Kim Philby is a spy. Kim Philby - Soviet spy from England

Kim Philby(English) Kim Philby, full name Harold Adrian Russell Philby, English Harold Adrian Russell Philby; January 1, 1912, Ambala, India - May 11, 1988, Moscow) - one of the leaders of British intelligence, a communist, an agent of Soviet intelligence since 1933. Son of prominent British Arabist Harry St. John Bridger Philby.

Biography

Born in India, in the family of a British official under the government of the Raja. His father, St. John Philby, worked for a long time in the British colonial administration in India, then studied oriental studies, was a famous Arabist: “Being an original person, he converted to the Muslim religion, took a Saudi girl from among the slaves as his second wife, lived for a long time among the Bedouin tribes, was an adviser to King Ibn Saud. Kim Philby was the successor of one of the oldest families in England - at the end of the 19th century, his paternal grandfather, Monty Philby, owned a coffee plantation in Ceylon, and his wife Quinty Duncan, Kim's grandmother, came from a well-known family of hereditary military men in England, one of whose representatives was Marshal Montgomery. Nickname Kim gave him parents in honor of the hero of the novel of the same name by Rudyard Kipling. He was raised by his grandmother in England. Graduated with honors from Westminster School.

In 1929 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he was a member of the socialist society. In 1933, with the aim of the anti-fascist struggle, through the Committee for Assistance to Refugees from Fascism, operating in Paris, he came to Vienna, the capital of Austria, where he participated in the work of the Vienna organization MOPR. Anticipating the imminent seizure of power in Austria by the Nazis, he returned to England together with an activist of the Austrian Communist Party, Litzi Friedman, whom he married in April 1934. In early June 1934, he was recruited by an illegal Soviet intelligence officer, Arnold Deutsch.

Then he worked at The Times, was a special correspondent for this newspaper during the Spanish Civil War, while simultaneously performing tasks for Soviet intelligence. The last time he went to Spain in May 1937, in early August 1939 he returned to London.

Thanks to the occasion and the help of Guy Burgess, in 1940 he entered the service of the SIS, and a year later he held the post of deputy chief of counterintelligence there. In 1944 he became the head of the 9th department of the SIS, which was engaged in Soviet and communist activities in the UK. During the war alone, he handed over 914 documents to Moscow.

They point out that it was thanks to Philby that Soviet intelligence managed to minimize the losses caused by the betrayal of Elizabeth Bentley in 1945: “A day or two after she testified to the FBI, Kim Philby sent reports to Moscow with a complete list of everyone she had surrendered.”

From 1947 to 1949, he headed the residency in Istanbul, from 1949 to 1951 - the liaison mission in Washington, where he establishes contacts with the leaders of the CIA and the FBI and coordinates the joint actions of the United States and Great Britain to combat the communist threat.

In 1951, the first two members of the Cambridge Five were exposed: Donald McLean and Guy Burgess. Philby warns them of the danger, but he himself falls under suspicion: in November 1952 he was interrogated by the British counterintelligence MI-5, but due to lack of evidence he was released. Philby remains in limbo until 1955, when he retires.

However, already in 1956, he was again accepted into Her Majesty's secret service, this time in MI6. Under the guise of a correspondent for The Observer and The Economist, he travels to Beirut.

On January 23, 1963, Philby was smuggled into the USSR, where he lived in Moscow for the rest of his life on a personal pension. Rarely consulted. He married Rufina Pukhova, an employee of the Research Institute.

He was buried at the Old Kuntsevo Cemetery.

Awards

He was awarded the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, the Friendship of Peoples and medals, as well as the badge "Honorary State Security Officer".

Literature

Knightley F. Kim Philby - KGB super spy. M: Republic, 1992. (ISBN 5-250-01806-8)
Philby K. My secret war. M: Military Publishing House, 1980.
"I went my own way." Kim Philby in intelligence and in life. M: International relations, 1997. (ISBN 5-7133-0937-1)
Dolgopolov N. M. Kim Philby. (Series ZHZL), M .: Young Guard, 2011.

A source: wikipedia.org

He could become the head of British intelligence and go down in history as the greatest spy of all time.

Winner of two awards

Harold Adrian Russell Philby was awarded the MBE in 1945 for services to intelligence during World War II. The award was presented personally by King George VI of Great Britain at Buckingham Palace. In 1947, Stalin signed a decree awarding Harold Adrian Russell Philby the Order of the Red Banner.

