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Orphan
In the middle of August 1934 two recent graduates sat down to supper in a flat in Acol Road, a quiet residential street in Kilburn, on the genteel borders of St John’s Wood and Hampstead. The supper invitation was unexpected. Kim Philby and Donald Maclean knew each other through the CUSS. This was the encounter that changed everything for Donald Maclean.
The carefully calculating Philby, with his powerful charm and attractive stutter, claimed that he had gone to Vienna the previous summer to improve his German before applying to the Foreign Office. His real intention was to work for the International Workers Relief Organisation and to observe the left-wing opposition to the dictator Dollfuss’s suspension of the constitution and suppression of the socialists. He announced that henceforward “My life must be devoted to Communism.” While in Vienna, Philby had fallen in love with a “tremendous little sexpot,” Litzi Kohlmann, the daughter of his landlord; he lost his virginity to her while they were out for a walk in the snow, which sounded “impossible, but it was actually quite warm once you got used to it.” The couple married in February 1934 to facilitate Litzi’s visa out of a country that had turned dangerous for her as it swung ever further to the right. Litzi was already in contact with Soviet intelligence through her friend Edith Suschitzky, another Viennese who had moved to London to marry Alex Tudor-Hart: both the Tudor-Harts were already spying for Moscow under the one code-name “Arrow” (Edith’s spinster code-name had been the unimaginative and not altogether watertight “Edith”). Arrow was being run by Arnold Deutsch, a spy recruiter of genius, the first and most effective guide to the world of espionage for the Cambridge spy ring. In June the newly married Philby found himself on a bench in Regent’s Park being captivated by the power and charisma of Deutsch—although he, in common with the other Cambridge men, was to know him only as “Otto” in that freedom that espionage anonymity bestows. He did not hesitate to sign up as a Soviet agent, at once seeing the romance and purpose of the role; after all, “one does not look twice at an offer of enrolment in an elite force.”
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Arnold Deutsch was thirty-two, “a stout man, with blue eyes and light curly hair.” He had arrived in England after a glittering academic career in Vienna that had taken him from undergraduate to PhD in only five years: his combination of subjects—his doctorate was in chemistry, though he had also studied philosophy and psychology—was a compellingly useful mix of the coolly analytic and the persuasively sympathetic, ideal for his work both as a recruiter and as a tutor of newly minted agents. He was also an accomplished linguist, speaking German, French, Italian, Dutch, Russian and English. Deutsch had been an observant Jew, but his religious fervour had been replaced by an ardent commitment to the Communist International’s vision of “a new world order which would free the human race from exploitation and alienation.”
After leaving Vienna Deutsch started working as a courier for the Comintern, travelling to Romania, Greece, Palestine and Syria. He collaborated with the German psychologist Wilhelm Reich, who was attempting to bring together the work of Marx and Freud and gained a reputation as “the prophet of the better orgasm.” The “sex-pol” movement, as it was known, held that if marriage and family, the bourgeois building-blocks of society, were broken up, all inhibitions would be released and the Revolution would surely follow. Reich propounded the startling theory that “a man’s poor sexual performance led him to fascism.” Deutsch was running Münster Verlag, a publishing house which published Reich’s work and other “sex-pol” literature; not surprisingly, by April 1934 he was under surveillance by the Viennese vice squad as a pornographer and it was time for him to leave the country.
Arnold Deutsch’s cousin Oscar was already living in London. The millionaire founder of the hugely successful cinema chain Odeon (an acronym for “Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation”) backed his Viennese cousin’s application to do a further degree in phonetics and psychology at University College, London. Deutsch settled into British life in some style, renting a flat in the modern Lawn Road Flats in Hampstead, where his neighbours included Walter Gropius and Agatha Christie. Lawn Road Flats was the first building to have outside walkways and staircases, although Deutsch made sure his front door was hidden by a stairwell so that his visitors could not be seen entering or leaving. Once installed he began the work that would make him the most successful Soviet recruiter of all time: his KGB files credit him with twenty agents, of whom by far the most important and longest lasting were those from Cambridge, known to Moscow as “the Magnificent Five.” Deutsch inspired an intense loyalty in all of them but particularly so in Maclean. He played a central role in his life and replaced the late Sir Donald as a mentor, in this case a political as well as a moral one.
