Kim Philby And the Other Cambridge University Soviet Spies Were Traitors With Blood On Their Hands

Dominic Sandbrook at the British newspaper the Daily Mail offers a response to playwright Alan Bennett's defense of the Cambridge Five spy ring.

One day in the late Eighties, during the dying years of Soviet communism, the spy novelist John le Carre was in Moscow for a literary reception.

In a quiet moment, a Russian journalist asked if he would like to come and meet one his fans. The admirer's name, he said, was Kim Philby - the most notorious traitor in modern British history, who had lived in Moscow since his defection in 1963.

Le Carre did not hesitate. He said no. Philby, he later explained, was 'a thoroughly bad lot, a naturally bent man'. He had lied to his friends, his family and his colleagues. He had betrayed his country to one of the cruelest regimes in the modern history. And he sent dozens, perhaps hundreds, of men to their deaths behind the Iron Curtain. 

For Le Carre, to shake hands with such a man would have been unconscionable. 

I thought of Le Carre yesterday when I read the playwright Alan Bennett's extraordinary defense of the Cambridge Five - Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, John Cairncross and Anthony Blunt, as well as Philby himself.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2622003/DOMINIC-SANDBROOK-Philby-Co-traitors-blood-hands-For-Alan-Bennett-defend-utterly-grotesque.html

You can also read Ben Macintyre's new book about Kim Philby,  A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal.

Note: Although I enjoyed John le Carre's early spy thrillers, the later ones are far too anti-American and politically shrill for my taste. However, I have to say that I admire le Carre for his refusal to met Philby in Moscow.

The Ames Mole Hunt: My Q & A With Sandra Grimes, Former CIA Officer, Mole Hunter, And Author Of "Circle Of Treason"

My interview with Sandra V. Grimes, one of a team of CIA officers who helped uncover spy and traitor Aldrich Ames, appears in the current issue of Counterterrorism magazine.

Circle of Treason is an account of the "Ames Mole Hunt" written by two former CIA officers who were key members of the CIA team that conducted the hunt for a spy within the CIA.

Sandra V. Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille were two of the five principals of the CIA team tasked with hunting one of their own and were directly responsible for identifying Ames as the mole, leading to his arrest and conviction.

Aldrich Ames has been called one of the most destructive traitors in American history and the CIA's notorious traitor. The CIA officer provided information to the Soviet Union that contributed to the deaths of at least ten Soviet intelligence officers who spied for the United States.

You can read the interview below:

Note: The above photos were provided by the Naval Institute Press. 

You can click on the above photos to enlarge.