Kim Philby

Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby also H. A. R. Philby (January 1, 1912 – May 11, 1988) was a high ranking member of British intelligence who led a lifelong career as a spy for the Soviet Union.

Philby was revealed as a possible member of the spy ring known as the Cambridge Five, along with Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross (although Cairncross's involvement has never conclusively been established and several others, including Sir Roger Hollis, former head of MI5, have been suspected at one time or another to be the "fifth man" of the ring).

Born in Ambala, India, Philby was the son of St. John Philby, the British diplomat, explorer, author, and Arabist who converted to Islam and served as an adviser to King Ibn Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia. He was nicknamed after the protagonist in Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim, about a young Indian boy who spies for the British in occupied India in the 19th century.

Espionage career

After leaving Westminster School in 1928 at the age of 16, Philby went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was introduced to and became a admirer of the ideals of Communism.

Philby was not recruited into espionage, rather he volunteered. He asked one of his tutors, Maurice Dobb, how he could serve the Communist movement. Perhaps ignorant of the possible consequences, Dobb referred him to a Communist front organisation, which passed Philby in turn to the Comintern underground in Vienna. The front organisation was the World Federation for the Relief of the Victims of German Fascism in Paris, France. The World Federation was one of the innumerable front organisations operated by the German Communist Willi Münzenberg, who was one of the leading Soviet agents in the West. The Soviet intelligence service itself (at that time known as the OGPU) recruited him on the strength of his work for the Comintern.

After working as a journalist, Philby was recruited by Valentine "Vee Vee" Vivian of the British Secret Intelligence Service (the so-called M.I.6) in 1940, later becoming part of the Special Operations Executive, and coming into contact with Office of Strategic Services agents.

After World War II Philby was assigned to Istanbul, and then to the United States, where he later became first secretary at the British embassy in Washington. In Washington he visited Arlington Hall for discussions about VENONA and regularly received copies of transcirpts as part of his official duties. He returned to Britain in 1950 and in 1951 managed to warn Burgess and Maclean of an internal British intelligence probe, which allowed them sufficient time to escape to the Soviet Union. Suspicion of his involvement forced his retirement from intelligence and he went to work in Beirut.

However, in 1956 Philby was again in the employ of SIS as an "informant on retainer". He was given the task as second-in-command to the point man for Operation Musketeer, the British, French, and Israeli plan to attack Egypt and depose Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Only in 1963, with the defection of Anatoliy Golitsyn, did Western intelligence unmask Philby's true allegience, however Philby was able to escape to the Soviet Union before he could be detained.

Sometime in late 1962, a British Jewish woman, Flora Solomon, was attending a cocktail party in Tel Aviv and made a comment about how Philby, the journalist in Beirut, displayed sympathy for Arabs in his articles. She said that his masters were the Soviets and that she knew that he had always worked for them. The comment was overheard by someone at the party and was relayed to the offices of the MI5 in London, which sent Victor Rothschild to interview her. Mrs. Solomon declared that she would never testify against Philby, she later admitted that he had told her he was a spy and that he had tried to recruit her to the Communist cause.

Although MI5 and MI6 could not immediately agree on how to deal with Philby, it was eventually agreed that an MI6 man, Nicolas Elliott, would be sent to confront him in Beirut. Although it is unclear whether Philby was aware of these developments or whether he knew about Golitsyn's defection, there is evidence that in the last few months of 1962 Philby began to drink heavily and his behaviour became increasingly erratic. Philby may have been warned by Yuri Modin, a top Soviet handler who had served in the Soviet embassy in London who travelled to Beirut in December 1962.

It is reported that the first thing that Philby said upon meeting with Elliott was, "I was half expecting to see you.". When told that there was fresh evidence against him, Philby immediately confessed without asking what this evidence was. Although a further interrogation was scheduled in the last week of January 1963, Philby disappeared on January 23. Soviet records later revealed that a Soviet freighter was called to port in Beirut on this date.

Philby later surfaced in Moscow, died in 1988, and received a hero's funeral.

Philby was a close friend of the novelist Graham Greene, who reportedly left MI6 rather than become involved in exposing Philby. It has been suggested that Greene never really left the intelligence service, but continued to run Philby as a double agent.

