Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE (3 April 1885 – 30 September 1960), also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah ( ar, الشيخ عبدالله), was a British Arabist, adviser, explorer, writer, and

Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of c ...

intelligence officer An intelligence officer is a person employed by an organization to collect, compile or analyze information (known as intelligence) which is of use to that organization. The word of ''officer'' is a working title, not a rank, used in the same way ...

. As he states in his autobiography, he "became something of a fanatic" and in 1908 "the first Socialist to join the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...

". After studying Oriental languages at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

, he was posted to

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...

in the

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...

in 1908, acquiring fluency in

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Punjabi, Baluchi,

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and eventually

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

. He

converted to Islam Religious conversion is the adoption of a set of beliefs identified with one particular religious denomination to the exclusion of others. Thus "religious conversion" would describe the abandoning of adherence to one denomination and affiliatin ...

in 1930 and later became an adviser to Ibn Saud, urging him to unite the Arabian Peninsula under Saudi rule, and helping him to negotiate with the United Kingdom and the United States when petroleum was discovered in 1938. His second marriage was to a Saudi Arabian woman, Rozy al-Abdul Aziz. His only son by his first wife, Dora Johnston, was

Kim Philby Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 191211 May 1988) was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secr ...

, who became known worldwide as a

double agent In the field of counterintelligence, a double agent is an employee of a secret intelligence service for one country, whose primary purpose is to spy on a target organization of another country, but who is now spying on their own country's organ ...

for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

who defected in 1963. Khaled Philby, one of his three sons with his second wife, is the former United Nations

Resident Coordinator A United Nations Resident Coordinator is the highest United Nations official and the chief of UN diplomatic mission in a country (except when there is a mission of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations or similar, in which case the Special Repre ...

(equivalent to an ambassador) in, among others, Kuwait and Turkmenistan.

Early life

The Soviet Union 1990 CPA 6266 stamp (Soviet Intelligence Agents

Born in

Badulla Badulla ( si, බදුල්ල, ta, பதுளை) is the capital and the largest city of Uva Province situated in the lower central hills of Sri Lanka. It is the capital city of Uva Province and the Badulla District. Geography Badulla is ...

in British Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), the son of a tea planter, he was educated at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

, where he studied oriental languages under

Edward Granville Browne Edward Granville Browne FBA (7 February 1862 – 5 January 1926) was a British Iranologist. He published numerous articles and books, mainly in the areas of history and literature. Life Browne was born in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, ...

, and was a friend and classmate of

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

, who later became the first prime minister of independent India. Philby married Dora Johnston in September 1910,http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/mec/MEChandlists/Philby-Collection.pdf with his distant cousin

Bernard Law Montgomery Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, (; 17 November 1887 – 24 March 1976), nicknamed "Monty", was a senior British Army officer who served in the First World War, the Irish War of Independence and th ...

as best man. In addition to their son, Kim, born in 1912, they had three daughters: Diana, Helena and Patricia.

Arabist

In late 1915,

Percy Cox Major-General Sir Percy Zachariah Cox (20 November 1864 – 20 February 1937) was a British Indian Army officer and Colonial Office administrator in the Middle East. He was one of the major figures in the creation of the current Middle East. ...

recruited Philby as head of the finance branch of the British administration in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. I ...

. The position included fixing compensation for property and business owners. The mission was to organise the

Arab Revolt The Arab Revolt ( ar, الثورة العربية, ) or the Great Arab Revolt ( ar, الثورة العربية الكبرى, ) was a military uprising of Arab forces against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. On ...

against the Ottoman Turks and to protect the

oil fields A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

near

Basra Basra ( ar, ٱلْبَصْرَة, al-Baṣrah) is an Iraqi city located on the Shatt al-Arab. It had an estimated population of 1.4 million in 2018. Basra is also Iraq's main port, although it does not have deep water access, which is han ...

and the

Shatt al Arab Shatt may refer to: *the Shatt people *the Shatt language *the Shatt al-Arab river, which empties into the Persian Gulf *Chott In geology, a chott, shott, or shatt (; ar, شط, šaṭṭ, lit=bank, coast) is a salt lake in Africa's Maghreb that ...

