19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ex U.S. Envoy Questions Philby Legend, December 14, 2004
This review is from: Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess (Hardcover)
S.J. Hamrick's study of an associated trio among the most infamous British 20th Century spies is a major step forward in Cold War history. He starts what may become the cracking of the myth surrounding Harold A. R. (Kim) Philby, the Soviet agent many blame for failures of several paramilitary operations the West mounted within the Soviet empire. Unfortunately, Hamrick offers little hard evidence to back up his attack on this outsized mythical spy.
But the author is also able to turn that lack of evidence into the basis of his assault on Philby's storification. Much of the Philby legend was created by the subject spy himself in his book, "My Secret War". In the mid-1980s, British journalist Lord Nicholas Bethell added to the Philby legend by giving the Cambridge University-educated double agent credit as the main reason a British-American paramilitary operation in Albania failed. Bethell offered little or no evidence besides Philby's book, some comments from retired intelligence officers, and lots of airy speculation that Philby must have been to blame. Hamrick correctly offers a timeline that shows how unlikely that Bethell's thesis was accurate.
"It is impossible to believe Philby had the means for any timely disclosure of OPC (a U.S. psychological warfare agency overseen by the CIA, State Department and military) individual operational plans or that he would even have found it necessary," he wrote. Hamrick echos other observers and participants - British and American - who view the Albanian projects as carrying the weight of their own ultimate failure in the "futility of their numbers and purpose". There were too few bravely enthusiastic, but naive, Albanian mountaineers sent home by air, land and sea to overthrow a nasty Communist regime whose internal security forces were trained by the Soviet NKVD.
Two storm flags must be raised about the Hamrick work. One is the theory he postulates that the U.S. and British militaries used Philby as a conduit to pass disinformation to the Soviets. Thin evidence is the problem. The second is Hamrick's apparent failure to consult several works that contained major materiel germane to the Philby-Albania case, such as those by Burton Hersh, C.L. Sulzberger, Noel Malcolm and Enver Hoxha. He writes about the oft-criticized CIA counterspy James J. Angleton and the Office of Special Operations, a CIA branch that competed with the OPC for foreign agents and resources. But he also misses the most successful Western infiltration of Albania by agents sponsored by the CIA/OSO and Italian Naval Intelligence.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Three-and-a-Half Stars., July 21, 2005
This review is from: Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess (Hardcover)
Despite the fact that I cannot get enough on the subject of the Cambridge Spies, it took me nearly six months to plough through S.J. Hamrick's "Deceiving the Deceivers." It is not as if his thesis is not provocative: that SIS, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, in anticipation, laid a trap for Burgess, Maclean, Philby, and Blunt. However, the author explores so many tangents that I found it difficult to grasp the central thread of his narrative.
Certainly, the possibility that British Intelligence had set a trap for the Cambridge Spies is plausible. Such a scenario would explain why the sequence of events ceases to make any logical sense after the Volkov affair in 1945, when Kim Philby delays his arrival at Istanbul, to such an extent that the would-be Soviet defector, Konstantin Volkov, is apprehended by the Russians and--encased in bandages like a mummy--whisked off to Moscow and apparent oblivion. After this point, one is left with a series of anomalies: 1) Donald Maclean's unspeakable rampage in Cairo results (after a recuperative dose of psychoanalysis) in an appointment to the sensitive American Desk in the Foreign Office. 2) Guy Burgess, after running amok in Tangiers and blowing the cover of SIS officers left and right, is nevertheless appointed as third secretary to the British Embassy in Washington, arguably Britain's most important foreign post. 3) Burgess's drunken rumbustiousness in Washington succeeds in embarrassing his host, Kim Philby--who has hitherto been regarded as a respected first secretary to the British Embassy--so much so that not only Burgess but also Philby is declared PNG and sent home to London ASAP. The upshot is the ruination of one of the NKVD's (KGB's) most valuable agents and the eventual downfall of the entire Cambridge ring. The question that is raised--and not addressed by Hamrick--is whether SIS might have "turned" Burgess with the express objective of bringing down his friend Philby (After all, Burgess, when the going got rough, was reportedly ready to negotiate a hit on another pal, Goronwy Rees, so presumably he would not be adverse to bringing down Philby, if it meant saving his own skin). Despite Burgess' famous espousal of E.M. Forster's maxim, "if I had a choice between betraying a friend and betraying my country, I hope that I would have the guts to betray my country," Burgess could well have been promised an unimpeded escape with Maclean if he would embarrass Philby in Washington, which he certainly did. Of course, one will never know due to the British Official Secrets Act.
One would, however, like to have a bit more solid evidence to support Mr. Hamrick's hypothesis. Furthermore, from all that one reads about SIS and its serial blundering, one wonders whether it would have been clever enough to have accomplished such a coup (especially when it continued to employ Philby as an agent in the Mid-East until 1963, when he defected to Moscow). Nevertheless, the Cambridge Spies were brought down (Anthony Blunt was being questioned in 1964, the year after Burgess died and Philby defected, and eventually John Cairncross was revealed to be a Soviet agent).
Hamrick certainly raises some of the important questions, even though he does not--and likely cannot--provide the answers.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Provocative Ideas; Scattered Organization, March 17, 2008
The provocative ideas in this book have been cogently analyzed by other excellent reviewers. Here, I will add to the complaint that Hamrick's argument is extremely disorganized. Hamrick's rambling narrative should have been better reined in by the editors at Yale University Press. As a result of discursive and mostly scattered narrative, reading this book was as enjoyable as trying to run 10 miles after a full meal. Only the book's intriguing thesis saves this book from a one star review.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
