Past Times
British spy Kim Philby fled to Moscow 60 years ago. MARION McMULLEN looks back at the story of one of the most notorious double agents of the Cold War era
“I BEGAN my rebellious nature at a very early age,” infamous British spy Kim Philby once declared. “I scandalised my grandmother by informing her there was no God.” Philby was one of the Cambridge Five spy ring along with Anthony Blunt, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess and John Cairncross. They were all graduates of Trinity College, Cambridge, who passed information from British Intelligence to the Soviet Union in the 1940s and 1950s.
He was born Harold Philby in India 1912, to explorer John Philby, who ironically bestowed on him the childhood nickname of Kim after writer Rudyard Kipling’s young boy spy from the novel Kim.
A born charmer who graduated with a degree in history, Philby became interested in communism while at university and was recruited by the Russians in the 1930s and worked under the codenames Sonny and Stanley.
Fellow double agent Burgess later arranged for him to work at MI6 during the Second World War, and he rose to become one of its most senior officers, while passing on its secrets to Moscow.
He also became secretary of the British embassy in Washington and worked with the CIA from 1949 to 1951.
Philby once said: “It cannot be so surprising that I adopted a communist viewpoint in the 1930s; so many of my contemporaries made the same choice. But many of those who made that choice in those days changed sides when some of the worst features of Stalinism became apparent. I stayed the course.” The British double agent once said that signing up to work for the Russians was probably like joining the army. Official documents saw Philby describe himself as having “submitted willingly to the discipline” of the OGPU, which was an early version of the Soviet Union’s security and political police.
In notes which appeared in security service files from the 1960s, Philby said: “None of the OGPU officials with whom I had dealings ever attempted to win my total acceptance of the party line. All they required was my rigid adherence to instructions on the technical level. In short, I joined the OGPU as one joined the army.
“There must have been British soldiers who obeyed orders at Pass
that they The notes appear in official files on Arnold ”Otto” Deutsch, an Austrian who came to Britain in 1934 and took a lead role in recruiting the Cambridge group of Soviet spies. Philby was among those in whom he had a particular interest.
Philby had regular meetings with “Otto” which always took place on the outskirts of London, usually in the open air. Preparations for these contacts included synchronising watches with a neighbouring clock, both parties arriving at the rendezvous “on the dot” and “taking at least three taxis both to and from the rendezvous to ensure that nobody followed”.
In the notes Philby added: “One of my earliest tasks was to give him details of all my Communist friends in Cambridge. This I did.”
Philby operated as a Soviet agent for years, but came under suspicion after his fellow Soviet spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean although convinced were wrongly conceived.” fled to Moscow in 1951. He had tipped them off in advance that they were both at risk and it was time to defect.
Records show how Philby manoeuvred to try to keep himself out of the spotlight even if it meant implicating his colleagues.
He held a London press conference in 1955 in a move to save his own skin and denied he was the infamous “third man” who tipped off British spies Burgess and McLean as they were about to be arrested.
He later worked as a journalist in Beirut and in 1963 disappeared himself. He defected on January 23 before he could be arrested by Britchendaele
ain for spying and turned up in Moscow a few days later with the announcement that he had been granted citizenship. Former CIA director Allen Dulles branded Philby as “the best spy Russia ever had” and his damaging work as a Soviet agent over the years led to the deaths of dozens of British agents.
It was later feared the KGB also intended to use him to spearhead a propaganda campaign against Harold Wilson’s Labour government.
Papers released by the National Archives showed that the news that Philby was planning to publish his memoirs from exile in Moscow sent shock waves through Whitehall.
The head of the Diplomatic Service, Sir Denis Greenhill, warned the Russians were trying to exploit the radical mood of the late 1960s to mount a “decomposition campaign” against the government. Philby spent his remaining years being closely monitored in his apartment in Moscow.
He died in 1988 at the age of 76 and is buried in Moscow at Kuntsevo Cemetery. He once insisted: “If I had the chance I would do it all again. I would do it exactly the same way.”
None of the OGPU officials...I had dealings ever attempted to win my total acceptance of the party line Kim Philby