01x01 - Boom-ooh-yatatatah

[bunniefuu]

January the 8th, 1963.

Official statement of Mrs Flora Solomon of 19 Spencer Square, Kensington.

Erm

Before I-I begin, erm

I'd like to make it clear, I I didn't go to MI5.

You came to me.

All because of a private conversation or at least one that I was

lead to believe was private with a friend.

And, as unlikely as it may sound,

I have known Kim Philby for a very long time and, erm

I simply didn't put two and two to

I still can't quite believe that

I very much regret that it

has taken me all these years

to realize who he really is

and the despicable,

hateful things he's done.

I'm sorry, Nick.

I know you always considered

Kim a close I'm fine.

Fine.

You should know, Mrs.

Solomon's statement to MI5

is the final piece of the

puzzle that confirms everything

that Golitsyn told us when he

defected in Helsinki last year.

I read his debrief file.

He only ever mentioned an

unidentified Soviet agent.

I have a team standing by

to go to Beirut first thing.

But what you're now

telling me is that, in fact,

Golitsyn specifically identified Kim

as the traitor?

A team from MI5? That'll

never f*cking work.

Kim has to be handled by SIS, not MI5.

That would be madness. And by "SIS"

- I mean me.

- Utter bloody madness.

I disagree, Sir Roger.

Philby must, for the time being,

be viewed and treated

as a potential asset.

He must be handled

with care by an SIS man

for foreign intelligence purposes,

not arrested by MI5 for

criminal prosecution.

Forgive me, but ten years

ago, when MI5 suspected Philby

of helping Burgess and

Maclean escape to Moscow,

you, as I recall

were his staunchest ally.

So, I'll say it again:

sending you to Beirut

would be a colossal mistake.

Hello, Kim.

I rather thought it would be you.

Bet you wish you were still in Beirut.

E! Zakhodim v port.

Dvadtsat' minut do stykovki.

In English, please.

Russia, huh? Russia!

We can send a man into space, but

Ah.

I wouldn't shut that all

the way again if I were you.

Oh, right. Well, is there

another room I can use ?

It's the damp. Expands the wood, see.

This is all there is, I'm afraid.

Don't forget, curtains at eight.

What theatre?

That'd be telling. Spoil the surprise.

Nice try, though.

- Go.

- We'll get through this.

I believe in you.

Kiss me.

- Uh-oh. Don't tell me, we lost.

- What?

The cricket, Tim, the cricket.

Actually, it was a draw.

England were 223 for four.

- Thanks to Barrington, who was 134, not out.

- Hm.

Oh, give it a good, hard

Always forget about that.

You think I'd know by now.

Mr. Elliott.

It's been like that as

long as I can remember.

You must be Mrs. Thomas

- How do you do?

- of MI5 fame.

Hardly.

- Ah

- What?

- We need another chair.

- Hello?

- How do you do?

- Hello.

Tim Milne.

- My instructions are to debrief Mr. Elliott alone.

- Ah.

Well, what you need to

understand, Mrs. Thomas,

is that Mr. Elliott is one of

SIS's most respected officers,

and C has asked me to sit in

and make sure that everything is, er

you know Tickety-boo.

- May I speak freely?

- In this building?

My orders are to

debrief Mr Elliott alone

with no SIS involvement or assistance,

but should you need

clarification, I'm to ask you to

call this number.

Before you go, is there someone here

who might be able to do

something about that door?

There's a good fella.

Mr Elliott, I'd like to begin

by saying how sorry I am.

I realize how painful this must

be for you and everyone else here

at the Intelligence Service who

counted Mr Philby as a friend

and trusted colleague

for such an awfully long time.

Is that Northumberland I hear?

You and Mr Philby were

friends for, what, 25 years?

Could you please explain to me how

he was able to escape from Beirut?

Smart money's on a boat.

No, thank you.

Newcastle

the accent?

Mr Elliott

I completely understand why

you might need a moment or two

to break the ice, believe me, I do.

Would you mind if we

now consider it broken?

The word "escape" would suggest that

Philby was in some sort of

custody, which he was not.