, which were a source of fuel for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

. The revolt was organised with the promise of creating a unified Arab state, or Arab federation, from Aleppo, Syria, to Aden,

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

Gertrude Bell Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE (14 July 1868 – 12 July 1926) was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist. She spent much of her life exploring and mapping the Middle East, and became highl ...

was his first controller and taught him the finer arts of espionage. In 1916 he became Revenue Commissioner for the British Occupied Territories. In November 1917, Philby was sent to the interior of the Arabian Peninsula as head of a mission to Ibn Saud, the chieftain who professed

Wahhabism Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...

, the movement within Sunni Islam, and a bitter enemy of

Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi ( ar, الحسين بن علي الهاشمي, al-Ḥusayn bin ‘Alī al-Hāshimī; 1 May 18544 June 1931) was an Arab leader from the Banu Hashim clan who was the Sharif and Emir of Mecca from 1908 and, after procl ...

, who led the

Hashemites The Hashemites ( ar, الهاشميون, al-Hāshimīyūn), also House of Hashim, are the royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Hejaz (1916–1925), Syria (1920), and Iraq (1921� ...

and the Arab Revolt, who were both contenders for "King of the Arabs". Philby secretly began to favour Ibn Saud even though British policy supported Sherif Hussein. Philby completed a crossing from

Riyadh Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of th ...

to Jeddah by a "backdoor" route to demonstrate that Saud, not Hussein, was in control of the Arabian highlands. In November 1918, Britain and France issued the Anglo-French Declaration''The King-Crane Commission Report, August 28, 1919''
II-The Report Upon Mesopotamia. to the Arabs, which promised self-determination. Philby felt there was a betrayal of that assurance, along with others made in the Balfour Declaration and the Sykes-Picot Agreement, of the promise of a single unified Arab nation. Philby argued that Ibn Saud was a "democrat" guiding his affairs "by mutual counsel", as laid out in the

Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

, in contrast to George Curzon's support for Hussein. After the 1920

Iraqi revolt against the British The Iraqi revolt against the British, also known as the 1920 Iraqi Revolt or the Great Iraqi Revolution, started in Baghdad in the summer of 1920 with mass demonstrations by Iraqis, including protests by embittered officers from the old Ottoman ...

, Philby was appointed Minister of Internal Security in Mandatory Iraq. In November 1921, Philby was named chief head of the Secret Service in

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

, worked with

T. E. Lawrence Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British archaeologist, army officer, diplomat, and writer who became renowned for his role in the Arab Revolt (1916–1918) and the Sinai and Palestine Campaign (1915–1918 ...

and met his American counterpart, Allen Dulles. In late 1922, Philby travelled to London for extensive meetings with parties involved in the Palestine question, included

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...

, Edward, Prince of Wales,

Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild, (8 February 1868 – 27 August 1937) was a British banker, politician, zoology, zoologist and soldier, who was a member of the Rothschild family. As a Zionist leader, he wa ...

Wickham Steed Henry Wickham Steed (10 October 1871 – 13 January 1956) was an English journalist and historian. He was editor of ''The Times'' from 1919 to 1922. Early life Born in Long Melford, England, Steed was educated at Sudbury Grammar School an ...

and

Chaim Weizmann Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israe ...

Adviser to Ibn Saud

Philby's view was that the interests of both the British and the Saud family would be best served by uniting the Arabian Peninsula under one government stretching from the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

to the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bod ...

