(no subject)
May. 20th, 2015 04:59 pmThere are certain persons probably reading this (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gramarye1971, I'm looking at you) whom I suspect already know everything about Kim Philby and probably have no need for another version of the same Cambridge Spies story. For everyone else, there's A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal.
I was vaguely familiar with the basic facts about Philby before picking up the book, but only vaguely, so Macintyre's version still had plenty that was new for me. For example: though I knew Philby was a double agent working with MI6 and reporting back to the Soviets, I did not know that MI6, in a move that was both ill-advised and horrifically hilarious, actually made him head of Soviet counterintelligence.
PHILBY: Wow, I ... literally am in charge of everything MI6 is ever going to do in re: the Soviet Union. I am the best Soviet double agent ... ever? Ever. Pretty much ever.
(THE SOVIET UNION: This guy is just passing us TOO MUCH information to even be believable. Triple agent, anyone?)
( Though nonfiction, it's very easy to read the book like a thriller, so I'm putting the rest under a cut in case people don't want to be historical-record spoiled! )
gramarye1971, I'm looking at you) whom I suspect already know everything about Kim Philby and probably have no need for another version of the same Cambridge Spies story. For everyone else, there's A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. I was vaguely familiar with the basic facts about Philby before picking up the book, but only vaguely, so Macintyre's version still had plenty that was new for me. For example: though I knew Philby was a double agent working with MI6 and reporting back to the Soviets, I did not know that MI6, in a move that was both ill-advised and horrifically hilarious, actually made him head of Soviet counterintelligence.
PHILBY: Wow, I ... literally am in charge of everything MI6 is ever going to do in re: the Soviet Union. I am the best Soviet double agent ... ever? Ever. Pretty much ever.
(THE SOVIET UNION: This guy is just passing us TOO MUCH information to even be believable. Triple agent, anyone?)
( Though nonfiction, it's very easy to read the book like a thriller, so I'm putting the rest under a cut in case people don't want to be historical-record spoiled! )