The most famous member of the "Cambridge Five" - the exposed "patriots" of Great Britain who worked in favor of the USSR - Kim Philby, almost took the post of head of British intelligence. A brave and courageous man, for 30 years he provided Lubyanka with information of the highest quality - 9999 - standard. And he could and should have headed British intelligence. If it were not for the betrayal of the Soviet Chekists.

On the brink of failure

For the first time, a real threat of exposure hung over Philby in August 1945, when Konstantin Volkov, an employee of the Istanbul NKVD station, who worked under the guise of the vice-consul of the USSR, was about to flee to the West. He contacted the British consulate in Turkey and expressed his readiness to pass on information about Soviet agents embedded in British government structures. He said that two of them work in the Foreign Office, and one - in the central office of the SIS in London.

The information received from Volkov was sent to London by diplomatic mail. A week later they ended up in SIS and lay down on the table... Philby. He immediately realized that he was one of those whom Volkov intended to name.

“I looked at the papers a little longer than it took to collect my thoughts,” Philby would later write in his memoirs “My Silent War” (“My Silent War”, 1968).

Philby reported the traitor to the Moscow Center. And then luck smiled at him: it was he who was sent to Istanbul to meet with Volkov. But by the time Philby got to Turkey, Volkov had disappeared without a trace and was never heard from again.

While in Washington, Philby began a fleeting affair with American cipher Meredith Gardner. She showed Philby several transcribed Soviet documents and commented on their content, noting that the Soviet mole was most likely entrenched in the British Foreign Office. Philby realized that the threat of exposure loomed over Donald McLain (Donald Donaldovich McLain, aka Mark Petrovich Fraser, born Donald Duart McLain, British diplomat, Soviet intelligence agent, working pseudonym "Homer". Member of the Communist Party of Great Britain since 1932. Member of the CPSU since 1956. Doctor of Historical Sciences - Ed.), and immediately warned the Moscow Center. They decided that the mission of "Homer" as a Soviet secret agent was completed, and it would be better if he completely disappeared from the field of view of both the FBI and MI5. McLain soon ended up in the Soviet Union and was hidden from possible encroachments on his life by the Anglo-American intelligence services in Kuibyshev, a city closed to foreigners.

Writer and publicist Philip Knightley in his book "The Second Oldest Profession", London, 1987 (in Russian translation - "Spies of the XX century") categorically states: "If the State Security Committee had not rushed to save their man in the Foreign Office of Donald MacLaine , Philby could become the leader of the SIS and thus go down in history as the greatest spy of all time. For the head of the SIS, Stuart Menzies, and his deputy, Hugh Sinclair, made it clear to the Prime Minister that they wanted to see Philby as head of the British intelligence service after Menzies' resignation. But in any case, in the "McLain case" Philby played his part with inspiration, with full dedication, in the language of the musicians - "spyonissimo"! ..»

Indeed, following the disappearance of McLain, Philby also fell under the suspicion of British and American counterintelligence agents. Without delay, he destroyed all the equipment received from the Moscow messenger and, as he writes in his memoirs: “Feeling clean as glass, I calmed down, knowing that neither the British nor the Americans would dare to openly accuse me of anything without authorization senior leadership, and for the sanction, irrefutable evidence was required, which was no longer there!

However, the suspicions of the head of the counterintelligence department of the CIA, James D. Angleton, turned out to be so strong that he persuaded the then director of the Office, Walter Bedell-Smith, to apply to the SIS with a request to recall Philby from the United States.

In London, MI5 seized Philby's passport. Several times they subjected him to sophisticated interrogations. Despite the fact that Philby managed to dismiss all suspicions against him, he was nevertheless fired from the SIS with a severance pay of 2,000 pounds (today it is equal to $ 200,000) and a monthly pension of 2,000 pounds, which was to be paid to him for three years!