Chronology of Philby's career

• 1919 Attended Aldro preparatory school in Eastbourne
• 1924 Went to Westminster School
• 1929 Entered Trinity College, Cambridge at the age of 17 to read history.
• 1930 Guy Burgess arrived at Trinity from Eton.
• 1931 Joined the Cambridge University Socialist Society CUSS. Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald defeated 27th October. Philby became a more ardent socialist. After obtaining only a third in his history exams he transferred to economics.
• 1932 Became treasurer of CUSS.
• 1933 Left Cambridge a convinced Communist with a degree in economics, then went to Vienna where Chancellor Dr Engelbert Dollfuss was preparing the first 'putsch' in February 1934. Philby became a Soviet agent.
• 1934 Clash between the Austrian government and socialists in Vienna. On Feb 24 Philby married Litzi Friedman; then in May, after the collapse of the socialist movement in Vienna, he returned with his wife to England. He began work as a sub-editor of a Liberal monthly review, and joined Burgess as a member of the Anglo-German Fellowship. (Philby edited the fellowship's pro-Hitler magazine, supported by Nazi funds). To cover up his communist background he also made repeated visits to Berlin for talks with the German Propaganda Ministry and with von Ribbentrop's Foreign Office.
• 1937 In February Philby arrived in Spain to report on the Spanish Civil War from Franco's side. 20 May 1937 he became correspondent of The Times with Franco's forces.
• 1938 Awarded the 'Red Cross of Military Merit' by Franco personally.
• 1939 In July, left Spain and became war correspondent of The Times at the British Headquarters in Arras.
• 1940 In June, after the evacuation of British Forces from the European mainland, he returned to Britain. Recruited by the British Secret Service and attached to the SIS under Guy Burgess in Section D. Assigned to school for under-cover work, but later transferred to the teaching staff of a new school for general training in techniques of sabotage and subversion at Beaulieu, Hampshire.
• 1941 Transferred to SIS, Section V (Five). Philby took charge of the Iberian sub-section, responsible for British Intelligence in Spain and Portugal. Trained James Jesus Angelton in the arts and crafts of counterespionage.
• 1942 Married his second wife Aileen Furse. OSS group under Norman Pearson arrived in London for liaison with British Secret Service. Philby's area of responsibility grew to include North African and Italian espionage under newly formed counter-intelligence units.
• 1943 Section V moved from St Albans to London, bringing Philby closer to the centers of power.
• 1944 Appointed head of Section IX, newly created to operate against communism and the Soviet Union.
• 1945 In September Soviet intelligence officer Konstantin Volkov based at the Soviet embassy in Ankara seriously threatened Philby's position by offering to defect and provide the names of two agents working in the Foreign Office and one in SIS (probably Philby). The offer was sent to Philby as head of the Section IX, Soviet counterintelligence. Soon afterwards, Volkov was kidnapped by Soviet agents and taken to the Lubyanka in Moscow for interrogation and execution.
• 1946 Took a field appointment - officially as First Secretary with the British embassy in Turkey, actually as head of the Turkish SIS station.
• 1949 Became SIS representative in Washington, as senior British Secret Service officer working in liaison with the FBI and the newly created CIA. He occasionally visited Arlington Hall for discussions about VENONA; furthermore, he regularly received copies of summaries of VENONA translations as part of his official duties. He sat in on a Special Policy Committee directing the ill-fated Anglo-US attempt to infiltrate anti-communist agents into Albania to topple the Enver Hoxha régime.
• 1950 Guy Burgess arrived in Washington on assignment as Second Secretary of the British Embassy, and Philby invited him to stay at his house.
• 1951 Philby learnt of the tightening net of suspicion surrounding Foreign Office diplomat and Soviet agent Donald Maclean, whose British embassy position at the end of the war had placed him on the Combined Policy Committee on Atomic Energy as its British joint secretary. Burgess's alcoholism caused Ambassador Franks to remove him and he returned to England. On May 25, Burgess and Maclean disappeared from Britain, with help from Philby, having escaped via the Baltic to the Soviet Union. Philby summoned to London for interrogation and asked to resign from the Foreign Service.
• 1952 In the summer a secret trial took place in which Philby underwent questioning about his activities.
• 1955 The British Government published a 'White Paper' (report) on the Burgess-Maclean affair. On October 25, questions tabled in parliament asking about the 'third man', Philby. Prime Minster Harold Macmillan, stated that no evidence existed of Philby having betrayed the interests of Britain. Nevertheless, the Foreign Service dismissed him because of his association with Burgess.
• 1956 In September British secret service arranged Philby to work for the The Observer in Beirut as correspondent of and also The Economist; But that year Dick White, who suspected Philby of working as a Soviet agent, became head of SIS.
• 1957 Aileen, Philby's second wife, died.
• 1958 Married Eleanor Brewer.
• 1962 George Blake unmasked. Philby then confirmed as an identified Soviet agent.
• 1963 January 23, Philby disappeared in Beirut. The Soviet Union announced that it has granted Philby political asylum in Moscow. On March 3, Mrs. Philby received a telegram from Philby postmarked Cairo, Egypt. On June 3 Izvestia located Philby with the Imam of Yemen. On July 1, the British Government admitted that Philby had worked as a Soviet agent before 1946 and identified him as the 'third man'.
• 1965 Awarded the Order of the Red Banner, one of the highest honours of the Soviet Union.

Philby in fiction

• The Tim Powers novel Declare is partly based on unexplained aspects of Philby's life story, providing a supernatural context for his behavior ("tradecraft meets Lovecraft").
• The Frederick Forsyth novel, The Fourth Protocol, features an elderly Philby advising a Soviet leader on a plot to influence a British election in 1985.

External Links

• Kim Philby (BBC)
• Burgess, MacLean and Philby, FBI FOIA

References

• My Silent War by Kim Philby, published by Macgibbon & Kee Ltd, London, 1968, or Granda Publishing, ISBN 0-586-02860-9. Introduction by Graham Greene
• The Philby Literature by Hayden Peake in The Private Life of KIM PHILBY The Moscow Years by Rufina Philby, Mikhail Lyubimov, and Hayden Peake. St. Ermin's Press, 1999.