, with the Saudis supplanting the Hashemites as Islamic "Keepers of the Holy Places" and protecting shipping lanes along the Suez Canal– Aden–

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

(then Bombay) route. Philby was forced to resign his post in 1924 over differences about allowing Jewish immigration to Palestine. He was found to have had unauthorised correspondence with Ibn Saud and to have sent confidential information, which carried with it the connotation of espionage. Shortly afterward, Ibn Saud began to call for the overthrow of the Hashemite dynasty, with Philby advising him on how far he could go in occupying Arabia without incurring the wrath of the British, the principal power in the Middle East. In 1925, Philby claimed that Ibn Saud had brought unprecedented order into Arabia. Philby settled in Jeddah and became a partner in a trading company. Over the next few years, he became famous as an international writer and explorer. Philby personally mapped on camel back what is now the Saudi–Yemeni border on the

Rub' al Khali The Rub' al KhaliOther standardized transliterations include: / . The ' is the assimilated Arabic definite article, ', which can also be transliterated as '. (; ar, ٱلرُّبْع ٱلْخَالِي (), the "Empty Quarter") is the sand de ...

. In his unique position, he became Ibn Saud's chief adviser in dealing with the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...

and the other Western powers. He converted to Islam in 1930. In 1931, Philby invited

Charles Richard Crane Charles Richard Crane (August 7, 1858 – February 15, 1939) was a wealthy American businessman, heir to a large industrial fortune and connoisseur of Arab culture, a noted Arabist. His widespread business interests gave him entree into domestic a ...

to Jeddah to facilitate exploration of the kingdom's subsoil oil. Crane was accompanied by noted historian

George Antonius George Habib Antonius, CBE (hon.) ( ar, جورج حبيب أنطونيوس; October 9, 1891May 21, 1942) was a Lebanese author and diplomat who settled in Jerusalem. He was one of the first historians of Arab nationalism. Born in Deir al Qamar ...

, who acted as translator. In May 1932, Standard Oil of California (SoCal) sought out Philby in its quest to obtain an oil concession in Saudi Arabia, ultimately signing Philby as a paid adviser to SoCal. Philby, in turn, recognised that competition by foreign interests would get a better deal for the Saudi king, made contact with George Martin Lees, the chief geologist of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, to alert him to SoCal's interest in gaining oil exploration rights in Saudi Arabia. Anglo-Persian was one of five international partners in the

Iraq Petroleum Company The Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), formerly known as the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), is an oil company that had a virtual monopoly on all oil exploration and production in Iraq between 1925 and 1961. It is jointly owned by some of the worl ...

(IPC) through which it pursued its interest in the Saudi concession. In March 1933, IPC sent a representative, Stephen Longrigg, to join negotiations with the Saudi government in Jeddah. However, Philby's primary loyalty was to the Saudi king. Although he was being paid by SoCal, he kept the arrangement a secret from Longrigg. In May 1933, IPC instructed Longrigg to withdraw from Jeddah and to leave SoCal free to conclude negotiations with Saudi Arabia for a 60-year contract to obtain the exclusive concession for exploration and extraction of oil in the al-Hasa region along the Persian Gulf. By 1934, in an effort to safeguard the port of Aden, Britain had no fewer than 1,400 "peace treaties" with the various tribal rulers of the hinterlands of what became

. Philby undermined British influence in the region, however, by facilitating the entry of American commercial interests, followed by a political alliance between the US and the Saud dynasty. In 1936, SoCal and

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an independent company unt ...

pooled their assets together into what later became

ARAMCO Saudi Aramco ( ar, أرامكو السعودية '), officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company (formerly Arabian-American Oil Company) or simply Aramco, is a Saudi Arabian public petroleum and natural gas company based in Dhahran. , it is one of ...

(Arabian–American Oil Company). The

United States Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

described ARAMCO as the richest commercial prize in the history of the planet. Philby represented Saudi interests. In 1937 when the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

broke out, Philby arranged for his son,

, to become a war correspondent for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

''. Philby later began secret negotiations with Germany and Spain on Saudi Arabia's role in the event of a general European war. The discussions allowed neutral Saudi Arabia to sell oil to neutral Spain, which would then be transported to Germany. John Loftus, who worked in the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...