New betrayal and new justification

Meanwhile, clouds began to gather over Philby again: on April 2, 1954, Vladimir Petrov, a cipher clerk of the Soviet embassy in Australia, went to the enemy. Talking about the escape of members of the "Cambridge Five" - McLain and Guy Burgess, the traitor called Philby "the third person" in the spy group. In November 1955, a group of members of the lower house of parliament, trying to find out if Philby was really a "third man", sent an inquiry to newly elected Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. And on November 7, 1955, at parliamentary hearings, he publicly removed all suspicions from Philby: “No evidence has been found that Philby warned McLean or Burgess. While in government service, he performed his duties skillfully and conscientiously. I have no reason to believe that Mr. Philby ever betrayed the interests of the country, or that he is the so-called "third man", if there was such a thing.

Philby got his passport back. He gave a press conference and conducted it so brilliantly that colleagues from SIS brought him their congratulations.

CIA chief Smith and counterintelligence chief Angleton were furious. And FBI Director Hoover, reluctantly, was forced to lift the sanctions against Philby and officially acquit him.

On December 29, the FBI closed its file on him, which resulted in the following conclusion: “Subject - Donald Stewart McLain and others. During a recent review, all references in the FBI file to Harold A.R. The Philbys were transferred as summaries to 3x5 inch cards. Philby is suspected of alerting the subject to the latest investigation. Viewing the documents does not provide grounds for launching an investigation into Philby's activities."

According to Western analysts, the main damage that Philby did to the CIA and the SIS fell not so much on the operational sphere, but on the relationship between the CIA and the FBI, and between the American and British intelligence services in general. After Philby, their relationship has never been so close - "his activities sowed the seeds of distrust and poisoned the minds of some CIA officers so that they could no longer fully trust even their closest British colleagues."

Under the patronage of Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, Philby took a job as a Middle East correspondent for The Observer and The Economist and soon went as a journalist to Beirut. The management of the SIS considered it unnecessary to inform his employers that the position of a correspondent would only be a cover for him. The thing is, Philby is incredible! - was again accepted for service in the SIS ...

Tipsy Khrushchev and a gift from the leader of all peoples

Stalin, having signed a decree in 1947 awarding Philby with the Order of the Red Banner, ordered to thank the intelligence officer with a valuable gift. Especially for Philby, the best craftsmen of the Union - artists, jewelers and sculptors - made a bas-relief of Mount Ararat.

The leader's gift to Kim Philby was presented by a messenger at the next meeting.

The 40x25 cm bas-relief, made of precious relic trees, inlaid with gold, platinum and the smallest diamonds embedded in the snow-capped peaks of Ararat, was a unique work of art.

Philby was touched and fascinated. Changing homes when moving from one country to another, he invariably installed a precious little thing in the most prominent place. For sixteen (!) years, the guests did not cease to admire the refined taste of the owner, and Philby memorized, answering questions, that the bas-relief was more than a hundred years old and was purchased on occasion from a junk dealer from Istanbul.

Philby parted with the gift of the leader only in 1963, when, under the threat of exposure, he was hastily taken to the Union. After some time, Philby's stay in our country became public. Help for the British came from an unexpected quarter. At a diplomatic reception at the GDR embassy in Moscow, a tipsy Khrushchev suddenly announced his decision to grant Philby political asylum and a Moscow residence permit.

However, the leadership of the SIS was wary of the statement of the Soviet prime minister: Khrushchev’s drunken rantings about equipping the Soviet army with “combat underground boats”, which, according to their tactical and technical data, allegedly surpass any tanks in the world, were still fresh in their memory. Given the inadequacy of Khrushchev, the SIS decided that it was necessary to obtain factual confirmation of Philby's presence in Moscow and his work in favor of the USSR.

Without waiting for these "factual confirmations" to be obtained, FBI Director Hoover announced that he had "exhausted his credibility with SIS." Indeed, until his death in 1972, he did not trust the British intelligence services. In turn, Walter Bedell-Smith, by his conduct, made it clear that the CIA's special relationship with the SIS would not be restored until the British put their house in order.

A large MI5 commission that came from London to Beirut, which included not only counterintelligence officers, but also experts, carefully examined Philby's home and all his personal belongings in search of material confirmation of his espionage activities in favor of the USSR. No evidence was found. Only at the last moment, before leaving the apartment, did the art expert pay attention to the bas-relief that shimmered forlornly in the living room of the villa. He was immediately subjected to examination. With the help of special equipment, it was possible to establish that the little thing is an antique fake, and its age does not exceed twenty years. Moreover, having examined the "antique" work of art more closely, the expert finally found confirmation of the connection of Harold Adrian Russell Philby with the Soviet Union.

