i imagine are 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 conflict. 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 explores the life and loves of the legendary double agent, but also scrutinize is 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 kim fil be the most famous of british by after james bond. well, i thought i thought we all know the po, restore, it's been done to death, but actually i, i looked into the pit cuz i cuz i got some credits and stuff from my former colleague bron soule i about about the circumstances in which will be left berry and i started looking into it,

and actually i didn't know this. i didn't notice 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 one once i've, i certainly i find i'd forgotten an enormous amount about it. my father was so many new elements to it, especially and around sula and former art critic of a london paper who knew entity, blunt. so you have the queen's, a hanger of pictures as it were, but i mean, we had andrew lonnie on about his book on fill be in his as reachable recently. and you eco, his view and other views. this is a huge class dimension to this. he was protected, defacto, protected as a soviet agent did the highest echelons of britain's intelligence services because of his class. well, that's right. yes. of course, they didn't know he was a, he was of our since by bed, but everybody assumed that he was a nice chap and his father had been, was well established in cambridge. and he'd known lots of people at cambridge and so on. and it was assumed he was a nice guy and he was very like, oh, very polite,

very kind or quite charismatic. i think very charismatic. yes, women loved him. certainly. i mean, he was, for somebody said he had an order 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 phil b. he had a social conscience load. his parents, boss, close friends, being corrupted out of them by money, had seen other social democratic left vacillated, shrank for failure to confront fascism and the moderation of principles of his youth with the selling out just as the labor party had done, the ramsey mcdonnell left i do know some people i say the kissed armor left austerity affairs of 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 that the rise of hitler in germany and of course must saline and franklin's initially and franco in spain. and he did see the soviet union as, as a bulwark against coming against against fascism and that whole block later life. he visited cuba when he deal affected by that. well, yes he 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. good. 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 qu, 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 brave. 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 don't know, journalist i want to say, well, i mean arguably you, one of britain's top experts on the excesses of oligarch own 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 to the sixty's, i by the intelligence services in by the united states intelligence as and the british ones tell me about the how he ends up in the observer and 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. you don't miss him? who works for the new york papers? yes. and he, sam brewer was sambro, had worked in the war for the, the 4 runner of the cia. and also been a journalist. and when he left the paper with then and join the new york times,

new york times said you got to cut all your links with the security services. and he said yes here. sure, i'll do that. but i didn't think anybody believes he did. i and it journalist will, will tell you the world over intelligence people talk to journalists and vice versa . and they, there's a sort of symbiotic relationship, whether it's quite capture, i'm not sure a degree me, the observed 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, i'm not an expert. i'm not an expert in 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 of the british government in 1955, had cleared him. and his friends said, well, we told you, he told you he's not

a 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 economist and they sent him off to beirut. i mean, well, since you were at the evening standard, i have to ask this because christopher steele, the discredited m. i 6 agent, interviewed recently with great fanfare saying, boris johnson made the son of the owner of the standard. now he doesn't understand that actually the russian any limit if he made him appear in the house of lords. if now, boys johnson, equally from that class, is a russian spy. i mean, you said, we you around spies of the evening standard, the london north. it was a world i was, i was told 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 journalists talked to talk to since intelligence people,

and they exchange information. and they're useful to tell her 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 is said it has been reported to be, have been in my 6 and boys, went to wheaton and therefore probably could put 2 and 2 together the sounds. i got a conversation at the st. george barn bay root will actually describe this place. my name is martina hello, hello, of course. it's sadly in the news because of what's happening in lebanon right now . but what happens in evidence happens everywhere in the middle. 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, but barret 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 it was a u. s. proxy american government? yes. me was, it was and i the, the st. george's, the bar 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 and spend 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 of the government or some senior spy or whatever. and that was the place to be sent. at least that was better than press releases. i mean, 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. your telling her was what was that the 2 chairman of that was sam pope

brewer, who his 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 the 1st martini of the day at 10 am and they would discuss what that what the new york times might begin to write. and 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 journalists who become over reliant on unintelligent sources. well, over here there's a big scanned over this integrity initiative, the institute of state crime, they listed journalists that were people that were favored to leak to that, that document itself leaked out. i was told, i didn't know whether you were now on it. when i get no information or no one tells

me no machine at all. but i, d, e m c, i a are incredibly annoyed by all of this. quite rightly that they're giving this to him. they're 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 went very well and the, soon as they found out he was a spy. gee, 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 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 in. this is one of the secrets, one of the key fact, it seems to me about phoebe that everybody underestimated the strength of his ideological commitment, including from, as i said, the russians. but the british still believes that good old kim 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 some fake information and quite what he was doing is not clear,

but he was at the very least playing for time. but they've, 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 back off to africa where his next job is to seem surprising. the dick, why do i find from 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 in that summer. that suddenly turn one new element or because he didn't, i well, it seems to me because he didn't want to. he didn't want to go. i think he, he did miss britain, when he, when he got, when he got to moscow he was on this is, this is a very mercury and i can't tell you for sure. he was madly in love with elena

because nobody really knows what was going on. he filled his mind, but it seems to me he was very, very fond of eleanor. he was having a, an okay time in beirut. he was drink, you know, a lot. but this is wife is usually what she did on the american, it almost will need to fact that it's 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 that more on the cold was most famous british by after this break. ah, when i would so think wrong $1.00, oh $3.00. just don't move. you world, yet to see proud disdain becomes the advocate an engagement. it was the trail.

