A spy among friends : Kim Philby and the great betrayal / Ben Macintyre.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Macintyre, Ben, 1963-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philby, Kim, 1912-1988.

Philby, Kim.

Spies--Great Britain--Biography.

Spies.

Espionage, Soviet.

History.

Great Britain.

Espionage, Soviet--Great Britain--History.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

xii, 368 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, portraits ; 25 cm

Edition:

First American Edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Crown Publishers, [2014]

Summary:

The best-selling author of Operation Mincemeat presents a definitive portrait of the notorious 20th-century spy that discusses his rise in MI6, high-profile intelligence friendships and 20-year espionage operation that culminated in his 1963 defection to Moscow.

"Kim Philby was the greatest spy in history, a brilliant and charming man who rose to head Britain's counterintelligence against the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War - while he was secretly working for the enemy. And nobody thought he knew Philby like Nicholas Elliott, Philby's best friend and fellow officer in MI6. The two men had gone to the same schools, belonged to the same exclusive clubs, grown close through the crucible of wartime intelligence work and long nights of drink and revelry. It was madness for one to think the other might be a communist spy, bent on subverting Western values and the power of the free world. But Philby was secretly betraying his friend. Every word Elliott breathed to Philby was transmitted back to Moscow - and not just Elliott's words, for in America, Philby had made another powerful friend: James Jesus Angleton, the crafty, paranoid head of CIA counterintelligence. Angleton's and Elliott's unwitting disclosures helped Philby sink almost every important Anglo-American spy operation for twenty years, leading countless operatives to their doom. Even as the web of suspicion closed around him, and Philby was driven to greater lies to protect his cover, his two friends never abandoned him - until it was too late. The stunning truth of his betrayal would have devastating consequences on the two men who thought they knew him best, and on the intelligence services he left crippled in his wake."--book jacket.

Contents:

Apprentice spy

Section V

Otto and Sonny

Boo, boo, baby, I'm a spy

Three young spies

The German defector

The Soviet defector

Rising stars

Stormy seas

Homer's odyssey

Peach

The robber barons

The third man

One man in Beirut

The fox who came to stay

A most promising officer

I thought it would be you

Teatime

The fade

Three old spies.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [309]-359) and index.

ISBN:

9780804136631

0804136637

OCLC:

862794085