The sensation of the discovery was that the two-headed peak of the mountain, in the sequence with which it was presented on the bas-relief, can only be viewed from the territory of the Soviet Union, but not Turkey. This means that the master performers, when making a sketch, were there ... And if you take into account the life span of the little thing ... In a word, the leader's gift was the only "actual confirmation" that Philby worked in favor of the USSR ...

Kim Philby, full name - Harold Adrian Russell Philby (Harold Adrian Russell Philby). Born January 1, 1912 in Ambala (British India) - died May 11, 1988 in Moscow. British intelligence official, communist, Soviet intelligence agent.

Kim Philby was born on January 1, 1912 at Ambala in British India, the son of a British official under the government of the Raja.

Father - Harry St. John Bridger Philby, a famous British Arabist. He was an adviser to King Ibn Saud, converted to the Muslim religion, had a Saudi slave girl as his second wife, and spent a lot of time among the Bedouins. He also worked for a long time in the British colonial administration in India. Later he studied oriental studies.

Paternal grandfather - Monty Philby, a representative of one of the oldest families in England, owned a coffee plantation in Ceylon. My paternal grandmother, Quinty Duncan, came from a well-known family of hereditary military men in England, one of whose representatives was Field Marshal Montgomery.

The nickname Kim was given to him by his parents in honor of the hero of the novel of the same name.

He was raised by his grandmother in England. Graduated with honors from Westminster School.

Anticipating the imminent seizure of power in Austria by the Nazis, he returns to England. In early June 1934, he was recruited by an illegal Soviet intelligence officer, Arnold Deutsch.

Then he worked in the Times newspaper, was a special correspondent for this newspaper during the Spanish Civil War, while simultaneously performing tasks for Soviet intelligence. The last time he went to Spain in May 1937, in early August 1939 he returned to London.

Thanks to the occasion and the help of Guy Burgess, in 1940 he entered the service in the SIS and a year later held the post of deputy chief of counterintelligence there.

In 1944 he became the head of the 9th department of the SIS, which was engaged in Soviet and communist activities in the UK. During the war alone, he handed over 914 documents to Moscow.

It is believed that it was thanks to Philby that Soviet intelligence managed to minimize the losses caused by the betrayal of Elizabeth Bentley in 1945 (Elizabeth Bentley was a member of the US Communist Party, an agent of the INO NKVD in 1938-1945). A day or two after she testified to the FBI, Kim Philby sent dispatches to Moscow listing everyone she had ratted out.

From 1947 to 1949, he headed the residency in Istanbul, from 1949 to 1951, the liaison mission in Washington, where he established contacts with the leaders of the CIA and the FBI and coordinated the joint actions of the United States and Great Britain to combat the communist threat.

In 1951, the first two members of the Cambridge Five were exposed: Donald McLean and Guy Burgess. Philby warns them of the danger, but he himself falls under suspicion: in November 1952, he was interrogated by the British counterintelligence MI-5, but due to lack of evidence he was released. Philby remains in limbo until 1955, when he retires.

However, already in 1956, he was again accepted into Her Majesty's secret service, this time in MI6. Under the guise of a correspondent for The Observer and The Economist, he travels to Beirut.

Philby's escape to the Soviet Union on January 23, 1963 was one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War. Philby's disappearance added to the humiliating blow dealt to the secret world of British intelligence by the Cambridge Five. Nine years earlier, Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan had told the House of Commons that there was reason to believe Philby was the so-called "Third"—the man who helped spy Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean escape to Russia in 1951. ), - No. Meanwhile, it was Philby who was this "Third". There was also a Fourth, Anthony Blunt, and a Fifth, John Cairncross, who helped reveal the secret of the atomic bomb.

He lived in the USSR until the end of his life - in Moscow, in an apartment not far from the Kyiv metro station and the Moscow River, on a personal pension, under the names "Fedorov" and "Martins". Occasionally he was brought in by Soviet diplomats and heads of special services for consultations.

Shortly before his death in 1988, Philby gave an interview in his Moscow apartment to the English writer and publicist Philip Knightley, who visited him with the permission of the KGB. The interview was published in the London Sunday Times in the spring of 1988.

