A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal

by Ben Macintyre

In some ways, Philby’s story is that of a man in pursuit of ever more exclusive clubs. In a brilliant lecture written in 1944, C. S. Lewis described the fatal British obsession with the “inner ring,” the belief that somewhere, just beyond reach, is an exclusive group holding real power and influence, which a certain sort of Englishman constantly aspires to find and join. Westminster School and Cambridge University are elite clubs; MI6 is an even more exclusive fellowship; working secretly for the NKVD within MI6 placed Philby in a club of one, the most elite member of a secret inner ring. “Of all the passions,” wrote Lewis, “the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.”