Kim Philby

British spy for the Soviets

• Born: January 1, 1912
• Birthplace: Ambala, Punjab, India
• Died: May 11, 1988
• Place of death: Moscow, Russia

Cause of notoriety: Philby was a Soviet agent, spying from within the British Secret Intelligence Service.

Active: 1933-1963

Locale: London, England; Moscow, Soviet Union; Spain; Washington, D.C.; and Beirut, Lebanon

Early Life

Harold Adrian Russell Philby (FIHL-bee) was the only son and the eldest of four children born to Harry St. John Bridger Philby and Dora Johnston. At the time of his birth, his father was working for the British Indian Civil Service. However, Harry Philby was eccentric and somewhat antiestablishment, and in time he fell out with the colonial regime, though he continued to do invaluable diplomatic work in Arabia. His son, Harold, was quickly nicknamed Kim, after the character in Rudyard Kipling’s 1901 novel Kim.

Philby was sent back to England for his education, attending Westminster School in London, eventually becoming one of the head students of the prestigious independent school. In 1930, he gained a place at Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he studied history for his first year and moved to study economics for his final two years. He graduated with second-class honors in 1933.

The real significance of his university career, however, was his growing political commitment to communism. In the heady left-wing atmosphere of the early 1930’s, he joined the University Socialist Club, where he met Guy Burgess and the economics professor Maurice H. Dobb, a Marxist. By the time he left Cambridge, Philby had become a convinced communist and believed the future lay with Soviet Russia.

He visited Austria, at the time torn between right-wing and left-wing factions. The pro-Nazis soon triumphed, and Philby attempted to rescue some of his communist friends, including a Jewish woman, Alice “Litzi” Friedman. The safest way to get her out the country was for Philby to marry her, which he did. Friedman and other communists in Austria were already seeing Philby as a suitable agent.

Back in London in June, 1934, Philby began to work with Teodor Maly, a Hungarian Soviet agent and a former priest, and agreed to work for the Soviets. It was suggested that he needed to shed his left-wing image, which he did, along with Burgess, by joining the Anglo-German Friendship Society. He was then appointed as a journalist to cover the Spanish Civil War for the fascist side of General Francisco Franco. He was so successful in this venture that Franco awarded him the Red Cross of Honor in March, 1938.

Espionage Career

At the outbreak of World War II, Philby had received specific instructions to become a double agent. He initially could get no further than being a war correspondent, but after the 1940 Battle of Dunkirk, in which a large Allied force was cut off in northeast France by a German armored advance, Burgess managed to get Philby recruited into the rapidly expanding British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as MI6, or Military Intelligence Section 6, which monitored overseas intelligence. Philby was attractive to the SIS because of his knowledge of fascist Spain; his father’s connections also helped. Two other former Cambridge communists also managed to get themselves recruited: Donald Duart Maclean and Anthony Blunt.

From the Iberian desk, Philby was soon shifted to Section 5, the British internal-affairs counterintelligence section, where he quickly demonstrated his efficiency. By then, Germany had invaded Russia, and for a while the SIS and the Soviet intelligence agency, KGB, were fighting a common enemy. However, by 1944, British prime ministerWinston Churchill, anticipating the Cold War, had seen the need to set up a separate section of the SIS in order to deal with Soviet counterintelligence. Philby received orders to get into this new section and, by political maneuvering, got himself appointed its new head.

In September, 1945, a Soviet diplomat in Turkey alerted the British foreign office that there were at least three Soviet agents working in counterespionage in London. Philby saw the file and alerted the KGB, who promptly shipped the diplomat, Constantin Volkhov, back to Moscow. Other Soviet defectors, including Walter Krivitsky and Igor Gouzenko, had given similar warnings, but still no suspicion fell on Philby. In 1946, Philby was posted to Turkey.

Then, in 1949, Philby was posted to Washington, D.C., as MI6 intelligence liaison, a crucial posting for him from which to tell the Soviets about Anglo-American intelligence activity. By 1950, however, Philby was investigated, apparently with a view to promoting him to MI6 chief. However, the review disrupted intelligence from Krivitsky and Gouzenko, and Maclean came under scrutiny. At the same time, Burgess was posted to the United States, staying with Philby and his new wife, Aileen. Philby recognized the growing suspicion of both Maclean and Burgess; Philby warned them, and they promptly fled to Russia.

Philby was recalled and grilled by MI5, the British security agency. He was asked to resign, but his name was officially cleared by British prime minister Harold Macmillan in 1955, despite the American belief that he was guilty.

At this point, Philby began a second career as a part-time agent of MI6, in Beirut, Lebanon, ostensibly working as a correspondent for The Observer and The Economist. However, in late 1961, Anatoli Golitsin, a KGB agent working in Finland, defected to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). When interviewed by the chief of MI5, Golitsin confirmed that “a ring of five” within British intelligence existed. In 1963, an MI5 agent was sent to Beirut to confront Philby, who, despite offers of immunity for information, would admit only to spying for the Soviets in the past. He promptly left for Russia with his third wife, Eleanor.

Philby lived out the rest of his life in Moscow, eventually honored by the KGB and the Soviet leadership. After Eleanor’s death, he married Rufina Ivanova, a Polish Russian woman, in 1971. He wrote his own memoirs in 1968, titled My Silent War, and later consented to a number of interviews by Western journalists. He died in 1988 and was buried with full military honors by the KGB.

Impact

Kim Philby’s tenure in Washington undoubtedly undermined the whole of the Western Cold War intelligence system for a time and caused a rift between the British and the Americans. It is also true that Philby’s passing of the names of British agents and potential defectors to the Soviet Union led to a number of deaths. Philby claimed that he was not a “double” agent but had worked only for the Soviets. His cultivated secrecy deceived all those around him.

Bibliography

Boravik, Genrikh, and Phillip Knightley, eds. The Philby Files: The Secret Life of Master Spy Kim Philby. New York: Little, Brown, 1994. Boravik was a Russian journalist with access to both KGB files and interviews with Philby. He weighs one against the other in his discussion. Particularly good analysis of Philby’s Beirut years.

Hamrick, S. J. Deceiving the Deceivers: Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, and Guy Burgess. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. Based on archives of broken Soviet codes released in 1995-1996, this book suggests British intelligence was aware of the spies earlier than suspected and that Philby was used to misinform the Soviets between 1949 and 1950.

Knightley, Phillip. Philby: K.G.B. Masterspy. London: Andre Deutsch, 1988. Based on a lengthy series of interviews with Philby in his Moscow apartment, supplemented by further research and interviews. Biographical in nature.

Modin, Yuri, et al. My Five Cambridge Friends: Blunt, Maclean, Philby, Burgess, and Cairncross, by Their KGB Controller. Translated by Anthony Roberts. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994. An account that unites all five stories.

Philby, Kim. My Silent War. New York: Grove Press, 1968. Philby’s memoir.

Philby, Rufina, et al. The Private Life of Kim Philby. London: Warner, 2000. Memoirs of Philby from his last wife, who shared his Moscow exile with him until his death.