Double agent details life of betrayal
Australia says it wants UK to stay in EU
LONDON, April 4, (RTRS): British double agent Kim Philby detailed his life of betrayal and the ease with which he was able to pass secrets to his Soviet controllers in newly-discovered video footage broadcast by the BBC on Monday.
Philby was one of the Soviet Union’s most successful spies who penetrated the heart of the British establishment and passed secrets back to Moscow for three decades, part of a ring of British double agents recruited in the 1930s.
The video, discovered by the BBC in the official archives of the Stasi, the former East German Intelligence Service, shows Philby, who defected to Moscow in 1963 and died there in 1988, lecturing Soviet spies in 1981 about his life as an agent.
“Dear Comrades,” he begins, delivering his lecture to a rapt audience in his upper class English accent.
Philby said he became interested in communism while at Cambridge University, and explained how he was recruited by Moscow in the 1930s to infiltrate Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, the foreign spy agency now known as MI6, the BBC said.
He disclosed how easy it was to steal secrets as he began to rise through MI6’s ranks.
“Every evening I left the office with a big briefcase full of reports that I had written myself, full of files and actual documents from the archive,” Philby said.
“I used to hand them to my Soviet contact in the evening. The next morning I would get the files back, the contents having been photographed and early the next morning I would put them back in their place. That I did regularly year in year out.”
The shadowy world and double-dealing of Philby and others in the “Cambridge Five” spy ring - such as Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean - has long fascinated British audiences.
In one excerpt from the Stasi lecture, Philby detailed how he was ordered to undermine his boss so he could take over as head of an MI6 section responsible for unmasking Soviet agents, calling it a “very, very dirty story”.
“After all, our work does imply getting dirty hands from time to time,” he said. “So I set about the business of removing my own chief. You oughtn’t to listen to this,” he told the East German spies, provoking laughter.
Philby, stationed in Washington as the liaison officer between the CIA and MI6 from 1949-51, said he escaped detection for so long because he was part of the British governing class system. Many MI6 colleagues had much to lose as they had been involved in his recruitment and promotion, he said.
He fled to Moscow in 1963 when new evidence of his work for the Soviet Union arose. He alleged he was able to escape from Beirut because the MI6 agent sent to watch him was an avid skier and had gone off to the Lebanese mountains after hearing news of a snowfall.
Philby’s hour-long address ends with simple advice to the spies: ‘Deny everything’.
“My advice to you is to tell all your agents that they are never to confess,” said Philby, who died in Moscow in 1988 aged 76.
The former British colony of Australia wants Britain to stay in the European Union, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said, weeks before Britain holds a referendum on EU membership.
Bishop told reporters in Washington that “a strong UK as part of the European Union would be in Australia’s interests”, according to the Australian Associated Press.
Bishop said that she told British Prime Minister David Cameron of the Australian position at a meeting in Washington on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Summit, AAP said.
Britain holds a referendum on EU membership on June 23.
Britain’s entry into the Common Market in 1973 was widely considered a betrayal in Australia, upending decades of tradition and a host of tariff agreements.
But now Britain takes only 2.5 percent of Australia’s exports, while China takes more than 31 percent.
Supporters of Britain’s exit from the European Union argue that “family ties” with Commonwealth members such as Australia could compensate for the partial loss of Europe’s 444 million customers.
David Davis, a Conservative MP and die-hard eurosceptic, outlined their ambitions in a recent exhaustive speech.
“This is an opportunity to renew our strong relationships with Commonwealth and Anglosphere countries,” he said.
“These parts of the world are growing faster than Europe. We share history, culture and language. We even share similar legal systems. The usual barriers to trade are largely absent.”
Campaigners who say Commonwealth ties should replace links with the European Union are offering voters a false choice ahead of Britain’s June 23 EU referendum, Patricia Scotland, the newly appointed Commonwealth Secretary-General, said on Monday.
Some of those pushing for an exit from the EU have backed the 53-country Commonwealth, whose members are mostly former British colonies and represent 2.2 billion people across the world, as an alternative trading network to the EU that would help Britain prosper.
“I say the Commonwealth offers a huge amount, but the Commonwealth does not set itself up in competition with Europe - we are partners,” Scotland told Reuters in an interview following her inauguration as head of the Commonwealth secretariat at a ceremony in London.
“As far as I can see, partnership is a much better way forward than separation for any of us,” she said, when asked to respond to those who say the Commonwealth could replace the EU.
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth is head of the Commonwealth. Scotland, a member of parliament’s upper house and former government minister, will run the Commonwealth’s administrative body.
Clipper sailor buried at sea:
An amateur British sailor who died after being swept overboard into the Pacific Ocean while competing in a yacht race has been buried at sea, organisers said Sunday.
Sarah Young, 40, a businesswoman from London, was washed overboard from the I chor Coal yacht on Friday while competing in the round-the-world Clipper Race.
Her body was later recovered by her crewmates and race founder Robin Knox-Johnston promised a full investigation into Young’s death, saying the key area of concern was why she was not tethered to the yacht as required by standard safety procedures.
Darren Ladd, skipper of the I chor Coal yacht, told the BBC: “The crew stood on deck with all the courage and dignity we could muster, read a few of Sarah’s favourite prayers and poetry, before holding a minute’s silence.
“She was an adventurer and lived life to the full. She died an adventurer’s death battling the elements circumnavigating the globe. I wish we could have said goodbye properly, we all do.”
With the boat sailing from Qingdao in China to Seattle in the United States, the decision to bury Young at sea, taken in consultation with her family and the I chor Coal crew, came about because of the time it would take for the yacht to reach land
Young was the second person to die in this year’s edition of the race, which usually takes some 12 months to complete, after fellow Briton Andrew Ashman, a crew member on the same boat, died after being knocked unconscious in September.
Although both amateurs, they were each experienced sailors. (AFP)