But I do understand the

drive of your question,

and the answer is this: I

simply didn't think he'd run.

I was offering him complete

immunity and secrecy,

with a nice little retirement in the

country with his wife and children,

for a full confession of

everything he ever did for the KGB.

I didn't for a moment think

he'd choose Russia over that.

Durham. My accent.

- Ah.

- Mr Elliott, you are aware that we have all the

34 hours of recordings of

you and Philby in that flat?

Hello, Kim.

I rather thought it would be you.

What did he mean by that, "I

rather thought it would be you"?

I don't know. If you were to guess?

Well, that would be playing his game,

- and I'd sooner not do that at this juncture.

- Game?

Come on in.

Can I offer you some tea?

You look a little

peaky. How's your health?

Oh, it's perfectly tolerable,

despite recent bouts

of flu AND bronchitis.

- Oh, nasty.

- Yes, they were both against me.

Ah, little did they know.

I must say, I'd rather hoped "tea"

was code for something

a little stronger.

Kim, I don't have time

to postpone this and

we've known each other forever, so

if you don't mind, I'll

get right to the point.

Oh, bloody hell.

Would you believe it?

I've left my pipe at home.

Ah

Ah, good man.

I came to tell you that your

past has caught up with you.

Oh?

We found additional

information about you

that puts everything in place.

And now even I'm convinced,

absolutely convinced

that you worked for the

Soviet intelligence service

right up until the end of the w*r.

Within the first few

minutes of the tape,

you state loud and clear,

as if for the record

and anybody else who might be listening,

that he stopped spying for the

Soviets at the end of the w*r.

- Yes.

- Did he?

So, that was a lie.

- A nuance

- A nuance.

to protect the relationship

with our American cousins

who, I assumed, had to be listening

- Not as far as I know.

- or would get hold of the tape.

Again, to my knowledge

Because if they ever discovered

that he had been active for the KGB

all the way up to now,

especially during his stint in

Washington from '49 to '51

- They'd be out for blood.

- Not just HIS blood.

So, am I right in saying

that you were letting him know

from the beginning you were willing

to protect him from the Americans?

I'd rather like to think of

it as protecting the service

- And the country.

- whilst, at the same time

trying to offer him every

incentive to tell the truth.

By the way, why wasn't he

in some sort of custody?

Well, that's not how we

I was trying to appeal

to his better nature.

- As an Englishman.

- And husband.

And father.

How did you and he first meet?

Not sure what that has to do

with what happened in Beirut.

Oh, er, wh-what happened in Beirut

erm, is that the most

dangerous Soviet penetration agent

this country's ever known

legged it on your watch.

Odds are to the Soviet Union,

who, just a few months ago,

aimed missiles at America from Cuba.

So we - you and I -

are gonna look into every

single nook and cranny

of yours and Philby's friendship.

How do you do, Comrade Philby?

Or I should say Agent Stanley?

I'm Sergei.

May I ?

- I'd like to begin with an apology.

- Is not necessary.

Even so

You are sorry that your

hand was forced in Beirut

and that you had to

escape to Soviet Union.

Actually, what I'd like to apologise

I say apology is not necessary.

First you are KGB hero

for work as penetration agent

into British and American

intelligence since '34.

'33.

Second we keep you active too long.

In all honesty, I would've

liked to have gone on forever.

And to never leave England.

To never underestimating

the English again.

I first met him in 1940.

At my club.

My closest childhood chum had

just been sh*t down and k*lled

by the Luftwaffe.

The first thing I noticed about Kim

was that he had this

capacity to draw people in

and sort of appeared, just

in how he carried himself,

to know things no-one else knew

Thank you, sir.

exuding what I can only describe

as this very British confidence

that everything would

be all right in the end.

They were not in any

That was, as it happens,

the first night of the Blitz.

All right there, old bean?

Your hand.

Ups-a-daisy! Arms, legs,

all present and correct.

You couldn't scare us up a

couple of pink gins, could you?

- Are you a member, sir?

- What?