Office of Special Investigations

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

-hunting unit, claimed that Adolf Eichmann, on a mission to the Middle East, met with Philby "during the mid-1930s".

Philby Plan

Philby, then known as an anti-Zionist, outlined a plan to reach a compromise with

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

, after consultation with Arab leaders, and it was reported in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' in October 1929. The Philby Plan foresaw a shared confirmation of the Balfour Declaration and continued Jewish immigration into Palestine in exchange for a renunciation by Zionists of any desire to seek political dominance. Representation of the two groups would be based on respecting the numerical proportions between both groups.

Judah Magnes Judah Leon Magnes ( he, יהודה לייב מאגנס; July 5, 1877 – October 27, 1948) was a prominent Reform rabbi in both the United States and Mandatory Palestine. He is best remembered as a leader in the pacifist movement of the World War ...

, chancellor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a member of Brit Shalom, reacted to the proposal positively, and suggested alterations in order to secure guarantees for the Jewish minority. As related in his memoirs,

David Ben Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...

, who would become Israel's first prime minister, met Philby on 18 May 1937 at the

Athenaeum Club, London The Athenaeum is a private members' club in London, founded in 1824. It is primarily a club for men and women with intellectual interests, and particularly (but not exclusively) for those who have attained some distinction in science, engineerin ...

. Ben Gurion attempted to use Philby as an intermediary to reach an agreement between the Zionist Movement and King Ibn Saud. A few days after their meeting, Philby sent to Ben Gurion a draft treaty by which the Zionists would renounce the Balfour Declaration in exchange for being welcomed to the Middle East by an Arab Federation, headed by Ibn Saud. However, several clauses of the draft treaty were unacceptable to Ben Gurion. In particular, Philby had proposed that Palestine would be "open to the immigration of all those seeking to become its citizens, regardless of race and creed" and refused to mention specific Jewish immigration. To Ben Gurion, that would have defeated the whole aim of Zionism. Ben Gurion sent Philby a counterproposal based on what Ben Gurion regarded as the indispensable minimum Zionist aspirations to which Philby never replied. Philby, previously a member of the Labour Party, fought a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

held on 20 July 1939 for the

parliamentary constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

Hythe Hythe, from Anglo-Saxon ''hȳð'', may refer to a landing-place, port or haven, either as an element in a toponym, such as Rotherhithe in London, or to: Places Australia * Hythe, Tasmania Canada *Hythe, Alberta, a village in Canada England * T ...

, Kent. He stood for the anti-Semitic British People's Party and declared "no cause whatever is worth the spilling of human blood" and the "protection of the small man against big business". He lost his deposit. Soon afterward, the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

began. He is recorded as having referred to

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...

as ''un homme très fin'' ("a most sophisticated man"). When he travelled to

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

, he was arrested on 3 August 1940 under

Defence Regulation 18B Defence Regulation 18B, often referred to as simply 18B, was one of the Defence Regulations used by the British Government during and before the Second World War. The complete name for the rule was Regulation 18B of the Defence (General) Regula ...

, deported to England and there briefly interned. Shortly after his release from custody, Philby recommended his son, Kim, to Valentine Vivian,

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

deputy chief, who recruited him into the British secret service. When Harold B. Hoskins of the

United States State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other nat ...

visited Ibn Saud in August 1943, he asked if the king would be willing to have an intermediary meet with

. Ibn Saud angrily responded that he was insulted by the suggestion that he could be bribed for £20 million to accept resettlement of Arabs from Palestine. Hoskins reports the king said Weizmann told him the promise of payment would be "guaranteed by President Roosevelt". A month later Weizmann wrote in a letter to Sumner Welles: "It is conceived on big lines, large enough to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of both Arabs and Jews, and the strategic and economic interests of the United States;... properly managed, Mr. Philby's scheme offers an approach which should not be abandoned".

