In 2014, Ben Macintyre presented a BBC2 documentary based on his book A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal. The programme managed to shed new light on a familiar but still irresistible story by concentrating on Philby’s relationship with his old chum – and fellow Cambridge man – Nicholas Elliott. Elliott was sent in 1963 by the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) to question Philby in Beirut where Philby had become the Observer’s foreign correspondent after a long and successful career betraying his countrymen to the Soviets. Elliott did elicit some sort of confession, but a few days later, Philby absconded to Moscow. So had Elliott helped with the escape a) to save his friend; b) to spare British blushes by avoiding a public trial; or c) had he not had a hand in it at all?
The script feels as much in thrall to our class assumptions as the post-war British establishment was to theirs
Ultimately, Macintyre didn’t commit himself – presumably on the solid grounds that nobody really knows.
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