A Spy Among Friends (49 page)

Harold Macmillan, Foreign Secretary in 1955, told the House of Commons there was ‘no reason’ to suspect Philby of treachery.

Sir John ‘Sinbad’ Sinclair, head of MI6, accused MI5 of pursuing a vendetta against Philby.

‘The last time I spoke to a communist, knowing him to be a communist, was some time in 1934.’

Philby invited the world’s press into his mother’s flat to hear him clear his name. ‘Were you in fact the Third Man?’ one journalist asked. Philby answered: ‘No, I was not.’

Philby’s moment of triumph. His Soviet handler, Yuri Modin, described his performance as ‘breathtaking’.

‘On the subject of friendship, I’d prefer to say as little as possible.’

Commander Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb, the most famous frogman in Britain, is mobbed by a group of young admirers.

Buster Crabb prepares for a dive.

The Soviet cruiser
Ordzhonikidze
and curious crowds in Portsmouth harbour.

Prime Minister Anthony Eden gave instructions that no covert operations should take place during the Russian visit. Operation Claret went ahead anyway.

Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and his premier, Nikolai Bulganin, are welcomed to Britain.

Kim and Eleanor Philby, his third wife, relax at the luxury bathing hut they shared with the Elliotts on Beirut’s Khalde Beach.

Philby relaxes in a mountain pool. These were the ‘happiest years’, wrote Eleanor.