when so many find themselves will depart, we choose to look for common ground. when you allow for the bankers at the time to loot and that they've been doing and their business model is the cape $0.90 of every dollar they steal, they pay a small fine. that will trickle down trickle down, looting an area or 13 years later and has become, as you say, in san francisco. really the common for gangs to loot the storms. but let's be honest. they are simply mimicking the bankers like jamie diamond and others who have made that hub, glorified looting and glorified stealing and glorified money printing. because there is no pinnacle of evolution, everything's flat. a bacterium is

a product to 4000000000 years of evolution in a specific environment. so away, so in that sense where we are, the few survivors of the end of a long, long process you. so as in susanne springs at yellowstone, we will not do very well. bacteria will do much better in that sense. welcome back. i'm still here with james having author of he'll be in beirut. we one problem here is that they're not releasing papers. nicholas elliot, his best friend of the intelligence services, were to memoir the intelligence services. he was in 2021. the publish it. why? well, i'm one spy expert 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 faith 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, because i was, i wasn't aware that at all, no, this is a one of britain's most famous say, art critics hanger, the of the queen's pictures friend of the queen for long young related in fact to the queen mother, and he has to read through 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? yes he in beirut. around the same normally be in london. you're in the center london of the court, all dec 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 antony brown was in beirut for 3 or 4 weeks before phil. b was interviewed by elliott 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 yury merging 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 an 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 hey, as long as he to fill b 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 philby 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 sake, right? you're coming with us. so he wanted philby 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 eat jokes. will be jokes about saying when confronted

about being a spicing ac was i am initially and actually given the yemen, we been giving yemen quite a bit, the world's worst humanitarian crisis. a when the 962 marks israel revolution out 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, his musing on the spanish civil war on austerity, on the poor analogy. people around him just thought, well, caring man for yes. no, that's right. and and her one of his a for a former foreign correspondent, guy from the telegraph, a couple of nights 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 for obvious 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 they got on exactly i i yeah. so right now we have a ice was arguable right wing labor leader. we have austerity. the effects of the 28 crisis, arguably rising inequality of labor and tory governments who have was disastrous was the canister one of his. he willingly. or what do you think she'll be would think of her the current situation. ah, my wonder indicates i wonder. yes, i mean there are, there are lots of, i mean there are lots of middle cells for can use at a middle class kobinie still around and still feeling. we need something more, more extreme weather philby would. ah, i don't 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. he go on the 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 on. so by that judgment deutsche was right, whether philby 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 and 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 to was the enemy. rudy was the the echoes of the nasa to his graces and sill

. very important. yes, i'm in. i think that me, i think we both he and blunt from what i've read a blunts thinking on this. but they both felt certainly philby philby in 1933 also before said war is coming with hitler. there war is coming. 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, this 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 in 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 a most senior intelligence person from him. i 6 in washington as well as previously heading the anti russia. and he soviet union department was being as of yet by 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 field. 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, they just felt the americans were a bit vulgar. i think. i mean, i knew i knew patrick c a. you say he was an intelligence with the i don't say that i don't was his father. i don't think his father was a it was easily famous for the biographer of acids. father of ac, patrick seal. the late late patrick. yes. but term do think today there's still lingering on their 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 in the french had been running things and thought this isn't great. i yeah, but 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 it 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 as this book, i hope it's doing well. but even in the you describe when phil b is trying to write a stuff and serialization in british newspapers are close. the intelligence services are to newspaper proprietor saying don't touch this and that eleanor. the, 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 is the reaction to this book as well. the need to always go his evil stop thinking about the complexities of the case of came philby. yeah, i mean that's 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 think he think he's owed

that james, having thank you. that's it for the show will be back on wednesday. 59 years to the month that sylvia double agents are under the blunder. queen elizabeth the 2nd ought to advise a visited beverage, allegedly, to arrange for these 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. legacy media continued to prepare a western audiences for a military conflict and ukraine, under the war of choice, also be united states doesn't export much these days, maybe except for so called values, or those values attractive anymore. the postal service delivers a $155000000000.00 pieces of mail every year. approximately 40 percent of the

world's mail right now. the us postal service is in the fight of its life history. that is really bad financial shape. now facing default, the postal service is a cash cow, and there was a way to pull money out of the postal service to put in the federal budget. there was a mandate that you're bringing a $100000.00, new revenue every month. the nature of privatization in the us postal service is very much hidden from public view. it's privatization from the inside out. that's a big business in money. it's not about the public giving them a service that they deserve. it's not about quality train workers. it's about with a,

ah, ah, our top sure is this, our, i'm across that the new coverage strain discovered in south africa presents a high risk globally. the w h o says as it spreads around the world with nations now canceling flights and even keeping the fully vaccinated in isolation. elite documents suggests germany tried to pressure the us not to slap sanctions on north stream to as berlin warns that washington shouldn't sanction allies and shoplifting and vandalism. as the festive season begins, flash mobs and smash and grab robberies, put us authorities to the test.