Suez Crisis

After Ibn Saud died in 1953, Philby openly criticised the successor,

King Saud Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ( ar, سعود بن عبد العزيز آل سعود ''Suʿūd ibn ʿAbd al ʿAzīz Āl Suʿūd'', Najdi Arabic pronunciation: ; 15 January 1902 – 23 February 1969) was King of Saudi Arabia from 9 November 1953 ...

, by saying the royal family's morals were being picked up "in the gutters of the West". He was exiled to

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

in 1955. There, he wrote:

the true basis of Arab hostility to Jewish immigration into Palestine is
xenophobia Xenophobia () is the fear or dislike of anything which is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression of perceived conflict between an in-group and out-group and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, a ...
, and instinctive perception that the vast majority of central and
eastern European Jews The expression 'Eastern European Jewry' has two meanings. Its first meaning refers to the current political spheres of the Eastern European countries and its second meaning refers to the Jewish communities in Russia and Poland. The phrase 'Easte ...
, seeking admission... are not
Semites Semites, Semitic peoples or Semitic cultures is an obsolete term for an ethnic, cultural or racial group.European Jew The history of the Jews in Europe spans a period of over two thousand years. Some Jews, a Judaean tribe from the Levant, Natural History 102:11 (November 1993): 12–19. migrated to Europe just before the rise of the Roman Empire. A notable e ...
of today, with his secular outlook... is regarded as an unwelcome intruder within the gates of Arabia.

In Beirut, he reconciled with Kim, and they lived together for a time. The son was reemployed by MI6 as an outside informer on retainer. Philby helped further his son's career by introducing him to his extensive network of contacts in the Middle East, including Lebanese President

Camille Chamoun Camille Nimr Chamoun OM, ONC ( ar, كميل نمر شمعون, ''Kamīl Sham'ūn''; 3 April 1900 – 7 August 1987) was a Lebanese politician who served as President of Lebanon from 1952 to 1958. He was one of the country's main Christi ...

. Both were sympathetic to Gamal Abdel Nasser during the Suez Crisis in August 1956. Between Jack's access to ARAMCO and Kim's access to British intelligence, there was little they did not know about Operation Musketeer (1956), Operation Musketeer, the French and British plan to capture the Suez Canal. The Soviets exposed the entire plan in the United Nations and threatened Britain and France with "long-range guided missiles equipped with nuclear weapons, atomic warheads". In 1955, Philby returned to live in

. In 1960, on a visit to Kim in Beirut, he suddenly became ill and was rushed to hospital. "The man whose life had been so eventful and panoramic, so daring and theatrical, now lay unconscious. He awoke only for a moment and murmured to his son, 'I am so bored'. And then he expired". He is buried in the Muslim cemetery in the Basta district of Beirut. His tombstone reads, "Greatest of Arabian Explorers".

Academic interests

In his travels, he took great interest in wildlife and gave a scientific name to the Arabian woodpecker (''Desertipicus'' (now ''Dendrocopos'') ''dorae''), as well as a subspecies (no longer valid) of a scops owl (''Otus scops pamelae''). Most of his birds were named after women whom he admired. He contributed numerous specimens to the British Museum. His specimen packages were sometimes used to transport sensitive documents, a skin of a desert fox included survey maps inside it. He also contributed to the draft of a book on the birds of Arabia by George Latimer Bates. It was not published but used in ''Birds of Arabia'' (1954) by Richard Meinertzhagen. Philby is remembered in ornithology by the name of Philby's partridge (''Alectoris philbyi''). In 1932, while searching for the lost city of Iram of the Pillars, Ubar, he was the first Westerner to visit and describe the Wabar craters.

