After reading up on Philby, Maclean and Burgess, I looked up some more information on British spies and espionage in general. The image of the British secret service as genteel men in tweed persists, despite the obvious change in times. At present, most espionage probably conjurs up images of crackers hacking into vast computer networks for the benefit of their paymasters, or some other equally technologically saturated scenario.
Reading up on Philby reminds of me The Great Game by Kipling, and in one of those twists in which life mimics art, Philby was indeed named after Kim, the character in Kipling’s world famous novel of the same name.
Here is a book that the British tried to suppress. It is by Richard Tomlinson, a former spy in MI6 and is available online for free. Read it if you’re interested in this sort of thing.