I'm sorry, sir, only

members are allowed to

Put it on my bill, Sam.

He didn't seem at all

rattled by the near miss.

Which I have to say at the time

was really rather reassuring.

Kim Philby.

Do you think Philby was playing you

from the very first moment that you met?

No.

I don't know.

You didn't ask him that in Beirut?

That would've been the first

thing I'd have asked him

if I hadn't k*lled him first.

So

why it was so easy for

you to escape SIS in Beirut?

I wouldn't exactly call it "easy".

Mr Philby?

Mr Philby? Sir?

Breakfast.

From a friend.

After I received the warning

in Beirut from Moscow Centre,

I first had to see if there

was a way to weather the storm.

After all, ten years ago,

I managed to survive a

full-force hurricane

brought on by Donald

Maclean and Guy f*cking Burgess.

Philby.

Oh, hello, Peter.

No, no, no, wide awake.

The next morning, Peter Lunne,

our Beirut station chief,

he rang to invite me to tea that

afternoon at his secretary's flat,

which, as I'm sure you know, is

code for one of the safe houses.

But when Nicholas

Elliott opened the door,

I'll admit, I was caught

more than a little off-guard.

I rather thought it would be you.

Come on in.

He looked like he wanted to k*ll me.

And four days later, you confess?

That's not exactly how I'd put it, no.

A typed, signed confession, no?

After four days of denying everything

and getting nowhere, I felt

my time was running out.

I needed to give him something

to get him to drop his guard.

So, yes, I signed, which you would

know, if you'd actually seen it,

what amounted to a few

pages of chicken feed.

No more.

To give myself an opening,

a chance to make a move

before this whole bloody

nightmare got any worse.

Why did they send Elliott to Beirut?

Knowing him, he talked them into it.

Hello?

Speak.

Elliott met a Russian in a cemetery.

Handed him a newspaper.

Now I'm watching that same

Russian sitting in a coffee shop.

Well, stay on him.

And do not f*cking lose him.

How long were you and

Nicholas Elliott friends?

Since 1940.

When you were both already in SIS?

Different sections.

I ran operations in

the Iberian Peninsular,

he covered Holland.

Friends for over 20 years.

Not easy.

Requires a certain attention

to detail, I suppose.

Hard to believe he never suspected.

You must understand

A friendship within the

British ruling class

it's built on an ingrained belief

that victory over one's enemy

is preordained, God given.

When you think about it,

it's really remarkable,

the the level of sentimentality

and arrogance that it must take

in order to be so wilfully blind

to the possibility that one of your

own might see things differently.

Tony's the only one who knows the words!

Happy new year, darling.

- Happy new year.

- Happy new year, old socks.

- To peace, at last.

- To us.

And to getting away with it.

Why did you let him go?

I didn't. He ran.

At night.

He waited until after

dark. That's all it took?

Do you not think that in hindsight,

perhaps MI5 should've

gone to Beirut, not you?

Kim gave me an eight-page,

signed confession,

that he never would've

given anyone from MI5.

Ooh, right, yeah. Sorry, you mean this?

Yeah.

Er Yeah.

Isn't this what you SIS chaps

call, er "chicken feed"?

Or is there something

you're not telling me?

When I grasped the

scope of his betrayal

I realised that our friendship

had led, over the years, to

the deaths of hundreds

possibly thousands of people

at the hands of the Soviets.

Try to imagine for a

moment, if you will

how that might feel, and

give me one good reason

why I'd deliberately let him go.

I can give you several. Firstly,

you were friends for years.

Second, there's his wife and

children, not to mention SIS,

all of whom I'm sure you wanted

to protect from a public scandal.

So I have to ask if the two of you

came to some sort of quid pro quo

out there in Beirut?

I'm sorry, I need

f*cking thing!

It's all right. I can manage.

There's one pet I like to pet ♪

And every evening, we get set ♪

I stroke it every chance I get ♪

It's my girl's p*ssy ♪

Seldom plays and never purrs ♪

And I love the thoughts it stirs ♪

But I don't mind

because it's hers ♪

Elizabeth Holberton, one of

my gals on the Iberia desk.

She's fluent in French,

Spanish, German, Italian

110 words a minute.

Don't pretend you weren't ogling.

Elizabeth? Over here!

In giving thrills, never mean! ♪

- What are you doing?

- Deep breath, old bean.

I'm pretty sure she doesn't bite.

Elizabeth, may I introduce to you

my dearest and most eligible friend,

Nicholas Elliott.

- Nick!

- All right, old chap?

Are you all right? Nick!

Somebody get a bloody doctor!

In 1951

you helped Comrades Burgess

and Maclean escape from the West

to the Soviet Union.

In a manner of speaking.

At great personal risk.

When I found out the

codebreakers were onto Maclean,

there was no indication

Burgess was also blown.

Maclean had no choice.

He was blown. He had to

run, no question about it.

Burgess, on the other hand, he was safe.

But he panicked and

decided to run anyway.

And because he'd just been

my house guest in America,

drying out for a couple of months

The British suspected you

were also a traitor?

You don't like that word.

Mr Harold Philby, on the right,

holds a press conference to

deny charges that he was involved

in the disappearance

of Burgess and Maclean.

The 43-year-old former

Foreign Office diplomat

has challenged his accuser, an MP,

to repeat the charges

outside the Commons.

Mr Philby. Mr MacMillan,

the Foreign Secretary,

said there was no evidence that

you were the so-called "Third Man"

who allegedly tipped

off Burgess and Maclean.

Are you satisfied with that

clearance that he gave you?

Yes, I am.

Well, if there WAS a third man,

were you, in fact, the third man?

- No, I was not.

- Do you think there was one?

No comment.

Mr Philby, the disappearance

of Burgess and Maclean

is almost as much of a mystery

today as it was when they went away -

about four years ago or more.

Can you shed any light on it at all?

No, I can't.

In the first place, I'm debarred

by the Official Secrets Act

from saying anything

that might disclose

information derived from my position

as a former government official.

In the second place, the

Burgess-Maclean affair

has raised issues of great delicacy

in the sphere of international affairs.

And the Foreign Secretary

has said that in the past,

you had communist associations.

Is that why you were asked to resign?

I was asked to resign because

of an imprudent association.

- That was your association with Burgess.

- Correct.

What about these alleged

communist associations?

Can you say anything about them?

The last time I spoke to a communist,

knowing him to be a communist,

was sometime in 1934.

That rather implies that you've

also spoken to communists unknowingly

and you now know about it.

Well, I spoke to Burgess

last in April or May of 1951.

Would you still regard Burgess, who

lived with you for a

while in Washington,

would you still regard

him as a friend of yours?

How do you feel about him now?

I consider his action deplorable.

On the subject of friendship,

I prefer to say as little as possible,

because it's very complicated.

A virtuoso performance.

Good God.

Are you suggesting what I think you are?

What really happened in Beirut

between you and Nicholas Elliott?

You are. You're calling me a liar.

Who will go down in history.

Eternal Father

whose son Jesus Christ was

sent to the throne of Heaven

that he might rule over all things

as Lord and King

keep the church in

the unity of the spirit

and in the bond of peace

and bring the whole created

order to worship at his feet,

who is alive and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

One God, now and forever.

- Amen.

- Amen.

And now will you join

me in the Lord's Prayer?

Our Father

Which art in heaven

Hallowed be thy name

Thy kingdom come

Thy will be done

On Earth as it is in heaven

- Thought you might like a cuppa.

- Thank you.

Mm, just a drop.

Sorry. Thank you.

I'm diabetic.

Sometimes, I forget

to take my medicine -

don't tell my wife

- and gets the better of me.

- We were talking about

- I know what we were talking about.

Squashed fly?

Thank you.

There was no quid pro quo.

No final act of friendship.

No.

What made you go into intelligence?

We were on the brink of w*r,

and I wanted to do my bit

without doing all that

marching and square-bashing,

if at all possible.

I won't have time to

get to the shops today

and my husband always forgets.

When I was seven, my parents

sent me off to boarding school.

