2022/140: A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal — Ben MacIntyre

2022/140: A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal — Ben MacIntyre

They seldom discussed their fears, or hopes, for theirs was a most English friendship, founded on cricket, alcohol and jokes, based on a shared set of assumptions about the world, and their privileged place in it. They were as close as two heterosexual, upper-class, mid-century Englishmen could be. [loc. 3972]

No, not another biography of the infamous Kim Philby, who was a double agent reporting to the Russians as well as to MI6 and who defected in 1963. A Spy Among Friends takes a different approach, describing Philby's career -- and how he got away with treason and murder for so long -- in the context of his close friendships with Nicholas Elliott, who he knew at Cambridge, and James J. Angleton, the CIA's chief of counterintelligence. ( Read more... )