[000:00:00;00] ah, with i'm action or tanzania watching, going underground 24 hours ahead of a meeting of nato foreign ministers. and as israel lebanon relations, a disgust of the un security council, lebanon has long been a key front in the cold war, conflicts, and arguably still is the capital bay route, would play host to the most successful communist known to penetrate the british secret services. kim fil, be a new book about his time in beirut, not only expose the life and loves of the legendary double agent, but also scrutinizes the role class played in britain's cold war defeats. and it's all the former deputy editor of the independent on sunday or in britain, james hanning joins me now. james, welcome to going undergrad. so tell me about what's new. i mean, i thought everyone knew about him. phil be the most famous of british by after

james bond. well, i thought i thought we all know that ho, restore it's been done to death, but actually i, i looked into the pit because i got some credit. some stuff from a former colleague, bron soule ah, a by about the circumstances in which who be left perry and i started looking into it and actually i didn't know this. i didn't know this about the american wife. i didn't, and there was loads of stuff i thought, and he's one of those figures who's in the sort of public consciousness. but actually, once i've, i certainly i find, i'd forgotten an enormous amount about it. mindful there was so many new elements to it, especially, i know, brown, sewell and former art critic of london paper who knew entity, blunt. so you have the queen's, a hanger of pictures as it were. but i mean, we had an delaney on about his book on fill, be in his as reachable recently. and you echo his view and other views. this is a huge clos dimension to this. he was protected, defacto, protected as a soviet age into the highest echelons of britain's intelligence services because

of his well, that's right. yes. of course they didn't know he was, he was ever since by bed, but everybody assumed that he was a nice chap and his father had been, was well established and been to cambridge. and he'd known lots of people at cambridge song. and it was assumed he was a nice guy and he was very likable, very polite, very kind or quite charismatic. i think very charismatic, is women loved him? certainly. i mean, he was, for somebody said he had an or of sexual suggestiveness about it when he walked into a room. and just to remind us about why he turned to communism, i think many people will have seen books if they know about philby, about him being a traitor and it's full of victory all against the people that died because he was a spy for the soviet. i don't think i've ever read in a british book about philby. he had a social conscience loads, his parents boss, close friends, being corrupted out of them by money had seen other social democratic left vacillated, shrank. a failure to confront fascism and the moderation of principles of his youth

with the selling out just as the labor part he had done. the ramsey mcdonnell left i there are some people i say the kissed armor left austerity a fathom? yeah, yeah. there was, there was, britain went through a most of your, it went through a terrible time in the late twenty's early thirty's. and he was horrified that the labor party, which was the convention regarded by then as the conventional way of opposing capitalism, hulu. and he was horrified that in the labor what he sold out in effect, he went into a national coalition, a government of national unity, as it was called. and he thought that the left had sold out. and a soon after he went to, to austria. ah, he then later went to spain and he was just very fond up and he thought democratic so for democracy doesn't, doesn't do the job. and he saw the,

the rise of hitler in germany, the cosmo saline and franklin's initially and franco in spain. and he did see the soviet union as a bulwark against coming against against fascism and that whole block later life. he visited cuba when he do it defected by that. well yes indeed indeed. but i think he, he, he was an idealist. he was an ideological zealot. ah, and he had no, you know, he just thought democratic politics is not gonna is not going to stand up for the working class, but no less ideological. then the people that say, theoretically, were his best friends, although he was changing on as it were, who were involved in the coo against monster, there can iran who were involved in all sorts of intelligence activities to destroy parties in the global south. yeah, he was, well, he was on the other side. i think i think the other thing that the cannot should

not be forgotten about him was he did have an extraordinary capacity, deceit. he was brute. he was a brilliant liar. now it seems to me there's no reason why people who have that talent, if you regard as a talent, why they should be excluded from having higher aspirations for society. and so if you can still be an idea, idealist and be a liar. i mean, i, you know, i know, journalist i, well, i mean arguably you, one of britain's top experts on the excesses of oligarch go and journalism in this country. and it's very depressing for any journalist to read the capture of journalism at the time in the fifty's and sixty's, later on since the sixty's, i by the intelligent services in by the united states intelligence as and the british ones tell me about how he ends up in the observer in the economist in beirut. well i, that's your tongue. the capture. i'm not sure i'd use that term. i think the woman that he marries for the last time,

