, while hardly revealing, nevertheless does hint at some aspects of the man.
When he talks about his exploits, he never discusses the larger ramifications of the operations he undertook, the impact they had on the geopolitical scene; he only brags about his ability to manipulate his colleagues and (so-called) superiors, and always has a word to say about the weaknesses and foibles of the people he worked with.
I find the way in which he talks about his activities chilling. For example, in an account of an operation in which American and British agents paratrooped into the Ukraine to try to foment dissent, he closes by saying:
- I do not know what happened to the parties concerned. But I can make an informed guess.
Of another incident, in which an important defector he was assigned to personally escort was captured before making it to the West, he writes:
- Another theory -- that the Russians had been tipped off about Volkov's approach to the British -- had no solid evidence to support it. It was not worth including in my report.
Men died because they trusted him, and he recalls the incidents with a a wink and a knowing smirk. He seems to have no concern for the meaning of his actions, either for himself or those men -- or, on another level, for the Balance of Power -- but uses the failed operations as a way of expressing his cleverness, and as a sort of inside joke with the reader.
It's been said in other places that Philby lived his double life not so much to aid the Soviet cause as to prove that he was a master spy, to shout to the world his ability and superiority. What little there is about the USSR seems to evince genuine affection and dedication for his adopted home...but there is little of it. In My Silent War, Philby -- inadvertently or not -- painted himself as an arrogant, smug man who played the spy game as nothing but a game, and whose greatest pride was in having mastered it as no one else. His impact on the political shape of the world is simply not relevant.
In his support of a brutal expansionist regime, Philby helped make the world a worse place to live. Perhaps what's most disappointing is that he died four months before the collapse of all he had worked for.