Awards and legacy

In August 1917, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire. In 1920, he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society Founder's Medal for his two journeys in South Central Arabia. A subspecies of Middle Eastern lizard, ''Uromastyx ornata, Uromastyx ornata philbyi'', and a partridge, ''Alectoris philbyi'', are named in his honour. Some authors have summarised Philby as a British traitor and an anti-Semite. They suggest that Philby never forgave the British government for ending his civil service career for sexual misconduct. Once recruited by MI6, according to those authors, Philby used his intelligence assignment to take revenge on the British government. With the extensive contacts he acquired as a British agent, Philby continued to betray British policy and to resist all efforts at creating a Jewish homeland throughout his life. Philby disclosed classified British intelligence to Ibn Saud during wartime, secretly helped secure American oil concessions in Saudi Arabia, double-crossed British competitors, created economic partnerships allied against British interests and for those of Nazi Germany with the help of Allen Welsh Dulles, Allen Dulles (later CIA Director) and worked with Nazi intelligence to sabotage efforts at creating a Jewish homeland. Philby's 1955 book ''Saudi Arabia'' contains the only known account of the 1931 Saudi–Yemeni border skirimish.

Works

*''The Heart of Arabia: A Record of Travel & Exploration''. (London: Constable) 1922. *''Arabia of the Wahhabis''. (London: Constable) 1928. *''Arabia''. (London: Ernest Benn) 1930. *''The Empty Quarter: being a description of the great south desert of Arabia known as Rub 'al Khali'' (London: Constable & Company Ltd) 1933
scanned book
*''Harun al Rashid'' (London: P. Davies) 1933. About Harun al-Rashid *''Routes in south-west Arabia [map]: From surveys made in 1936'' (Methuen & Co Ltd) 1936. *''Sheba's daughters; being a record of travel in Southern Arabia'' (London: Methuen & Co Ltd) 1939. *''A Pilgrim in Arabia'' (London: The Golden Cockerel Press), [1943]. *''The Background of Islam: being a sketch of Arabian history in pre-Islamic times'' (Alexandria: Whitehead Morris) 1947. *''Arabian Days, an autobiography'' (London: R. Hale) 1948. *''Arabian Highlands'' (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press) 1952
scanned book
*''Arabian Jubilee'' (London: Hale) [1952] *''Sa′udi Arabia'' (London: Benn) 1955, New impression: Librairie du Liban, Beirut 1968 *''The Land of Midian''. (London: Ernest Bean Limited) 1957. *''Forty Years in the Wilderness'' (London: R. Hale) c1957. *''Arabian Oil Ventures'' (Washington: Middle East Institute) 1964.

References

Sources

*''Kingmakers: the Invention of the Modern Middle East'', Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, W.W. Norton (2008) pp 226–58. *''Princes of Darkness'', Laurent Murawiec, Rowman and Littlefield (2005) *''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press (2004) *''Arabian Jubilee'', H. StJ. B. Philby, Robert Hale, (1952) *''Philby of Arabia'', Elizabeth Monroe (historian), Elizabeth Monroe, Pitman Publishing (1973) *''The Secret War Against the Jews'', John Loftus and Mark Aarons, St Martin's Press (1994) *''Arabia, the Gulf and the West'' Basic Books (1980) *''The House of Saud'', David Holden and Richard Johns, Holt Rinehart and Winston (1981) *''The Philby Conspiracy'', Bruce Page, David Leitch and Phillip Knightley, Doubleday (1968) *''Saudi Arabia and the United States, 1931–2002'' by Josh Pollack (2002) *''Mirage: Power, Politics, And the Hidden History of Arabian Oil'', by Aileen Keating, Prometheus Books (2005)

External links

Royal Geographical SocietyMiddle East Centre Archive, St Antony's College
{{DEFAULTSORT:Philby, St John 1885 births 1960 deaths Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Converts to Islam English Muslims English ornithologists People detained under Defence Regulation 18B Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire English explorers English travel writers Interwar-period spies British orientalists World War I spies for the United Kingdom Explorers of Asia Explorers of Arabia British Arabists People educated at Westminster School, London 20th-century British zoologists Ibn Saud