the ex husband sam brewer. don't miss him. who works for the new york papers? yes. i mean, sam brewer was sambro, had worked in the war for the, the forerunner of the cia and also been a journalist. and when he left the paper, he was with them and joined the new york times. new york times said you've got to cut all your links with them with the security services, and he said yet here. sure, i'll do that. but i don't think anybody believes he did. i and journalist will tell you the world over intelligence people talked to journalists and vice versa. and they, there's a sort of symbiotic relationship, whether it's quite capture, i'm not sure i'd agree really observe. david aster was happy with all his journalists in effect, rather than speaking truth to power or whatever the free as they were. they were. i think he was sent over for next for, i'm not an expert. and david, as to i,

my sense is that he was a bit naive. it was pretty naive actually. and there was a genuine sense that philby had been done wrong. that he'd been, he'd had a raw deal. he'd been accused of being a russian spy. and the government in the end, the british government, in 1955, had cleared him. and his friends said, well, we told you, we told you no to russian spy. we've got to look after this guy, he's good guy, he's straightforward. and so we've got to find him a job. so they, as you say, they found him a job with the observer and the economist, and they sent him off to be route. i mean, while since you were leaving stand it, i have to ask this because christopher steele, the discredited them. i think the agent interviewed recently with great fanfare saying, boris johnson made the son of the owner of the standard. now he had done the standard actually, the russian guinea levied if he made him appear in the house of lords. if now, boris johnson, equally from that class, is a russian spy. i mean, you said, and we will you around spies of the evening standard,

the london noted i was aware of i was, i was told that jack the cartoonist, i don't remember him, but jack was said to be on a list of assets. now this is a very murky area and as i say, a lot of journalist talked to talk to some intelligent people and they exchange information. and they're useful to tell them where the money changes hands, which is seems to me crossing a line, i'm not sure. so i don't know, but on boris. yes, you could, i'm sure you could paint one could come up with a great scenario about boris. his father, who was said it has been reported to be, have been in my 6 and boys, went to wheaton and therefore probably put $2.00 and $2.00 together. this sounds like a conversation at the st. george barn bay. really describe this place. nice amount in a lot of coffee, sadly in the news because of what's happening in lebanon right now, but what happens in lebanon happens everywhere in the middle. yeah, i mean,

the effects, the middle east, and therefore, the whole world are good. yeah. yeah, this and george's was, was the place i mean bit, beirut was a, was the new kero in away. a lot of people were moving away from cairo. this is intelligence people, journalists, businesses and so on. because they were a bit nervous about about nasa and they thought lebanon was a safer place to bring up, bring up children, and so on. so, and there was a very, essentially, a very happy place. it seems, at least if you were, had a bit of money and were you was a us proxy american government. yes me was, it was and i the, the saint. george's, the bar of this and george's hotel was the place where the diplomat spies journalist would all meet in the evening or sometimes indeed in the morning, i spent all day there. and it was the place where you were, you know, if you wanted to know what was going on, you got plugged into the saint george's and you would be sure to meet some senior member,

the government or some senior spy or whatever. and her was the place to be sent, at least that was better than press releases or in the amount of alcohol that flows through this book. the 10 o'clock you tell us what the 10 o'clock club is it? yeah. you were telling her was, ah, was that the 2 chairman of that were sam pope brewer, who, whose wife ended up marrying philby and a friend of his, who was a senior cia man. and they would arrive at 10 o'clock for pick up their post, put the newspapers under their arm and go and sit at the bar and just chat. and i had their 1st martini the day at 10 am and they would discuss what that what the new york times might begin to write the following day. and sam brewer became rather over reliant on that, on his, on his official sources. and, and which is, which is a sad thing actually in later life. yeah, i mean,

i think we're all familiar with journalist who become over reliant on unintelligent sources. well, over here, there's a big scandal. integrity initiative, the institute of state crime, they listed journalists that were people that were favored to leak to let that document itself leaked out. i was told, i didn't know whether you were now on a certain and i get no information or no one tells me no information at all. but i, b, m, c, i a are incredibly annoyed by all of this. quite rightly that they're giving a story. they are giving information to it. why is it that the americans didn't? i mean, you mentioned one theory that they were going to kill him. the americans, one theory that when, as soon as they found out he was a spy, d and then you go into a long explanation of different theories as to whether the intelligence services here basically rescued him in a way and got him out to moscow because they didn't want a public trial here that would embarrass intelligent services in front of the world

