The Philby Conspiracy

In the early 1950s, two British intelligence agents defected to the Soviet Union, throwing suspicion on one of Britain's highest-placed intelligence officers, Kim Philby, whom many thought to have warned the defectors of their imminent arrest. But Philby was cleared, and it was not until several years later that he himself defected and the world learned the scope o the greatest disaster and embarrassment in the history of British national intelligence. Philby and the two other agents (Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean) had been fellow students at Cambridge and had there been recruited by the Soviets. Though each man was bedeviled by alcoholism, they all three rose to positions of prominence in the intelligence service, and all three cost show more England and the United States badly in terms of information and the lives of agents. This book, written not long after Philby's defection, was published before the full extent of the double-agent ring was known and the British government further humiliated. But it covers the lives of all three spies most effectively, and the story is richly detailed (despite the difficulties of researching the secret world of intelligence and counter-intelligence). This is a fascinating read. show less

A very careful study, by Times reporters, of how the Burgess/MacLean/Philby disasters happened. Much more info was revealed after this book came out, but this book is worth reading for itself. The preface by John Le Carre points out that one enormous question is: who got these spies (many of them brilliant) to so thorough a commitment? This book points out Philby's time in Vienna (and his first wife) as crucial, but there are no such visible influences for the others. Wikipedia shows that this is not clear even yet.

Sadly this early edition is unhindered. However anyone digging into this topic should read the introductory essay by John LeCarre discussing his family and the four stages the government went through before the fish escaped the net.