A Riveting Read on Spying and Treachery

A Riveting Read on Spying and Treachery

By Anthony Wells

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from a new book, Crossroads in Time, written by Anthony Wells, a native of the United Kingdom who now lives in The Plains. He’s the only living person to have worked for British intelligence as a British citizen and for U.S. intelligence as a U.S. citizen.

The lives of Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby and James Jesus Angleton intersected almost continuously from their first meeting to Philby’s defection to the Soviet Union after being unmasked as a Soviet agent in January, 1963.

Philby remains to this day the most notorious British traitor, a man whose treachery cost the lives of countless British agents and by association those of sister agencies associated with the United Kingdom‘s secret intelligence service, or MI6. He betrayed a whole generation and more, merciless in his pursuit of obtaining the secrets of British and Five Eyes intelligence and of their individual and joint relations with third-party foreign intelligence organizations— and passing these secrets to the Soviet Union.

Philby’s relationship with Angleton, the chief of counter intelligence at the CIA from 1954 to 1975, is unique at every level. For the times in which they both lived (Philby died in Moscow in 1988 at 76 and Angleton died in 1987 at 69 in Washington D.C.), their relationship went far beyond the normal bounds of routine US/UK intelligence liaisons and exchanges.

It was not just about comparing source material and the resulting analyses and oiling the intelligence machinery of their respective countries. It went beyond these well-established boundaries to a highly personal level of meetings almost always extremely private, at nefarious non-government locations and clearly very secretive and clandestine, in which there is a little doubt that the most sensitive intelligence material was discussed and exchanged.

They rarely met at either CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia or at the British embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, D.C. This measure was not related to security protocol – – avoiding for example KGB watchers in Washington and dodging them by changing locations regularly. Rather, they held totally unofficial non-recorded and non-sponsored meetings about which their leadership knew very little, if anything. Their positions of trust allowed them both to pursue this totally unofficial liaison well outside the bounds of traditional trade craft, since both were senior officials and not undercover agents working clandestinely with false identities. Where else went the critical and highly classified material that they discussed and exchanged is explored in the unfolding plot.

No two senior intelligence operatives from the oldest intelligence relationship in the world, between the United States and United Kingdom, have ever interacted quite like Philby and Angleton. These two bear detailed review and in light of the benefits of both hindsight and newly obtained material, this historical novel invites readers to form their own opinions.

This story is chronological, following both main characters from their early beginnings and the foundation of their personalities and inclinations to their activities and relationship until the end of 1963, shortly after the Kennedy assassination, by which time Philby was a Moscow resident. Angleton continued at the CIA until various scandals and investigations into his activities and personal contact led him to being fired from the agency under the guise of being rewarded with a retirement accolade.

“Crossroads in Time” is available on Amazon and eBay.