. i don't believe they went to more to, to be route to in order to encourage him to go to moscow. i think, i think they still believed even when they were pretty certain that effective they were certain that he missed by the russians. they still believed that they could turn turn him. this is one of the secrets when one of the key facts, it seems to me about feeling that everybody underestimated the strength of his ideological commitment, including from, as i said, the russians. but the british still believes that good old came underneath it, all was one of us. and that if they confronted him with his what they regarded as his youthful folly of his, his anti fascism and so on. and they said, look, we can do a deal, what come back to us, tell us who else was involved. we can clean the whole thing up. and once they had

the confession and they did have a sort of confession, i know this is not comfortable news for some people, but they did have a form of confession from him. and once they had that with some fake information in it, oh, which certainly was a fake information and quite what he was doing is not clear, but he was at the very least playing for time. but they, the british believed it seems to me, the british believe that once they had that confession, they thought okay, came is back with us. he will tell us he can stay in beirut and so on. and he will tell us what's been going on. and that is why nicholas elliott felt comfortable in, disappearing back to london. and i think but off to africa where his next job is to seem surprising with dick quite given way. 5 for the building next door to the studio would think of to decades with so much information and secret stuff was being leaked to the k g

b. that somehow it suddenly took one new element because he didn't want, it seems to me because he didn't want to. he didn't want to go. i think he, he did miss brittan when he, when he got to moscow he was, this is, this is a very murky area and i can't tell you for sure. he was madly in love with elena, because nobody really knows what was going on. they filled his mind, but it seems to me he was very, very fond of it. he was having an okay time in beirut. he was drink, you know, a lot, but this is life is usually what she did on the american. it almost will need to fact that that's right, that's right. but i think, i think ultimately he, he didn't particularly want to go to moscow, but he ended up, he ended up doing so for reasons i go into in the book, james, i'll stop you there. more on the cold was most famous british by, after this break ah, that financial survival, john,

today we know about money laundering 1st to get the get started. well, we have our 3 banks all set up here. maybe something in europe, something in america, something overseas, in the cayman islands, you never know all these banks are complicit in their piracy. we just have to give them a call and say, hey, i'm ready to do some serious my laundry. ok, let's see how we did. well, we've got a nice laundry watch for max and for stacy. oh, beautiful jewelry. and how about how much my bill again for mag, you know it money order is highly legal. don't be a cookie. much kind oh, driven by drink shapes, banks,

concur. some of those with dares sinks. we dare to ask a welcome back. i'm still here with james having over a fill be in beirut. the one problem here is that they're not releasing papers. nicholas elliot, his best friend of the intelligence services, were to memoir the intelligence of his. he was in 2021 to help publish it. why? well, 11 spy experts said to me, am i 6 never reveals anything because it's bad for business. it's just, it sets a bad precedent if you release anything, then you are undermining the face in off potentials when they do selectively stuff gets to journalists and so on. there is a bit of that. yeah, no,

i agree. i agree. i gave the height. no, i didn't quite know why they went release specifically why they weren't released nicholas elliott's version equally. i'm not certain that nicholas elliot knew the full story. i think, i think, as i say in the book, i think antony blunt had a major role that a lot of people did not want to get on to this because i was, i wasn't aware of that at all. no, this is a one of britain's most famous say, art critics hanger at the, the queen's pictures friend of the queen for long. yeah, i'm related in fact the queen mother and he has to do distance. i mean there's so much in the book, john kerry comes out terribly wanting to kill phil b. but tell me about blunt why else he in beirut around the same normally be in london. yeah. in the center london or the quarter all deck exactitude for art. exactly. it seems to me and i'm, there's a degree of speculation in this,

