Original subtitles

MAN: Mr Philby, you were asked to resign yourself

from the Foreign Office a few months after

Burgess and Maclean disappeared.

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.

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?

URINATING

'I consider his action deplorable.

'On the subject of friendship,

'I prefer to say as little as possible,

'as it's very complicated.'

TOILET FLUSHES

DOOR KNOCKS

Vash kostyoom.

FOOTSTEPS APPROACH

Something about him...

Chto? LIGHTER CLICKS

You know.

IN RUSSIAN:

If the dreaded Windsor knot has somehow made its way to Russia,

please understand there are certain things

I just cannot bring myself to do.

Nick?

Darling?

Are you down there?

I'm off.

I made you one cheese and pickle and one ham.

If I'm late again tonight, there's a casserole made.

All you have to do is heat it up.

Hey, come 'ere.

You all right? One more kiss.

Good old British weather. Never fails.

I was just about to leave for work meself.

May I come in for a minute?

Morning. Morning.

Mr Angleton, I have a train to catch, so, if you wouldn't mind,

just, you know... getting on with it.

Regarding what we talked about last night...

It does seem a tad unorthodox, though.

Coming to my house like this in broad daylight.

..or, more accurately, what we didn't talk about...

Would you mind just staying on the mat?

Dripping all over me floor.

Keep talking, I'm listening.

To answer your question from last night,

obviously the reason I'm in London

is to keep an eye on our friend, Mr Nicholas Elliott,

and what he may or may not be up to. Unofficially?

Excuse me?

Last night, you said you were in London unofficially.

Right.

Were you unofficially in Beirut...

..as well? No.

I was not.

CIA... coming all the way up here to West Norwood.

What will my neighbours say?

I thought I might give you a ride into town.

Mind if I ask you something? Please.

Would you be doing all this if I was a man?

Doing what?

I came out here to see if there was a way for us to...

..work together.

That's all. Officially or...

..unofficially? Pool our resources.

Exchange information.

Information?

You don't have anything you feel it might be...

important to share?

I don't doubt for a moment that you might be able

to fudge the difference between "official" and "unofficial",

I can assure you that I absolutely cannot.

Bloody hell, is that the time? I need to get a wriggle on.

I'm gonna miss me train.

Fucking Guy fucking Burgess...

If you think about it, it's fucking preposterous.

If he and I were both spying for Russia...

Can't even finish the sentence.

If you were both KGB spies, why invite him to stay with you?

Exactly, thank you.

And in Washington, of all places. It'd be plain bloody daft.

Suicidal.

Look at me. Fucking water.

As a matter of interest, why did you invite Guy to stay?

Bloody hell, not you as well. It's a valid question, Kim...

Because friends, I hate to tell you, help each other in times of need.

..and a question others are bound to ask.

The man was adrift, dreadful health, or so I thought...

Hello, Mother. I thought I heard that voice.

Hello, Mrs P. How are you? Oh, you know...

There they are.

That's it, didn't mean to interrupt.

One for you, too. Where are you off to?

Don't let him smoke that beastly pipe

in my drawing room, Nick.

Leaves horrid smells in my cushions.

Make him go out to the garden.

Hairdresser then Cullen's. Need anything?

Marmalade, and tonics, and bitter lemons.

You're a good friend, Nick.

He's jolly lucky to have you.

She have any idea what's going on? No, not as far as I know.

Hasn't asked why you came back from America all of a sudden?

Oof, Lord, no. Far too proper for that.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is

you are our man in Washington... I know what you're about to say.

..and amusing and adrift as Guy might appear...

He'd just arrived in America, he didn't know a soul,

and I was worried about him. Because of his drinking?

KIM HUFFS Among other things.

If I had a drinking problem, I'm not sure that you're the first person...

You do have a drinking problem. I think we all do.

It's part of the job. THEY CHUCKLE

Erm...?

What?

Nothing.

You know, the one kind of chap you would think

the KGB would steer clear of

is an out-of-control alcoholic,

flagrant queer, like Guy Burgess. Hm.

Guy did have me well and truly fooled, though.

That I can't deny.

Ah, well, you twisted my arm.

Completely bloody hoodwinked.

He had us all fooled.

Betraying us to Russia all that time... Christ, I dunno.

If somebody should've seen through him, it was me.

I'm so sorry, Kim.

Ten years ago, when they accused me of helping Maclean and...

Burgess, do you remember all that? Oh, I remember.

Guy fucking Burgess.

You were a good and loyal friend. You stood by me all the way.