According to Knightley's impressions, the defector lived in an apartment, which he called one of the best in Moscow. Previously, it belonged to a certain high official from the USSR Foreign Ministry. When the diplomat moved into a new house, the KGB immediately recommended Philby's vacant home. “I immediately grabbed this apartment. Although it is located in the center of Moscow, it is so quiet here, as if you are outside the city. The windows face east, west and southwest, so I catch the sun all day, ”said the scout.

It is noted that Philby's apartment, based on the possibility of his abduction by the British special services, was the best located in terms of security: access to the house is difficult, the entrance itself and the approaches to it were easily visible and controlled. Philby's phone number was not indicated in address books and lists of Moscow subscribers; correspondence came to him through a PO box at the Main Post Office.

Philip Knightley spoke of Philby's last home: “From the large entrance hall, a corridor leads to the matrimonial bedroom, guest bedroom, dressing room, bathroom, kitchen and large living room, almost the entire width of the apartment. A spacious study is visible from the living room. The office has a desk, a secretary, a couple of chairs and a huge refrigerator. Turkish carpet and wool carpet cover the floor. Philby's library of 12,000 volumes is housed on bookshelves spanning three walls.

There were rumors about Philby's suicide, but his widow denied them, insisting on the version of death from heart problems.

Kim Philby Personal Life:

Was married four times.

The first wife is Litzi Friedman, an activist of the Austrian Communist Party. They married in April 1934.

Litzi Friedman - Kim Philby's first wife

The second wife is Eileen Philby. The marriage produced five children. Abandoned by her husband, she died of respiratory failure in 1957 at the age of 47.

The son of Dudley Philby (Dudley Philby), who was called Tommy in the family, later visited Moscow, saw his father. “I received a letter many months later, when my father was in Moscow. He kept everything a secret, but he was a very good father. He simply believed in communism and followed his faith. I didn’t like Moscow - I love whiskey, ”recalled Tommy.

Another son - John Philby - was a photojournalist in the Vietnam War.

His daughter Josephine came to the USSR, brought her grandchildren with her, they rested together in Sukhumi.

The third wife is Eleanor Brewer. They were married from 1959 until Philby's flight to the USSR in 1963.

The fourth wife is Rufina Ivanovna Pukhova (Pukhova-Philby, born September 1, 1932, Moscow), an employee of the research institute. Pukhova had Russian and Polish (by mother) roots. She worked as a proofreader and survived cancer. They married in 1971 and lived together until Philby's death.

As Rufina Ivanovna recalled, life with Philby was not easy - at first he drank, also suffered from depression and disappointment with some Soviet realities.

In her memoirs, which were published after the death of her husband (“Private Life of Kim Philby: Moscow Years”), she described the years spent in his company, his motives and hidden thoughts, and previously unpublished autobiographical fragments written by Kim himself were included in the texts Philby.

The image of Kim Philby in the movie:

1969 - Kim Philby war der dritte Mann (Germany) - actor Arno Assman as Philby
1977 - Philby, Burgess and Maclean (England) - actor Anthony Bath as Philby
1980 - Escape (England) - in the role of Philby, actor Richard Pascoe
1987 - The Fourth Protocol (England) - as Philby, actor Michael Bilton
2003 - Cambridge Spies (England) - actor Toby Stevens as Philby
2007 - Office (The Company) (USA) - actor Tom Hollander as Philby
2011 - Alien Connection (USA) - in the role of Philby, actor Elliot Passantino
2013 - The Spymaster (USA) - actor Rob McGillivray as Philby
2014 - Kim Philby: His Most Intimate Betrayal (England) - actor David Oakes as Philby
2014 - Camp X (Camp X) (Canada) - actor David Straus as Philby
2017 - Hunt for the Devil (Russia) - in the role of Philby actor.

"I SERVE RUSSIA FOR HALF A CENTURY"

Kim Philby

Englishman Harold Adrian Russell Philby, known to the whole world under the name of Kim, was a Soviet intelligence officer. In more than twenty years that I have been writing about intelligence, I have not come across other examples of a foreigner, and even a representative of high society, doing so much for our country. Perhaps there were people more selfless, but their contribution to our victory in World War II is not comparable to what Philby did, who almost became the head of the Secret Intelligence Service - one of the most powerful intelligence services in the world.

