St John Philby
St John Philby | |
---|---|
Born | Harry St John Bridger Philby 3 April 1885 |
Died | 30 September 1960 Beirut, Lebanon | (aged 75)
Education | Westminster School |
Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
Occupation(s) | Arabist, explorer, writer, intelligence officer |
Spouses | Dora Johnston (m. 1910)Rozy al-Abdul Aziz (m. 1945) |
Children |
|
Harry St John Bridger Philby,
As he states in his autobiography, he "became something of a fanatic" and in 1908
His only son by his first wife, Dora Johnston, was Kim Philby, who became known worldwide as a double agent for the Soviet Union who defected in 1963.[4] Khaled Philby, one of his three sons with his second wife, is the former United Nations Resident Coordinator (equivalent to an ambassador) in, among others, Kuwait and Turkmenistan.
Early life
Born in
Arabist
In late 1915,
In November 1917, Philby was sent to the interior of the
In November 1918, Britain and France issued the
In November 1921, Philby was named chief head of the Secret Service in Mandatory Palestine, worked with T. E. Lawrence 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, George V, Edward, Prince of Wales, Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Wickham Steed and Chaim Weizmann.[6]
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 to the Persian Gulf, with the Saudis supplanting the Hashemites as Islamic "Keepers of the Holy Places" and protecting shipping lanes along the Suez Canal–Aden–Mumbai (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. In his unique position, he became Ibn Saud's chief adviser in dealing with the British Empire and the other Western powers. He converted to Islam in 1930.[7] In 1931, Philby invited Charles Richard Crane to Jeddah to facilitate exploration of the kingdom's subsoil oil. Crane was accompanied by noted historian George Antonius, who acted as translator.[citation needed]
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 (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.[8]
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 Yemen. 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
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.
Philby Plan
Philby, then known as an
As related in his memoirs,
Philby, previously a member of the
When he travelled to
Suez Crisis
After Ibn Saud died in 1953, Philby openly criticised the successor,
In Beirut, he reconciled with Kim, and they lived together for a time.
In 1955, Philby returned to live in Riyadh. 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".[16] He is buried in the Muslim cemetery in the Basta district of Beirut.[15] His tombstone reads, "Greatest of Arabian Explorers".
Academic interests
In collaboration with George Latimer Bates he took an interest in the birds of the Arabian region. In his travels, he collected specimens for Bates and several new species were described from his specimens. These included the Arabian woodpecker (Desertipicus (now Dendrocopos) dorae), a subspecies (no longer valid) of a scops owl (Otus scops pamelae) and Philby's partridge (Alectoris philbyi). His specimens are held in the British Museum. His specimen packages were sometimes used to transport sensitive documents, a skin of a desert fox included survey maps inside it.[17] He contributed to Bates' uncompleted work on the birds of Arabia. The manuscript was later used by Richard Meinertzhagen who produced Birds of Arabia (1954) giving little credit to Bates.[18][19]
In 1932, while searching for the lost city of Ubar, he was the first Westerner to visit and describe the Wabar craters.[20]
Awards and legacy
In August 1917, he was appointed a Companion of the
A
Some authors have summarised Philby as a British traitor and an anti-Semite.
Philby's 1955 book Saudi Arabia contains the only known account of the 1931 Saudi–Yemeni border skirmish.[30]
Works
- The Heart of Arabia: A Record of Travel & Exploration. (London: Constable) 1922.[31]
- 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.
See also
References
- ^ The London Gazette Publication date: 3 November 1908 Issue:28191 Page: 7933
- ^ "Middle East Time Bomb: The Real Aim of ISIS Is to Replace the Saud Family as the New Emirs of Arabia". The Huffington Post. 3 September 2014.
- ^ Ben Macintyre A Spy Among Friends pg 24
- ^ a b http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/mec/MEChandlists/Philby-Collection.pdf Archived 9 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine [bare URL PDF]
- ^ The King-Crane Commission Report, August 28, 1919, II-The Report Upon Mesopotamia.
- ^ "Harry St John Philby". World News.
- ISBN 9781408851722.
- ^ The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power, by Daniel Yergin, p. 290
- ^ "Context of '1945: US State Department Official Calls Saudi Oil 'One of the Greatest Material Prizes in World History". Archived from the original on 20 July 2014. Retrieved 10 February 2015.
- ^ John Loftus & Mark Aarons, The Secret War Against the Jews, p. 45.
- ^ Daniel P. Kotzin,Judah L. Magnes: An American Jewish Nonconformist, Syracuse University Press, 2010 pp.225–235.
- ^ דוד בן גוריון, "פגישות עם מנהיגים ערבים" David Ben Gurion, "Meetings With Arab Leaders", Tel Aviv, 1967,Ch.21, p.137-150. Ben Gurion included the full text of Philby's draft treaty and his own conterproposal.
- ISBN 978-1594035289.
- ^ Philby of Arabia, Elizabeth Monroe, Pitman Publishing (1973), p. 225.
- ^ a b c Carver, Tom (11 October 2012). "Diary: Philby in Beirut". London Review of Books. Retrieved 4 October 2012.
- ISBN 978-0671502485.
- ISSN 0035-8789.
- ^ Pocock, R I 1935 The Mammals Collected in S. E. Arabia by Mr. Bartram Thomas and Mr. H. St. J. Philby. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Ser. 10, 15: 441–467.
- Morrison-Scott, T. C. S.1939 Some Arabian Mammals Collected by Mr. H. St. J. B. Philby, C.I.E. Novitates Zoologicae, 41: 181–211.
- ^ "Wabar". Earth Impact Database. Planetary and Space Science Centre University of New Brunswick Fredericton. Retrieved 15 August 2009.
- ^ The London Gazette: 24 August 1917 Issue:30252 Page: 8852
- ^ "RGS Gold Medal Recipients" (PDF). rgs.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 September 2011.
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. ("Philby", p. 206).
- ^ Madge, S.; McGowan, P. J.; Kirwan, G. M. (2002). Pheasants, partridges and grouse: a guide to the pheasants, partridges, quails, grouse, guineafowl, buttonquails and sandgrouse of the world. A&C Black.
- ^ Anthony Cave Brown, Treason in the Blood: Harry St. John Philby, Kim Philby, and the Spy Case of the Century, 1994, Houghton Mifflin.
- ^ John Loftus & Mark Aarons, The Secret War Against the Jews 21, 24, 32, 38, 41–44 (1994)
- ^ John Loftus & Mark Aarons, The Secret War Against the Jews, supra, at 23–26
- ^ John Loftus & Mark Aarons, The Secret War Against the Jews, supra, at 24
- ^ John Loftus & Mark Aarons, The Secret War Against the Jews, supra, at 24, 32, 38, 42–44
- ^ Gibler, Dougla; Miller, Steven; Little, Erin (2017). "Report on MIDs that could not be found" (PDF). dmgibler.people.ua.edu. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
- ^ Candler, Edmund (14 October 1922). "Review of The Heart of Arabia by H. St. J. B. Philby". The Nation and the Athenæum. 32, Part 1 (4824): 59–60 & 62.
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, Faber & Faber (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
Media related to Harry St-John Bridger Philby at Wikimedia Commons
- Royal Geographical Society
- saudiaramcoworld.com Archived 5 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- Middle East Centre Archive, St Antony's College Archived 9 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine