From: tallpaul@pipeline.com (tallpaul)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 7a7e9a5a819e8ef8e678ab20aaf47460b5face2bcc569d2535fa4253f85336c3
Message ID: <199512062123.QAA25167@pipe3.nyc.pipeline.com>
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UTC Datetime: 1995-12-06 21:22:47 UTC
Raw Date: Wed, 6 Dec 95 13:22:47 PST
From: tallpaul@pipeline.com (tallpaul)
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 95 13:22:47 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Kim Philby in Washington
Message-ID: <199512062123.QAA25167@pipe3.nyc.pipeline.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Burgess, Philby, and Maclean in Washington
A Comment on Clipper and G.A.K.
It is historically indisputable that Guy Burgess, Harold "Kim"
Philby, and Donald Maclean were agents for Soviet intelligence.
What is far less known is the role that these three individuals
played in the U.S.A. and how this related to their access to U.S.
secret material.
Maclean, at one time, was the Head of Chancery of the British
Embassy in Washington D.C. As such, he was the head of the code
room at the Embassy and thus had access to *all* encrypted traffic
passing through the Embassy. This included everything available
through the considerable Anglo-U.S. co-operative ventures during
the immediately-post W.W. II period.
Guy Burgess was also assigned to the British Embassy where one job
was as a liaison agent with the U.S.A. It has been reported during
this period that he had a pass from the Atomic Energy Commission
that gave him 24-hour-a-day access unaccompanied by any U.S.
"overseer." This was a higher level of A.E.C. security than held
by J. Edgar Hoover at the time.
Kim Philby was the U.K.'s liaison to the Central Intelligence
Agency. He was personally close ("a drinking buddy") to then head
of C.I.A. Counter-Intelligence James Jesus Angleton.
Angleton was, to all accounts, a psychopathologically paranoid
individual, seeing Soviet spies and disinformation attempts in
almost all areas of life with the exception of his one-time bar
companion. He might be likened to one of those hysterical
Victorian "feminists" who thought "all men are pigs" with the
exception of one real gentleman she knew. (The gentleman would, of
course, be Jack the Ripper.)
I write this not out of any sense that Key Escrow or Clipper are
"communist plots." Far from it, especially during this period.
But the presence of Burgess, Philby, and Maclean in Washington
shows how unable the governments have been to protect their own
secrets. It is unreasonable to suggest -- as do supporters of
Clipper and G.A.K. -- that governments will be any better
protecting ours.
--tallpaul
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1995-12-06 (Wed, 6 Dec 95 13:22:47 PST) - Kim Philby in Washington - tallpaul@pipeline.com (tallpaul)