You know, I believed you were innocent. Why?

Why then and not now? What's so different now?

Evidence.

From Flora bloody Solomon?

It's not just her.

What do you mean? There's someone else.

Who?

A KGB defector.

I don't believe you.

You have no idea how I wish none of this were true.

Who is this defector? Hm.

The same source says you're not the only traitor.

There are two more of you still in play.

DOOR SLAMS

MAN ON TAPE: 'Mr Vice President, Mr Speaker, members of the Senate,

'and of the House of Representatives. Yesterday...

'..December 7th, 1941,

'a date which will live in infamy...

'the United States of America

'was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces

'of the Empire of Japan.'

PHONES RING

Kim Philby, hello.

Jim Angleton.

Ah, the poet.

I dabble. D...

Didn't you start a-a poetry magazine at Harvard?

Yale. Furioso.

You've read it? You "dabble", my arse.

Hi. Kim Philby.

CAR DOOR SLAMS

You can laugh. I would.

PATRONS CHATTER

Morning. ALL: Morning, Nicholas.

I bought you breakfast... or rather the taxpayer did.

Now what? Not here.

Nobody pays any attention to a word anyone that's said in here

unless it's a joke about the salami.

This one mine?

CAR HORNS HONK

Vodka.

Is he dead?

They know about Blunt.

Who? The Americans.

What?

See for yourself.

Are you sure? Read the telexes first.

How did you get this? This is Al, by the way.

Mr Elliott.

Al's all right...

Hello. ..for an ex copper.

Who else has seen this? Apart from the FBI and the CIA?

On our side, I mean. Er... the Director General of MI5,

Head of Counter-Intelligence, Arthur Martin, Mrs Sissmore...

And me. ..and Al.

Do any of those people know that you're now showing it to me?

No.

They don't, not as yet.

Thank you.

The one thing we absolutely cannot afford

is to let the Americans get to Blunt first,

so we need to smoke him out now, today,

cos if he isn't the last of the traitors among us...

..he knows who is. Philby tell you that?

That's just the way the business works.

Did he tell you that? Not in so many words, no.

Do you know him? Not really.

Vaguely remember him from up at Cambridge. Long time ago, now.

Not another of your friends, then? No.

Jim Angleton's far too cautious to make any rash approaches to Blunt.

If you say so.

You disagree? He came to my house this morning.

Seriously? To probe, browbeat.

Don't you think it's odd...

..that as soon as Philby did a bunk,

hey, presto, this character pops out of the woodwork in America

to jeopardise the value, to you, personally,

of the very same intelligence that Philby gave you in Beirut?

SOFTLY: Rule number one...

If it smells bad and you suspect the Russians,

it's probably the Russians.

Tovarishch Philby.

Donald!

Hello, Kim!

THEY CHUCKLE

Tovarishch polkovnik. Donald Donaldavitch.

Their little joke.

You look well. More to the point, how are you?

I take it this isn't an accident, meeting you here.

It's the least I could do.

Meaning? To, er, smooth the way, if you will.

How's Melinda, by the way?

Looking forward to showing you Moscow.

CAR HORNS HONK

CHATTER

See much of Burgess these days?

I gather he made your life a little sticky for a while there,

back in London. DOOR CLOSES

Not to mention Washington.

London, Washington, Moscow.

One of the things one has to love about the man

is that Burgess will always be Burgess until the day that he...

Hang on a second.

You haven't come here to bump him off have you?

How very droll, Don, as always.

CHAIRS SCREECH

Tovarishch Philby.

My rady videt' vas zhivym i nevredimym v Moskve.

"Welcome to Moscow", and so forth.

Thank you.

SOFTLY: "Spasibo." Spasibo.

Tovarishch general, it's very good to be here.

Zdes' khorosho.

Kak vam vasha novaya kvartira?

"How are your new digs?" Er, fine.

Thank you. Lovely. Liar.

No, snachala my khoteli by pogovorit'

o James Jesus Angletoni iz TSRU.

They want to ask you... MUFFLED: That much I understood.

SHE CLEARS THROAT

IN RUSSIAN:

IN RUSSIAN:

Not like you to be nervous. Don't tell anyone.

I've been a nervous wreck the past 30 years.

MEN: # Upon our clouded hills?

# And was Jerusalem

# Builded here

# Among these dark Satanic mills? #

Mr Milne and his guest are sitting down in the dining room now, sir.

SOFTLY: Thanks, Frederick.

You'll perhaps forgive me for being immodest

when I say that it's thanks to the friendship I d-d-developed

and nurtured over many years with Angleton...