A brutal place that reeked

of floor polish and custard.

Sometimes, at night,

when everyone was asleep,

I'd climb out on the roofs,

where I'd imagine that I was

the Count of Monte Cristo

and plot my enemies'

downfall by means of surveillance,

disinformation, sabotage.

Why did Philby spy for the Russians?

Espionage can at times

be intoxicating.

But where the thrill

of fooling your enemy

might be enough for most of us,

it is not, it appears,

sufficient for Kim.

Double-crossing your friends,

lying to your fellow spies

must have been

Ah, Elliott, oh, hold on.

Oh, Elliott, oh, just the fellow.

Please, have a seat. I would

like a frank word with you.

Certainly, sir.

- Does your wife know what you do?

- Yes.

Er, how did that come about?

Well, she was my

secretary for two years,

and I think the penny must have dropped.

Yes, quite so, quite, quite.

And what about your mother?

She thinks I work for

something called SIS,

which she believes stands for

Secret Intelligence Service.

Good God! How did she come to know that?

A w*r cabinet A member

A w*r cabinet fell on

her at a cocktail party.

Oh, goodness! That must've

caused all sorts of damage.

A member of the w*r cabinet

told her at a cocktail party.

It's true. It's actually true.

- But he IS a communist?

- Oh. Chicken, egg

Please.

That does not look like enemies to me.

The reason, by the way, I

don't like the word "traitor"

is because I'm not a f*cking traitor.

I've been loyal to Marxism and to

the Soviet Union my entire adult life.

- What were you talking about here?

- I don't know.

All I remember is it was getting

rather stuffy in that flat.

It was seven days ago.

We were drinking every day, and

Nicholas is nothing if not witty.

Witty?

He obviously knew the KGB were watching

and wanted to plant exactly

these seeds of doubt in your mind.

And there?

I don't remember.

You know what it looks like to me?

I think you say "partners in crime".

For God's sake, man, I have not

been turned by British intelligence.

I had to run, otherwise,

they would've k*lled me.

I had no other option.

Do you seriously think

I wanted to come here?

I'm sorry.

Slip of the tongue.

I don't believe you've ever had

a slip of the tongue, comrade.

- By "quid pro quo", what I mean is

- I'm familiar with the term.

maybe you let him go

in exchange for something?

Some important piece of information

that might resurrect your career?

- Wouldn't that be nice?

- Or, God forbid, protect England.

I didn't let him go.

On the last day, you both

go out onto the balcony.

For four consecutive

days, you meet in that flat

for roughly eight hours a day.

Only once do you go

out onto the balcony,

for a sum total of about three minutes.

Who is it?

Come to look at the door for you, miss.

Oh, right. Erm

Yeah, hold on a minute, please.

I wanted Kim's Russian

friends, if they were out there,

to see him and me together.

Hm.

Were you aware that the bug in the flat

couldn't hear you out on the balcony?

- Can't say I gave it much thought.

- In other words, you didn't care.

What I cared about was

getting Kim to tell the truth.

Hold on, Ted!

- Am I under arrest?

- No.

Good.

Cos my wife's arranged tickets

for the theatre tonight.

Oh

- What are you gonna see?

- She's surprising me.

Apparently, I need cheering up.

Kensington Palace Gardens,

please. Russian Embassy.

Your typical SIS man, as we all know,

concurrent with his upbringing,

considers himself to be

part of a secret, elite club,

which, by design, has no rules.

Because rules by design,

are strictly for commoners

like us here at MI5.

In many ways, SIS's real enemy

is a change to the status quo

that might, erm thr*aten

the existence of their club.

So for them, Philby's worst crime

is that he broke their

one unwritten rule,

which is that no member

should ever do anything

that might expose them all to

the scrutiny of the peasants

Or, God forbid, a woman.

So I wonder if Mr Elliott insisted

he be the one to go to Beirut

so that he and Philby could find or

Thank you.

create some sort

of last-minute save.

For example

what if he went

out there to initiate

an operation to run

Philby back at the KGB?

Bloody hell, you actually mean that.

