A Commonplace Book

The conflicting attitudes toward Philby between the sister services of British intelligence would expose a cultural fault line that predated this crisis, long outlasted it, and persists today. MI5 and MI6 -- the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, broadly equivalent to the FBI and CIA -- overlapped in many respects but were fundamentally dissimilar in outlook. MI5 tended to recruit former policemen and soldiers, men who sometimes spoke with regional accents and frequently did not know, or care about, the right order to use the cutlery at a formal dinner. They enforced the law and defended the realm, caught spies and prosecuted them. MI6 was more public school and Oxbridge; its accent more refined, its tailoring better. Its agents and officers frequently broke the laws of other countries in pursuit of secrets, and did so with a certain swagger. MI6 was White's Club; MI5 was the Rotary Club; M16 was upper-middle class (and sometimes aristocratic); MI5 was middle class (and sometimes working class). In the minute gradations of social stratification that meant so much in Britain, MI5 was "below the salt," a little common, and MI6 was gentlemanly, elitist, and old school tie. MI5 were hunters; MI6 were gatherers.... MI5 looked up at MI6 with resentment; MI6 looked down with a small but ill-hidden sneer. The looming battle over Philby was yet another skirmish in Britain's never-ending, hard-fought, and entirely ludicrous class war.