Many books have been published about the plots of British spy Kim Philby. Philby was the most damaging senior member of the pro-Soviet spy network that included Anthony Blunt, Donald McLean and Guy Burgess. All good people, from respectable, educated families - the building blocks of the British Empire. All four studied at Cambridge University, joined the British intelligence service in the 30s and are responsible for thwarting all British spy networks during the Cold War. Thanks to Britain's ties with the United States, they were able to hit American intelligence operations as well.
The information they conveyed was of such high quality, and in such quantity, that at first the Russians found it hard to believe their good fortune. In general, the gentlemanship of the British elite was incomprehensible to the Russians. Since they themselves began spying on the West both before and during World War II, they assumed that the British, for their part, were vigorously spying on them. When Philby reported to his handlers that there was no such espionage, they thought he was a double agent, as they found it hard to believe that the British were so stupid.
In Ben McIntyre's 2014 book, Spy Among Friends, the author tries, and in my opinion succeeds, in explaining the mechanism that enabled such prolonged infidelity: the four enjoyed the protection provided by family pedigree and the fact that they went to the right schools and knew the right people. The basic assumption among the elite was that Britain's best interest was always before the eyes of all its members – it was inconceivable that its flesh would delusions about communism, surrender state secrets to the enemy and, with added insult, betray its comrades.
Academy graduates, photo: AP
Philby was recruited by the Russians already in 1934 and together with them he waited for an opportunity to join the intelligence services. He didn't need suitability tests, expert evaluations, or scrutiny of his past. Had such an examination been conducted, his marriage to an Austrian communist activist would have been discovered. Philby was born right, knew the right people, and that familiarity was enough, as was enough for other privileged friends who enlisted in the security services and served their country faithfully. His fellow serviceman, Nicholas Elliott, had a meeting with a friend of his father's horse racing at Ascot. Over a glass of champagne, Elliott, 22, said he was thinking about joining the intelligence service, to which a family friend, the chief diplomatic adviser to the government, replied: "Is that all? I thought you'd ask for something more complicated."
Philby had two meetings with two well-connected women, whose names alone tell they were scrubbed from high-quality material: Hester Harriet Marsden-Smedley (and that's just one lady) and Sarah Algeria Marjorie Max. They had already spoken to those who needed it, and the Soviet spy began his journey up the ladder.
During Philby's years of espionage, the British received a host of clues that he was a mole. They found it hard to believe and continued to promote him. Americans, who were naturally less committed to the ethics of tea feasting and horse racing, bullied their colleagues in London and ran into a wall of "Leave us alone, this is our Kim Philby! He's from a good family, albeit a little weird." FBI Director John Edgar Hoover ended Britain's disregard for the warnings and leaked to the New York Sunday News that Philby was a Soviet spy. The British kept their composure. Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan officially denied the report, and Philby held a press conference at his apartment, pure and pure as chrysanthemum.
The loyalty of the Cambridge Quartet was not to the country that discovered and appreciated them, but to Communist Russia. In the course of historical justice, three of them were forced to flee to it and die there, so that they could see firsthand how their idols realized their utopian vision.
A dangerous matter
Is there a universal or perhaps even local lesson to the story of Philby and his friends? Well, lessons learned are a risky matter, since analogies must be used to produce them, and analogies are a bit of a tin argument. But you can try, and what better starting point than the words of wisdom that Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, heard from his uncle: "With great power comes great responsibility."
The elites were born into an environment of power, and they are used to using it as a birthright. A healthy elite also cultivates a sense of over-responsibility for the welfare of the society in which it grew up and serves. When this commitment is directed solely at itself, its values, its interests and its habits, the elite may develop blindness to the possibility that it too can be corrupted. The elite should also be kept an eye out.
Privileges
When an elite falls in love with itself, it may forget that it is part of a larger society. Although thanks to her skills - real or imagined - she sits at the wheel of the bus, you should remember that the people who bought a ticket are equal partners in determining the destination.
Part of the elite's appeal, McIntyre points out in his book, is the ability to contain and even admire what he calls "eccentricity." Philby, for example, raised a fox in his home and mourned her death more than he mourned his father—who was a climb in his own right. Under cover of eccentricity, Philby's superiors and his associates were also lenient about less amusing habits, such as constant drunkenness or information from Russian defectors about a KGB mole at the top of British intelligence.
Protest demonstration of "Brothers in Arms" in front of Nissim Vaturi in Mishan // Archive photo
The privilege of "eccentricity" can serve as a kind of justification for mischievous acts such as stealing a tank from a monument, chronic road blockades, calls for civil disobedience, refusal, justification of refusal, denial of insubordination, advance notice of the airport closure if a reduction in reasonableness is enacted, burning tires in a residential neighborhood, violent siege on ministers and Knesset members – well, natural things that elites do and call "protest."
The elite is perhaps better educated, more connected, and enjoys more than just citizens when it comes to media, police and legal treatment. She has a perpetual presumption of innocence about her motives and her ability to cause real harm. It instills a sense of security by its very existence, the historical contribution of its ancestors and the arrogance with which it conducts itself. All of these can dazzle those outside the closed club. Perhaps it is worth remembering that professors, retired senior officers and high-ranking officials are not immune to human weakness, mistakes and, from time to time, malice.
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