i confess. but i, i think i proved that anthony brown was in bare route for 3 or 4 weeks before phil b was interviewed by elliot. and i think antony blunt, her became aware that philby was going to be confronted. now blunt had lost his faith in communism. i spoke to your remote in in moscow about 2018 years ago. and he talked about how blunted just lost his faith in communism, and he'd never really been committed. he was a marxist in a kind of our aesthetic sense. but he was, he'd really joined up because of his friend god, burgess, and blunts faith in the soviet union. had gone and i think when blunt heard that philby was going to be confronted that or he felt

a out of loyalty to philby and b to save his own neck because he, he was void. what philby might tell them, blunt felt he had to go to beirut himself and tell list and tell philby that he was going to be confronted. now blunt, isn't blunt. well exactly. peter said, well, of course, why did he not just bring the soviet embassy in london or ring ring a contact in london? because i think blunt wanted phil be wanted to give phil be the choice himself as to what he did. and blunt was fearful that if he enrolled the russians, phil bes future might be taken out of his hands, that the russians might to say, right, you're coming with us. so he wanted phil be to have the opportunity of being forewarned himself and making a decision for himself rather than or rather than it being it being decided for him by the russian. why is it that no,

i mean you joke about town or eve jokes will be jokes about saying when confronted about being asked by saying ac was i am initially and actually given the yemen, we been giving yemen quite a bit. the world's was humanitarian crisis. a when the 962 marxist river revolution up there in south human, it's obvious to his friends. i wouldn't be obvious people's, i mean, i think you mentioned how he, in polite conversation towards the end of his life is musing on the spanish civil war on austerity, on the poor analogy. people around him just thought, well, caring man for yes, he did. that's right. and and her one of his for a former foreign correspondent, a guy from the telegraph, a couple of nights for fulfill be disappeared in beirut. he said that guy really cares. he said he is very motivated by by, but by humanitarian concerns. i think that's right. and he's not,

he's not well regarded in britain, drove his reasons, and he deceived a lot of people and he cheated. and you can call it a conceit whatever. but i think i think he is owed at least a some sort of understanding of his motivation of well to them. i think it's a gun. yeah, exactly. i i yeah. so right now we have a i was eligible, right wing labor leader. we have austerity. are the effects of the 20 you 8 crisis, arguably, rising inequality of labor and tory governments who have was disastrous was the canister. and one of his he was mainly out. what do you think she'll be would think of her the current situation. ah, my one the indicates, i wonder. yes, i mean there are, there are a lot of, i mean there are a lot of middle cells. so i can use that to middle class carbonite still around and still feeling. we need something more, more extreme weather. philby would ah, to know what can we delete it?

well that, i mean, that's the question. i think, i mean his is arnold deutsche. he who recruited him in the thirty's, he said you could achieve so much more if you go under cover. now i don't think you can argue with that. i think he, i mean he did a lot of damage to the west and so and so by that judgment deutsche was right. whether phil b would do do the same thing again. i don't know. i think he, i, it cost him a lot, i think in terms of personal friendships. i mean, he even say he was asking for it, but all that drinking stuff. he was not, he was not happy. nobody can pretend he was happy. he may have felt inspired by a higher cause and so on. but he was, nobody can pretend he was. he was a happy bunny. and while over here older, the fifty's and sixty's, we would have anyone reading british newspapers would have seen how evil the soviet union was. from his perspective, the seeing british imperialism dying of his he had, i mean,

towards the end and be rude. he was the echoes of the nasa to his graces and still very important. yes, i live in. i think that me, i think he and blunt from what i've read a glance, thinking on this, but they both felt certainly so be. he'll be in 1933 or so before said war is coming with hitler. there war is coming. i could, you know, and i think he felt he could see the future and i'm not being facetious. i think he felt history was on his side and, and this was, is part of the whole, the whole analysis of colonialism and so on was, i think he would feel completely vindicated by that. and everything you know, in the and eden and so on. and it's, i mean, it was, it was a mess. what happened? why was he not impressed by washington? he was the most senior intelligence person from m, i 6 in washington as well as previously heading the anti russia. and he soviet

