Saturday 2 November 2013

Researching Corfu and Albania in Washington's National Archives


Two full days was not enough to plough through all the declassified documents contained in nine boxes (the papers are not stored in chronological order), for a paper I am researching for the Pan-Ionian Conference in Corfu, in May 2014, but I found some really important and highly relevant material. I'm focused on events during the year 1949. I'm more interested in the early stages of "VALUABLE", (The British project codename), specifically the period ca. May-October 1949, rather than in the subsequent developments of the Joint US-British "BGFIEND/OBOPUS". The topic is "Albania, and Philby's Betrayal: The Corfu Connection". Update: I have now been able to study two further files about Operation Valuable, at the UK National Archives near Kew Gardens: Vol 1 runs from December 30 1948-November 23 1949; Vol 2 runs from Deceember 6, 1949-January 2, 1950.


NB My paper cannot be given at the time given above.


Wikipedia article

I am very grateful for the orientation and help I was given in getting started. It's an extraordinary resource at College Park, Maryland, and the shuttle bus from the downtown National Archives made the journey a real pleasure. I wish I had a week or more to spare.


Related to my research, if somewhat apocryphal:
where did Kim Philby live in Washington DC?

Here at 4100 Nebraska Avenue?


Or here at 5228 Nebraska Avenue,
 as Nicholas Bethell states in his book "Betrayed" (1984)?


In Philby's own words:

"My first house in Washington was off Connecticut Avenue, almost directly opposite that of Johnny Boyd, the Assistant Director of the FBI in charge of security. It seemed a good idea to camp at the mouth of the lion's den for a short spell- but only for a short spell. The house was a small one, and I was soon arguing the need for moving to larger quarters at a safer distance, eventually settling on a place about half a mile up Nebraska Avenue" (Kim Philby, My Silent War, 1968).

"It was possible that at any moment MI5 might ask the FBI to put me under surveillance...When Paterson and I got back to the Embassy, it was already past noon, and I could plausibly tell him that I was going home for a stiff drink. In my garage-cum-potting shed, I slipped a trowel into my briefcase, and then went down to the basement. I wrapped camera, tripod and accessories into waterfproof containers, and bundled them in after the trowel. I had often rehearsed the necessary action in the mind's eye, and had lain the basis for it. It had become my frequent habit to drive out to Great Falls to spend a peaceful half-hour between bouts of CIA-FBI liaison, and on the way I had marked down a spot suitable for the action that had now become necessary, I parked the car on a deserted stretch of road with the Potomac on the left and a wood on the right where the undergrowth was high and dense enough for concealment. I doubled back a couple of hundred yards through the bushes and got to work with the trowel. A few minutes later I re-emerged from the wood doing up my fly-buttons and drove back home, where I fiddled around in the garden with the trowel before going into lunch. As far as inanimate objects were concerned, I was clean as a whistle."

Kim Philby, My Silent War






1 comment:

  1. According to author Ben Macintyre in "A Spy Among Friends," Philby lived at the 4100 address.

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