Word: knightley
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...Phillip Knightley...
...high enough in its ranks to rate consideration as its potential chief. Yet by the time he disappeared in 1963, only to surface in the Soviet Union a few months later, it was painfully clear that Philby all along had been not only a Soviet agent but also, as Knightley calls him, "the most remarkable spy in the history of espionage...
Philby's is a story oft told -- once, self-servingly, by himself (My Silent War, 1968). It seems likely that Knightley's will stand as the definitive account, despite its pedestrian style: Knightley, a former special correspondent for London's Sunday Times, was the only Western journalist to interview Philby at length during his last years of semiretirement in Moscow...
Oddly, Philby's comments on world politics and on his colorful past seem wan and trite. It is almost as if this supermole wanted to demystify his own legend, making double agentry seem as banal as bartending. The impression of ordinariness is reinforced by his chatty letters to Knightley, which are cited in extenso. Philby comes across as a slightly dotty old Brit, complaining about how hard it is to find "bilambees" (an Indian vegetable) in Moscow and fuming about the "preposterous" radio commentaries of "the BBC's own Smarty Cooke, Alistair of that...
...Soviets amply rewarded Philby for his services: a lavish apartment (by Moscow standards), chauffeurs, a plummy desk job at KGB headquarters. Yet the only perk he really cared for, Knightley notes, was access to artifacts of his homeland: pipes from Jermyn Street, books (he liked Dick Francis' mysteries), magazines, the Times of London (whose daily crossword puzzle he regularly solved in 15 minutes...