The Writer and the Traitor: Graham Greene, Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal
The writer is Graham Greene and the traitor is Kim Philby, the one famous and the other infamous. Both were spies, working for MI6 (the Secret Intelligence Service) in WW11 as close colleagues and close friends.
Greene resigned suddenly from MI6 in 1944 without giving a reason, seven years before Philby resigned and nearly twenty years before Philby defected to the Soviet Union. They kept in contact and remained friends until Philby’s death in 1988. Verkaik has unearthed some wartime papers which illustrate the depth of their friendship but do not explain Greene’s abrupt resignation. Had Greene discovered that Philby was a Soviet agent? Did he embed a coded warning into the screenplay for The Third Man which he was working on not long after? And who was he warning?
Verkaik does not answer these questions. Undoubtedly Greene recycled much of his life into his art, but one can easily be mislead in the search for hidden codes. Perhaps Greene was passively compliant in his friend’s treason, but perhaps not.
Verkaik stresses the damage done by Philby’s treachery but one can also hold the view that the mutual penetration of each other’s intelligence services by the Allies and the Soviet bloc saved us from WW111. Each side was assured that the other was not planning a surprise attack and refrained from a pre-emptive strike.
Fans of Graham Greene will like this book. Understandably there is more about the writer than the traitor. Not that we lack an extensive literature on them both. Interesting but not revelatory.