Prostite za neskromnost', no imenno moya druzhba s Angletonom,

kotoruyu ya ukreplyal i predpitoval mnogo let...

..that allowed for our regular

and extremely detailed e-e-exchanges in...

in er, i-intelligence...

Pozvolil nam regulyarno obmenivat'sya neveroyatno podrobnoye

razvedyvat' inoy informatsii.

..over l-l-long lunches we had at his house in, er, Virginia.

Rasskazhite podrobneye o cheloveke...

yego lichnosti. Erm...

They want to know ask you about his personality, his character.

Well, you must know by now

that all they REALLY care about these days is the Americans?

Yeah.

'Er, well, first and foremost, he really is rather an odd bird.'

'Nu, pervoye glavnoye, chto on dushoy sudak.'

He would like to be regarded as a poet,

although he has almost n-no discernible talent whatsoever.

On khochet, chtoby yego uchityvali poetom.

He is, however, a gifted intelligence man,

with a keen eye for the...

..nuances of human behaviour...

except, one could argue, where I'm concerned.

Vy byli blizkim drugom?

Er, you were close?

Yes, we were close. Of course we were close, that's the job.

Da, tak bylo nado dlya raboty.

Then he gives a speech to a women's group out in, um...

..I don't remember where, which, as it turns out,

was a stroke of genius on two counts...

PHONE RINGS

..count one, he's right. We haven't been paying attention...

PHONE RINGS

..and now the communists are in and among us,

and in far greater numbers than we ever imagined possible.

So, now, it is our moral, that's his word,

it's our moral duty as Americans who stand for democracy

and freedom to stop them. JIM CHUCKLES

Smoke them out, hunt them down, before it's too late. Mm.

Sir, it's... Count two...

for a man who was in the political wilderness last week,

well, let's just say, today,

Senator Joe McCarthy is all anyone in this town is talking about.

Yes, Lucy. Your office, Sir.

"Urgent", he said.

This is Angleton.

SOFTLY: North Korea just invaded South Korea.

Fucking hell.

Comrade Philby.

We know very well, here, the fickle nature of men in your profession,

who are often, in my experience,

driven equally, if not more so, by...

..opportunity... and ego...

..as by ideology.

A German accent?

Dresden.

How can we be sure you have not come to Moscow

to penetrate Russian intelligence services?

Yes, Her Majesty's first love is her horses, not art.

In fact, art doesn't even place a distant second...

..so all one can really do is one's best to educate.

I rather think I fancy a nice piece of fish today.

Awfully sorry about all this, Tony. Sorry about what?

Where're you going?

Beef Wellington's the ticket here, old fruit...

..followed by Baked Alaska for pud.

Don't worry, it's just us. You can relax.

Then why have Tim ask me to lunch?

Well, I was rather worried you might not accept my invitation

after my faux pas the other day.

Faux pas? Vermehre?

Vermehren?

Have you ever killed anyone, Tony?

What's going on, Nick?

I mean...

have you ever got actual blood on your hands?

Not like the way we more sophisticated types prefer to do it,

with the gathering of information and spreading of disinformation.

SOFTLY: That's what I wanted to do in Beirut the other day.

Stick a knife in Kim's gut and watch him bleed to death.

WAITER: Gentlemen?

You're really having the fish?

Your man better be as good as you say he is.

Mm...

SHE MUMBLES, ENGINE STARTS

May I ask, did you really slip on the ice

as you were walking to the car this morning?

Why would I fake that?

The same reason you manufacture a stutter.

I slipped. It was real.

And the stutter?

I've had that for so long now, it's become second nature.

Comrade Philby...

you have come to Moscow with nothing.

No documents or useful information of any kind.

I had a very narrow window of escape.

There was no time for anything like that.

Thanks to Mr Nicholas Elliott.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you mean.

Then I'll be clear.

We're concerned that either he has played you

or you are playing us.

You don't trust me.

We don't know you.

You've known me for 30 years.

Can I borrow your lighter again?

Needless to say...

..I wouldn't dream of coming to Moscow empty handed.

One should never underestimate the importance of a good umbrella.

It's three and a half hours now.

What if he does nothing? He can't afford to do nothing.

Kim once gave me one, you know?

Pardon? An umbrella.

For Christmas. Eight years ago.

To thank me for my part in convincing the Foreign Secretary,

and consequently, the Government,

that he had absolutely nothing to do

with Burgess and Maclean's escape to Moscow.

And that nor was there the remotest possibility

that he was working...

as a Soviet double agent.

