Spy sent to tackle Philby was ‘compromised’

Officer ordered to confront Soviet mole was vulnerable to blackmail owing to secret affair, book claims

THE MI6 officer sent to extract a confession from double agent Kim Philby was himself compromised and vulnerable to Russian blackmail, it has emerged.

When Philby was finally unmasked as a Soviet mole in 1962, intelligence chiefs in London dispatched his close friend and drinking partner Nicholas Elliott to Beirut to confront him.

What happened next remains mired in uncertainty and recrimination, with MI6 refusing to reveal details even 60 years later.

Although Philby, who had signed up to the Soviet cause in 1934, admitted to passing secrets to his Russian handlers, he fled to Moscow shortly after without providing the names of fellow communist sympathisers in the West or any other significant information.

The scandal at the height of the Cold War was a humiliation for Britain and soured intelligence sharing with the US for years. Now, an updated book reveals further crucial vulnerabilities at the top of MI6 and the “chaps” culture at the heart of it.

It details how Elliott had a decadelong extra-marital affair with a Swedish woman, which ended some months before Philby disappeared.

The existence of such a personal guilty secret would have left him vulnerable to Russian blackmail, according to James Hanning, author of Love and Deception Philby in Beirut. Moreover, he believes due to their close friendship, it was likely that Philby would have known about the affair, and therefore that his Russian masters would have done too.

“The facts are still a bit foggy, but it looks like a major lapse of Elliott’s invulnerability to blackmail,” said Mr Hanning. “I can’t see how Philby would not have known about it. They were very close. They did a huge amount of naughty stuff together, in Beirut and elsewhere.

“That being the case, and knowing where his sympathies ultimately lay, I’d be surprised if the Russians didn’t know as well.”

Tipped at one stage to become head of the service, Elliott’s MI6 career never achieved its expected heights following the Philby affair.

He also missed out on the knighthood that would normally have been considered a right of passage for someone of his seniority.

Mr Hanning believes it unlikely that MI6 knew about the affair at the time of Philby’s unmasking or they would not have entrusted Elliott with the mission to Beirut.

After getting wind of the affair during his research into Philby’s time in Lebanon, he subsequently confirmed it with Elliott’s son Mark.

Although Philby could theoretically have used his knowledge of Elliott’s affair against him during that crucial meeting in Beirut, Mr Hanning does not believe it explains how Britain’s most notorious traitor of the Cold War managed to escape to the USSR.

“I believe it was cock-up, rather than conspiracy,” he said.

Love and Deception: Philby in Beirut is out in paperback this week.