union department was being as of its way here in london. i think he was a, i think she was a bit of a snob. and i came across some notes which, which nobody's seen before, from patrick seals. from when patrick seal, who wrote a biography, philby and somebody was very close to philby, had spoken to seal, and it talked about how unhappy he was in washington. he, he affected to be enjoying it. and so, but he, he really didn't like you. and i think he, i think he just felt the him at the, i just felt the americans were a bit vulgar. i think. i mean, i knew i knew patrick seal. you say he was an intelligence with the i don't say then i dance. it was his father. i don't think his father was a very easily famous for the biographer acids father of a missy patrick seal the late late patrick's. yes. but m g think to they there's still lingering. ah, there echoes of that in the corridors of langley in virginia,

the ca that quite trust the british there, they're intelligent services. he had class still matters. i don't know, i suspect less than i suspect less than, than formerly, than, than was the case. i think, i mean, the americans were looking around the world in the 10 years after the war and realizing that maybe they needed to get more involved, that isolationism was, was not doing them any favors. and they were looking at the way the british and the french had been running things and thought this isn't great. i have it recently, we had the afghanistan withdrawal. and according to, if we believe the press here, i mean, i don't know how close they are to the intelligence services. the government here were taken on the hope about the all afghanistan withdrawal. yeah. thought it wasn't going to happen. and the americans being which withholding information in case it leaks out from her. and it tells us that maybe the case if your stuff

they'll be wearing stuff leaks out and they get the leaks out, then they can ask her. the journalists will ask questions and washington and embarrass the americans of sure, i can believe that. i mean, that's a basic need to know i need to know arrangement among, among spooks and i. yeah, the special relationship is always, always been fairly rocky. i. i think it's difficult to, to generalize that. that's the one thing i would say, i think personal relationships are very important. and in some cases they would override the kind of big picture. but certainly in the case of afghanistan, it does, you know, all the mood music suggests that british were very much taken on the hall and, and this book, i hope it's doing well. but even in the you describe when phil b is trying to write her stuff and serialization in british newspapers are close. the intelligence services are to newspaper proprietor saying don't touch this and

that eleanor. the final wife tries to publish things and the reviews are uniformly poor. yeah. without any element of the complex context, not even just on the political level on the psychological level. i mean, i don't know with that reaction to this book as well. the need to always go his evil stuff, thinking about the complexities of the case of came philby. yeah, i mean that something, i mean i, i've said to somebody the other day, most people's reaction to read off. hitler is not anger. it's. it's you want to understand and it seems to me, philby is entitled to that as well. but where is an awful lot of people in britain just want to kick filbert? they just did. and i think he did some terrible things. but i think in this, whatever it is 40 is after he died that 303233. as of today he is entitled at least to some kind of understanding. now, you know, i don't,

i don't see myself as an apology for him at all. but i, i, you know, i think he think he said that james handing, thank you and that's over the show will be back on wednesday. 59 years to the month that soviet double agents are antony blunt. queen elizabeth, the seconds art advisor visited bay ridge, allegedly, to arrange shelby's escape to moscow until then get in touch with us. why social media let us know if you think the media in the intelligence services are still in bed with each other. ah. join me every thursday on the alex simon, sure. and i'll be speaking to guess of the world politics sport business. i'm sure business. i'll see you then legacy media continued to prepare a western audiences for a military conflict and ukraine. another war of choice. also,

the united states doesn't export much these days and maybe except for so called values, or those values attractive anymore. you were told it was bad for your eyes and your post. yeah. that it would stop you from having real friends and finding a girlfriend. but what they fail to mention is that you could make thousands of dollars over the weekend by simply playing video games with a couple of them because i always wanted to push in a bunch. sure, it's a little under profit as well. if i was originally looking for it, okay, much for to do except there's no phone of course to make video games a high paying job. you have to be gifted and quick with it. hang on to open up with spike to close to little bit. mr. lithium, bottom in this sounds good, webpage bentley up on the, on the booth but even started yet gala. boy, when you mouse told me my video it out or you me, i was at kneels few guy on the order,

but i will that be circle. it will still be stuck with these are the do i also use this? um sir, is this our only chrome new cove? it straight from south africa's spreads across the world with nations canceling flight snout even keeping the fully vaccinated in isolation, shoplifting and vandalism. as the festive season begins, flash mol been smash and grab robberies, put us authorities to the test and store about parents. the school in texas, who had their personal details posted online. after they spoke out against critical race theory, mask mandates. we speak to one of them. he posted our personal information and our address is the band told the internet to, to attack us. another guy threatened