Deutsch came up with the strategy of picking young radicals from the universities before they became influential in the careers he hoped they would enter:
Given that the Communist movement in these universities is on a mass scale and that there is a constant turnover of students, it follows that individual Communists whom we pluck out of the Party will pass unnoticed, both by the Party itself and by the outside world. People forget about them. And if at some point they do remember that they were once Communists, this will be put down to a passing fancy of youth, especially as those concerned are scions of the bourgeoisie.
He was a subtle man, as John Cairncross, the Scottish Marxist recruited in 1937 at the suggestion of his former tutor Anthony Blunt, acknowledged: Deutsch “would never have been so successful” were it not for his “skill, flexibility and cosmopolitan ways.” Once these young men were out of the cosseted and self-regarding world of Cambridge and faced with the choice between driving a tractor on a collective farm or entering into a comfortable life in the professions or civil service, it was a good bet that in most cases the socialist “passing fancy of youth” would be just that. Deutsch proved himself to be a superb picker of young talent as he set about building the most effective spy network ever seen.
His sheer personality and psychological acuity were overwhelming. Kim Philby said of their first meeting:
It was an amazing conversation. And he was a marvellous man. Simply marvellous . . . I felt that immediately . . . He knew Marx and Lenin brilliantly . . . He spoke of the Revolution with enthusiasm . . . You could talk on any topic with him . . . The first thing you noticed about him were his eyes. He looked at you as if nothing more important in his life than you and talking to you existed at that moment.
The first task for Philby—code-named “Söhnchen” (“Synok” in Russian), meaning “Sonny”—was to break off all contact with his Communist friends and cultivate those with pro-German views to find out what they knew. His steps towards this were so bold as to appear beyond any possible bluff: he became a sub-editor on the Anglo-German Trade Gazette, a journal partly financed by the Nazi government, and joined the Anglo-German Fellowship, known by Winston Churchill as the “Heil Hitler Brigade.” The other tasks suggested by Deutsch were to spy upon his own father, an astute psychotherapeutical loyalty test for a trainee agent; and above all to practise his observational skills by writing character sketches of prominent people he met as well as of his contemporaries, always with an eye to recruiting the cream of the next generation.
At the top of Philby’s list was Donald Maclean, then just graduated and “the most serious of anyone” he had met at Cambridge, the one who was “convinced of the righteousness of socialism.” Better still, Maclean stood a good chance of passing the punishing Foreign Office exams to give the Soviets their badly needed mole there. Philby himself had failed in his application because his chosen referee, a fellow of Trinity, had refused to give “a radical socialist” a reference; such people should not become civil servants in the don’s view. The enmeshment with Kim Philby, the man Maclean barely saw over the next quarter of a century, but which was to last for the rest of his life and involve his marriage as well as espionage, was under way.
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br /> In late June or early July 1934, when Maclean was first mooting the idea of working in the Foreign Office, he was still freely professing his political leanings, especially after a drink. Fitzroy Maclean, who was then in his first year in the service, was introduced to his namesake at a party as someone “who also hoped to become a diplomat.” Fitzroy, a relation only in the clan sense, “made conversation with a tall, rather droopy, good-looking, golden-haired young man in faultless white tie and tails who caused me no more than momentary astonishment by announcing (it was almost the first thing he said) that he was a member of the Communist party.” Donald’s “clearly adoring mother,” to whom he was sticking close even at a party, was listening to their conversation and said, “Donald is even more of a radical than his dear father was.” To Lady Maclean, Communism was simply an extension of the Liberalism she had shared with her late husband.
