![]() ![]() In Philby's case, it wouldn't have been hard to find out that he'd been a member of the Cambridge University Socialist Society, known for its active Marxist sympathies had married an active member of the underground communist resistance in Nazi Austria (which he'd very carefully kept under wraps), and was on the rolls of the Soviet spy agency while ostensibly covering the Spanish civil war for The Times newspaper.īut the bosses at MI5 and MI6 did not ask the right questions. It was this network, Macintyre shows, that eased Philby's entry into MI6 and also stopped the bosses from looking too closely into his life and discovering details that would have normally raised hackles. They bonded over cricket, whiskey, gossip, and dislike of Marxism. Often, their fathers, and sometimes grandfathers too, had been to the same institutions so the web of connections drew in entire families who, it was assumed, shared the same values. Macintyre's thesis, so basic that it's almost incredible, is that the British intelligence agencies and its foreign office never suspected Philby because he was a part of that very British institution called the "Old Boys' Network" - the circle of men who'd gone to the same elite public school, the same university (Oxford or Cambridge), or the same gentlemen's club. ![]()
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