For our old friend.

- I'm sorry, I just don't believe

- That SIS are that devious?

If they were running Philby back

into the USSR, they'd have told us.

Well, that's sweet,

Arthur. Quite unlike you.

Or at the very least,

one would think they'd

have asked us to back off.

Leave Elliott alone.

What if he didn't even

tell SIS what he was up to?

Taxi's here.

You look stunning.

You lost him? How?

He's a pro, for sure.

He gave me the slip in the

church. Switched hat and coat.

Now he's in the f*cking wind. Long gone.

Which means he almost certainly is not.

Hello?

Were you aware that the bug in the flat

couldn't hear you out on the balcony?

Can't say I gave it too much thought.

- In other words, you didn't care.

- What I

- Oh!

- cared about

- How long have you been there?

- No. Don't let me interrupt you.

Don't be daft. Come here.

- Mm.

- Uh-uh, more, please.

Yeah, boy. That was what I needed.

Look at you!

What's the time? I totally lost track.

I'm so sorry, you must be starving.

Do you wanna light a fire and

I'll rustle us up some supper?

Do you want a beer, love?

Thanks, John.

Here we are.

He's at some Russian

port on the Black Sea.

How was work?

Flu season, you know?

And with all the long waits these days,

which can be up to ten times

as long for my patients,

it's all I can do to stop them

from catching pneumonia, you know?

I believe in you, love.

Hm!

This is delicious. Very tasty.

Stew left over from the other day.

Are you lonesome tonight? ♪

Do you miss me tonight? ♪

Oh! Are you sorry ♪

We we drifted apart? ♪

- What you doing?

- Well, I I'm singing, aren't I?

Are you ♪

Boom!

Give 'em an "ooh", Sid.

Ooh!

Didn't wanna part with that, did you?

I'll give you a two-in,

here we go. A one two

- A boom. Ooh!

- Ya-ta-ta-tah.

- Are you lonesome tonight? ♪

- Ya-ta-ta-tah.

A boom. Ooh!

Do you miss me tonight? ♪

- A boom. Ooh!

- Ya-ta-ta-tah.

- Are you sorry we drifted ♪

- Just Just No, stop!

Boom!

A boom

A boom. Just a little.

I'm ya-ta-ta-tah-ing, you see.

Oh, of course. No, you shouldn't be.

No, I should be singing

Are You Lonesome Tonight?

'Cos you've got the

sideboards. You're the star.

I go right down to here.

There's something gone

wrong with the star.

Oh, I know!

Sid - you start us off. Give

us the one-two, will you?

- Then you'll be all right.

- A one, two

- A boom. Ooh.

- Ya-ta-ta-tah!

- Are you lonesome tonight? ♪

- A boom. Ooh.

Ya-ta-ta-tah!

- A boom. Ooh.

- Ya-ta-ta-tah!

- Do you miss me tonight? ♪

- A boom. Ooh.

Ya-ta-ta-tah!

- Are you sorry we drifted apart? ♪

- A boom. Ooh.

- A boom. Ooh.

- Ya-ta-ta-tah!

Does your memory stray ♪

To a bright, sunny day ♪

When I kissed you ♪

And called you sweetheart? ♪

Do the chairs in your parlour ♪

Seem empty and bare? ♪

Do you gaze at your doorstep ♪

And picture me there? ♪

Is your heart filled with pain? ♪

Shall I come back again? ♪

Tell me, dear ♪

Are you lonesome tonight? ♪

I interviewed this man today

It's OK, my love. I know you're

not allowed to talk about your work.

who's just found out that his

best friend of over 20 years

has been betraying him all along.

How long?

23 years.

And he only just found out?

You were spot on. CIA.

- Angleton?

- James Jesus in the flesh.

Let's keep that under our hats for now.

Are you trying to get me k*lled?

Now, there's a thought.

You don't really mean that.

Give me one good reason why not, Kim.

And it better be a f*cking good one.

You know, Nick

we're all wondering

what happened in Beirut.

And I for one find it hard to

believe you came back empty-handed.