Yesterday, a book about the history of British intelligence services between the years 1909 and 1949 was released. The book was written by Keith Jeffrey, and I read a review of the book that reminded me of an early chapter of my career in journalism. One summer in the early sixties, I traveled to Bahrain for work, to collect enough money to buy a Volkswagen before I enrolled in the American University of Beirut. When the money I saved turned out not to be sufficient, I continued to look for work alongside studying, and after one year, I met with some success. An Australian journalist that I worked with in Bahrain introduced me to Reuters's bureau in Beirut, where I worked as a translator for one year, then as an editor for another. Then at the age of twenty-one, I became a shift leader responsible for the entire Middle East with the exception of Egypt, which reported, and still does, directly to London. I had claimed to the regional editor Elias Nawas, May he Rest in Peace, that I was 24 years old. When he heard this, he said: “Oh, you're a kid then”. Ever since then, the nickname ‘the kid' stuck with me even after I became a shift leader with assistants at work, including my friend Hanna Anbar, the current chief editor of the Daily Star. The foreign reporters would send the news to their newspapers and magazines through Reuters's bureau in Beirut. I thus had the chance early on, to see the reporters of American and British papers at work. They would come to our offices in the Union building in the Sanayeh neighborhood, asking about the latest news, or asking for assistance with translation or contracting local officials. Mr. Elias had asked me to take care of a British journalist named Kim Philby, a reporter for the Observer and the Economist. Indeed, I helped him over a period of several months, before he disappeared without warning in early 1963. Two or three months later, men from security services suddenly raided our office to interrogate us. It was a day that I would never forget (the other day that was unforgettable in 1963 was the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated on 22/11. I was then the night shift leader, and was supposed to finish work at midnight. However, I stayed at work until morning). General Toufic Jalbout, head of the General Security, occupied Mr. Elias's office, and began summoning the staff one by one for investigation. I was waiting to be called but my turn never came. I told the chief editor that I was helping Philby and talking to him more than any other editor in the agency, and I believe that he indeed conveyed what I said to the General. However, the investigators decided in the end that I was a 'kid', and were not interested in my testimony. I remember from my meetings with Philby in Reuters's offices, that there was always a slight smell of alcohol about him. However, he was calm, and I saw him many times eating Lebanese food with the staff when they invited him, and he would eat hummus and tabbouleh, and even hibiscus. ‘Uncle' Abu Said Abu al-Rish, the chief of Time Life's bureau in Beirut, had once told me that Philby was a spy. However, he also believed that most foreign reporters who frequented the St. Georges Hotel's Pub in Beirut to be spies. Kim Philby was ‘the third man' in the group of Soviet spies made up of Cambridge University students. After he fled, I learned that he was the son of Abdullah (Saint John) Philby, who worked for King Abdul Aziz. I read everything I could find about his escape to the Soviet Union from Beirut, as I read his memoirs. However, the new book about the British secret services tells a story that I had not heard before. A KGB agent in Istanbul called Constantin Volkov contacted the British consulate, and offered to give the British the names of 314 Soviet spies in Turkey, and 250 Soviet spies in Britain, including senior officials in the Foreign Office and others in the intelligence services, in return for political asylum and a financial reward. The upcoming book says that Volkov made references to Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean in the Foreign Office, and Philby himself in the intelligence services, where he was responsible for the Soviet division (and a secret communist.) The chief of the intelligence then asked Philby to follow up the issue, and as a result, he managed to warn Burgess and Maclean (the number one and number two men) who then fled to Russia. Philby also notified the KGB about Vokov. Then no sooner had Philby arrived in Istanbul that Volkov was kidnapped and taken back to Moscow, where he was tried and executed. I tried after reading the book's review to remember some of my talks with Philby, or the ‘third man' in Beirut, but could not recall anything of importance or noteworthiness. If he managed to deceive the British intelligence services and fled before he could be caught, then no wonder he managed to deceive ‘the kid'. [email protected]
