Been re-reading Cave Brown's Treason in the Blood, the stories of St. John (pronunciation "SinJin") and moreso St. John's son, the infamous Soviet double agent H.A.R. Kim Philby. An important theme of the book is how Britain's ruling elite, all family legacies with Oxbridge educations (It was the "Cambridge Five") could not believe that one of their own, an Officer in the Order of the British Empire, could be a traitor to his class and to the country. They literally just could not believe it and so did half-hearted investigations which cleared Philby, forced his resignation, brought him back, then saw him disappear on a Soviet freighter. The Americans were p-i-s-s-e-d, HOO-DOGGIE! Set back Anglo-American relations and especially intel sharing BIG TIME. The Americans, especially J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, had been gravely suspicious of Philby--Hoover wanted to arrest his ass--but grumbled deference to MI6. They saw the Cambridge Five as symptomatic of a Britain that had rotted from the inside.
From their point of view, the British ruling elite were dismissive of the Americans, and of America. "They've been in existence for 200 years, have no culture, no style, are bumpkins." By contrast, heh-heh-heh, with these bluebloods were Philby's counterparts at FBI (especially FBI) and CIA. CIA's James Angleton sent one Miles Copeland to Beirut to smoke Philby out heh-heh-heh.
It was an unequal match. Cave Brown:
In a game where intellectual abilities counted for much, his were of interest. Born in Alabama, he was another whiz kid whose school was Erskine Ramsay Technical High in Birmingham, where he distinguished himself as a trumpet player with an all-black radio band, J. Heathcliffe Jones and His Society Orchestra, which broadcast "courtesy of the Violet Dream Perfume and Toilet Water Company."
Dumfounded
In a game where intellectual abilities counted for much, his were of interest. Born in Alabama, he was another whiz kid whose school was Erskine Ramsay Technical High in Birmingham, where he distinguished himself as a trumpet player with an all-black radio band, J. Heathcliffe Jones and His Society Orchestra, which broadcast "courtesy of the Violet Dream Perfume and Toilet Water Company."
Ho-ho-ho.
...
...when [Philby] vanished that night in January 1963, Copeland was dumbfounded...If he was a communist, Copeland told a colleague, then "he was the best actor in the world." That was "unbelievable," for he would have had "to construct a fantastic intellectual framework and stick to it moment by moment" throughout their association. And that would also have been too fantastic to contemplate.
Oh, so well-written by Cave Brown. Subtle, understated, the punch line a kiss, and from Copeland's own lips.