The Foreign Office had obvious appeal both to Maclean and to Moscow. After his own failure, Philby had told Moscow that “the FO would be hard put to find a formal excuse for rejecting Maclean.” Maclean’s application form left the boxes blank for political clubs and societies and Dr Wansbrough-Jones did not share the scruples of Philby’s referee when, either by accident (unlikely in an eminent scientist), ignorance (unlikely in such a small college) or design (possibly at Maclean’s request), he glossed over the political side of Maclean’s undergraduate life in his reference the following March:
I have no hesitation at all in saying that on the scores of intellect, personality and ability [Mr Maclean] is in every way suitable for selection in the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service. He is a man both possessing quite unusual personal charm and distinction of mind . . . He always took a prominent part in College and University affairs and he had particularly in his last year rather pronounced political views. Without allowing his work to suffer he spent a good deal of his time assisting various political associations both in Cambridge and, I think, elsewhere. I have always found him a man who had the courage of his convictions and able to make up his own mind firmly and decisively after hearing various points of view.
Wansbrough-Jones had followed up with an important further testimonial at the end of May 1935 to boost his former pupil’s chance of success, adding that Maclean had won his school and college colours in rugby, cricket and hockey. The applicant himself did not hold back in his choice of second referee: he first of all put forward Lord Gladstone, son of the Victorian Prime Minister, but on the old man’s death at the age of eighty-three replaced him with another liberal grandee a decade younger, Lord Rhayader. At a time when name mattered more than exploration of character and past, all the referees had to do was vouch for the health and honesty of the applicant, and state that he was free from “pecuniary embarrassment.” This application was the first of many occasions in Maclean’s life when an Englishman’s background and his ambiguous words mattered more than official scrutiny.
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Maclean told Philby his plans when they met over his “modest table” at the Acol Road flat. Philby was confident of his man and became direct in his approach on getting this news: “If you are going to sell the Daily Worker [in the Foreign Office], you’re not going to be there very long. But you can carry out special work there for us.” Maclean’s response was quick and equally blunt as a hunger for secrecy and belonging surged through him. It was as if he was hoping for exactly this result from the supper invitation. Would he be working for Soviet intelligence or the Comintern? The distinction was a very important one: it would be one thing to spy for a foreign government while in the employ of his own; quite another to belong to an international organisation pledged to create an “international Soviet republic.” Maclean was a patriot as well as holding firm to an ideology which allowed room for actions based on his essential moral compass. The Comintern felt very comfortable for those who were “intoxicated by the rhetoric of international proletarian revolution” in those smoky Cambridge rooms; they could still believe at that time, before they knew of Stalin’s Terror, that it stood for peaceful progress in spite of its declared readiness to use armed force to achieve its goals. James Klugmann was working as an academic in Paris and was already a member of the secretariat of a Comintern front organisation (which he was to head from 1936), the Rassemblement Mondial des Etudiants. It seemed as if the Comintern was the fulfilment of a dream for Maclean—even if he was not planning to make his participation in the organisation public.
Philby was stunned by the speed of Maclean’s reply to his opening gambit. He “still had an arsenal of arguments and approaches. It was a shame to leave them unused.” He hedged his bets. “The people I could introduce you to are very serious, they work in a very serious anti-fascist organisation, which may be tied to Moscow.” Maclean asked somewhat naively if he could discuss the matter with Klugmann, his guide through the machinery of the Communist world, but Philby said that if he did so, this discussion over supper had never taken place. It was essential tradecraft to keep the circles as small as possible. Ignace Reif, NKVD* rezident, or chief of the London espionage station, sent a telegram to his masters in Moscow on 26 August: “Söhnchen has contacted his friend, the latter has agreed to work, and wants to come into direct contact with us.” Kim Philby, the future master-spy, had deftly identified and easily played the eager Maclean to get him over the initial recruitment hurdle.
Two days later Donald Maclean walked into a north London café carrying a book with a bright yellow cover presumably from Victor Gollancz’s Left Book Club, a strong visual symbol of political discourse at the time, as a prearranged identification signal for the first of his many meetings with Arnold Deutsch, Otto. He did not need to be seduced by the recruiter’s compelling personality to commit himself wholeheartedly to the cause and to secrecy. Philby’s first recommendation was landed. A few months after leaving Cambridge, where he had been broadcasting his youthful idealism, Maclean was now embarking on a life where he would have to balance the betrayal that fulfilling his convictions entailed and performing the public service that was the other half of his family legacy. It was a double belonging. His early conditioning was to prove invaluable in both his careers.
