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The story of how four young men from Cambridge University found themselves spying for the Soviet Union is one with which most people are familiar, at least in outline. It is a puzzling story at first glance because they all seemed destined to live privileged lives and to pursue fulfilling careers. In YOUNG PHILBY, Robert Littell is specifically concerned with one of them, perhaps the most important one - Kim Philby. The story is told from a number of points of view - the suspicious Soviet analyst reviewing Philby's case, the young communist woman whom Philby meets in Vienna and subsequently marries, his fellow spy, Guy Burgess, their two Soviet controllers in London, Philby himself and others. This technique has the effect of showing us different and apparently conflicting sides of a man for whose actions we feel unable to account. For a book purporting to be concerned with the young Philby, it is rather odd to find that it makes no attempt to deal with his years at Cambridge and begins instead with his time in Vienna immediately afterwards. When we first encounter him he is by no means unattractive. Litzi Friedman, the young communist woman with whom he comes to stay, describes him as looking for "adventure, a cause to believe in, comradeship, affection, love sex." The idealism she recognizes in him is something she shares as, whilst pretending to campaign for workers' welfare, she seeks to bring revolution to Austria. It is significant, as we later learn, that there is no suggestion of Philby's being converted into a Russian spy by Litzi. Indeed, "Otto", Philby's first Soviet handler, regards her as being incapable of furthering the aims of the Soviet Union in any way, familiar though she might generally be with dialectical materialism. As the story moves forward so does our understanding of Philby's character, though it is never complete. Friends, lovers and handlers all give us different insights but perhaps it is Philby's own narrative as a correspondent on the Spanish Civil War and, later on, what is known as the "phoney war" that enables us to understand his complex personality, at least to some extent. He can report the war from Franco's side whilst feeling nothing but contempt for Franco himself. When reading of his experiences with the British Expeditionary Force in France we realize that it is not so much the English class system that offends him as the sheer incompetence of those in command. There is the colonel who accuses him of spying and giving information to the Luftwaffe by including the words 'under a blazing sun' in his despatch - this in spite of the fact that the Luftwaffe is in Poland! As Guderian's panzers are driving all before them, this same colonel confesses to Philby that he is never entirely sure whether he is in the First or the Second World War. No such confusion is felt by the General Staff press officers who, having requisitioned a bus to enable the war correspondents to escape to the channel ports, "felt duty bound to personally escort us." The characters are all well drawn, the account of European politics in the thirties and forties is convincing and there is sufficient action – in Vienna, Spain and France - to keep the reader's interest, even despite the feeling that the story is well enough known, but that, however, is to underestimate the author's considerable skill in the telling of a spy story as his ability to confront the readers with a totally unexpected development. This is an imaginative recreation of Philby's life and actions as a young man. § Arnold Taylor is a retired Examinations Board Officer, amateur writer and even more amateur bridge player.
Reviewed by Arnold Taylor, November 2012
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