Do you still have it?

The umbrella.

DOOR SLAMS

GUARD: Sorry, Sir Anthony. I didn't know you were in here.

Is everything all right, sir?

You awake? No.

There's this moment between you and Philby in Beirut...

..when he quotes a poem for apparently no reason.

Yes?

Do you know the poem?

It's about Jesus on the cross.

The Ballad Of The Goodly Fare by Ezra Pound.

I looked it up.

Never even heard of it until last night.

Kim wanted me to think he was drunk

and comparing his own sacrifices for mankind with those of Jesus.

You know who's friends with Ezra Pound?

But what he was in fact doing

was sending James Angleton a message.

Because he knew that the room in Beirut had to have been bugged

and that the CIA were either listening

or would procure the tape later.

He had me at first, though.

I really did think he was comparing himself to Jesus.

Then, when I thought it through later,

like you obviously have - well done, by the way.

Are you being facetious?

No, I don't think so.

Not this time.

What message was Philby sending?

If I know Kim,

he worked very hard over the years to fool Angleton into believing

that if he ever should defect to Moscow one day,

that it would in fact be as a CIA asset.

What do you mean, "If you know Kim"?

Turn of phrase.

Yes, I need to order a taxi at Queen's Gallery gate, please.

BELLS TOLL

CHATTER

Don't get up. Crikey.

The peasants they let in here these days.

Guy.

Plant's on the move in a taxi.

We intercepted the call and sent Jock in there.

He also just called someone at an untraceable exchange...

for all of 12 seconds.

That'll be someone from his KGB network.

Head to Regent's Park, please.

You can speak your mind here, Kim.

Clear the air, I always say.

Well...

Maclean was the one who was blown in '51, not you.

You were never in any danger.

All I asked you to do was get a message to him.

To warn him.

Not to bloody run off to Moscow with him.

Maybe I wanted to run.

And leave me in the firing line.

Maybe I'd had enough of England...

and all its little hypocrisies.

Or perhaps, you were running out of navvies to bugger, hm?

To the glorious Soviet navy and their big new submarines.

That's enough, comrade.

Change subject.

BARMAN: Whiskey?

So...

How is poor old Nick Elliott faring these days?

I imagine he must be feeling pretty bloody raw, poor sod.

He'll live.

To find that your dearest friend was in fact anything but.

That's a proper old kick in the goolies.

It's so lovely to see you again, Guy.

To old friends.

I need to point Percy at the porcelain.

DOOR CLOSES

I hear it went well today.

At the Lubyanka.

You don't honestly expect them to ever fully trust you again, do you?

Because no matter how hard you try or what you do to impress them,

you won't.

You're not a communist.

You're a spy.

Someone who befriends and betrays...

..seduces and infects.

You and I were born that way, it's how we're built.

All fine and dandy when you're over there among friends.

And now you're here...

..it's finished.

Termine.

Take it from me,

all that's left now...

..is their vodka.

I am a communist.

Oh, come here you silly old...

Ow! Ooh, oh!

GUY GROANS

You shouldn't have run when you did.

I never recovered from that.

You ruined everything.

BELL DINGS

Is that someone?

DOOR CLOSES

IN RUSSIAN:

Dobryy vecher. Kak proshlo na lubyanke?

Lu-byan-ka? Ah, yes, er, jolly good.

Jolly good, thank you.

We're getting on this one.

Fares, please.

Any more fares, please? Any more fares?

SIGHS

IN RUSSIAN:

MORSE CODE BEEPS

It's on.

We now have a man in the KGB.

What did I tell you?

BELL DINGS

Next stop, Embankment!

BELL DINGS

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."

IN RUSSIAN:

Nyet, nyet, nyet, nyet!

Brosit oruzhiye!

GUNFIRE

MUFFLED VOICES

DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES

There were two of them, a man and a woman.

The woman refused to be taken alive. That's not what's supposed to...

You don't kill them! You watch them.

You feed them false information, disinformation.

Sometimes, it's better to send a strong message. Why?

She gave me a CIA safe house location here in Moscow.

Fucking hell!

That's 20 fucking years' work you people have just incinerated!

Where's the vodka?

What?

I'm your friend.

We are your friends.

I gave them a gold mine.

A gold mine. A CIA safe house.

And this is what they do. This is how you... treat me.

You are a Soviet hero.

ELLIOTT: Now I know why you tried so hard to stop me going to Beirut.

What?

You'd better sit.

Saveloy and chips, please.

Oh, fuck it.

---oOo---