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Donald Maclean was given the code-name “Waise” in German, “Sirota” in Russian, both meaning “Orphan,” which not only highlighted Maclean’s fatherless state but also captured his essential solitariness. It was another telling psychological insight from Deutsch. He had worked out four desirable characteristics of a successful agent: “an inherent class resentfulness, a predilection for secretiveness, a yearning to belong, and an infantile appetite for praise and reassurance.” In Deutsch’s report to Moscow following their meeting, it was clear how well his new recruit fitted these criteria:
Waise is a very different person to Synok [Philby]. He is much simpler and more sure of himself. He is a tall, handsome fellow with a striking presence. He knows this but does not make too much of it because he is too serious . . . He came to us out of sincere motivation, namely that the intellectual emptiness and aimlessness of the bourgeois class to which he belonged antagonised him. He is well-read, clever, but not as profound as Synok. He is honest, and at home became accustomed to a modest life-style because, even though his father was a minister, he was not a rich man. He dresses carelessly and is involved . . . in the Bohemian life. He takes an interest in painting and music. Like Synok, he is reserved and secretive, seldom displaying his enthusiasms or admiration. This to a large degree is explainable from his upbringing in the English bourgeois world, which is first and foremost conditioned always to display a reserved appearance. He lives without a wife, although it would not be difficult for him to find someone. He explained it to me by the fact that he had an aversion to girls of his own class and so could only live with a woman who is also a comrade . . . Waise is ambitious and does not like anyone telling him he has made a mistake . . . He likes to be praised for our work, since it provides him with the acknowledgement that he is doing som
ething useful for us.
The volatile undergraduate emerged as focused, serious and reserved, but still immature when compared to the more contemplative and “profound” Philby. Deutsch noted the over-arching importance of politics even in the excited recruit’s sex life.
The direct focus that Philby also experienced in his first meeting with Deutsch was a new sensation for the previously scattergun Maclean of Cambridge days. “The infantile need for praise and reassurance” identified by Deutsch is revealing when one considers the relations between fathers and sons in the recruitment of the Cambridge Five: Maclean’s feelings towards his own “imposing but distant” father lay somewhere between idolatry and frustration. Burgess’s father had died when he was young, before he had a chance to be a role model. St John Philby was peculiar and difficult. Cairncross’s father “was old enough to be my grandfather” and, as with Maclean, “a Scots restraint made for a lack of intimacy between us.” † Cairncross too had had a strict Calvinist upbringing. Anthony Blunt was the agnostic youngest son of a clergyman “who held to the stiff Victorian values that had been instilled in him.” Maclean’s austere (and now dead) father who was not able to give him the necessary reassurances in his choices seems to be reflected in Deutsch’s assessment of the son. Maclean passed for a paid-up member of a class to which he could not truly belong thanks to his father’s humble origins and his own lack of a private income. In class-conscious Britain, he felt both keenly. Adoring mothers played their own part in forming these spies, even if they had no relevance in the Soviet recruiting mindset: to the end of her life Lady Maclean did not believe that Donald had done anything wrong; Guy Burgess’s mother could not understand why her son was not allowed home.
Even after their first meeting, Deutsch’s assessment of Orphan’s character and skills is astonishingly good. Maclean’s readiness to spy, to fulfil both sides of himself, meant that there were no ideological sticking-points, no qualms about legality, no final pricks of his conscience. One cannot but wonder how different the course of his life and career might have been had his Russian recruiter not been so gifted, and what the differences might have been in the history of international relations in the middle years of the century. Maclean would have risen, as he very nearly did, to the top of the ambassadorial ladder; possibly a career as a politician might have beckoned. He would have retired full of honour, a second Sir Donald and a figure in the history books—yet not as prominent as the one he became. The events he would influence were, of course, unknowable at this point; the Soviets could not have dreamed what a valuable catch they had so easily landed at exactly the right moment.
A Spy Named Orphan Page 6