Who knows, perhaps somewhere in the archives are the files of Soviet, Russian agents who did even more. One of my heroes, legal spies, hinted before his death that he was, and still is, such an agent. “Oh, if only you knew, Kolka!..” He called this man either the Leader or the Monolith. But maybe he was wrong or, as it happens, he mystified? So far, we do not know a foreign intelligence officer equal to Philby. It is not for nothing that his affairs are declassified so difficult, long, dreary and literally bit by bit.

Kim Philby considered his main success in intelligence to be the information he obtained in 1942-1943 about the offensive planned by the Germans near Kursk, called Operation Citadel. As you know, the bloody Battle of Kursk ended with a radical change in the Great Patriotic War, which began with the battle of Stalingrad, and the strategic initiative finally passed to the Red Army.

My book "Kim Philby" presents several of his reports, declassified in the summer of 2011. Among them is information about the flight from Germany to England of the prominent Nazi Rudolf Hess, information about the sabotage work of the British in the countries occupied by Hitler, about the structure of the British intelligence services and the characteristics of their leaders.

Philby got along with many intelligence officials. With some, such as, for example, with the famous writer Graham Greene and Tommy Harris, he continued to be friends even after his flight to the USSR from Beirut in 1963. Philby corresponded and received, together with his wife Rufina Ivanovna, the great Green at his home in Moscow. True, he did nothing special in intelligence. Tom Harris was not afraid to send him an old solid wood table to the Soviet capital. Former rich man - furniture maker Harris during the war years made an excellent career in counterintelligence. It was he who suggested to the authorities in June 1941 that they use Philby, who worked in Spain as a correspondent for The Times and could well lead the Spanish section.

Hearing Philby's name, SIS Deputy Director for Foreign Counterintelligence Valentin Vivian remembered Harry St. John Philby, who was well known to him. Upon learning that he was Kim's father, he helped Philby Jr. become the head of the sector, which conducted counterintelligence work in the Pyrenees and, partially, in North Africa.

Then Philby got access to the Abwehr telegrams decrypted by the British. He was one of the first to inform Moscow about the secret negotiations of his head - the German admiral Canaris with the British, about the timing of the admiral's arrival in Spain. Kim, apparently with the consent of his superiors, developed a plan to destroy Canaris, which his London leadership unexpectedly rejected. But even the hotel between Seville and Madrid, where the head of the Abwehr was supposed to stay, was well known to Kim Philby from his time in Spain. And Kim suspected that the matter was not only in the fears of Stuart Menzies, who headed the SIS, to be destroyed in turn by the Germans. The British kept Canaris under their wing just in case, you never know…

There are suggestions, shared by Philby, that the admiral shot by Hitler in 1944 gave the British information beneficial to a group of people who planned to physically destroy the Fuhrer, stop the war with the USA and Great Britain, concentrating all their efforts on a fight with the USSR. Canaris, with his German agents scattered around the world, was the link between the generals dissatisfied with Hitler and our then allies. The capture or assassination of the admiral was disadvantageous to Menzies, whose people carefully "grazed" Canaris.

Philby informed the Center more than once about secret separate negotiations between the British and the Americans with the Germans.

In the winter of 1941, when the Germans were driven away from Moscow, Philby gave his contact the text of a telegram from the German ambassador in Tokyo to Reich Foreign Minister Ribbentrop about the upcoming Japanese attack on Singapore. To Singapore, not to the Soviet Union. This confirmed the reports of the Tokyo residency: the Japanese are not going to go to war with the USSR yet.

Used Philby and his love affairs. He was close to Eileen Feares, who worked in the counterintelligence archive. Kim had no way of finding his first wife, Litzi. An Austrian communist with Jewish blood, she was able to leave Vienna for England thanks to her marriage to Philby and thus was saved from Nazi persecution. But then she disappeared. Philby reported to his superiors that he could not be a bigamist and would officially enter into a new marriage only when he terminated the previous one.

Eileen helped Kim with everything. It even allowed me to rummage through the archives. Often, Philby would take volumes of intelligence reports from colleagues from different countries from the archives in order to carefully study them late in the evening. However, many employees acted in this way contrary to the instructions, and they looked at it through their fingers.

Did Eileen know who Kim's selected information was intended for? Subsequently, she said that she did not even know about it. Kim confirmed that she didn't know for sure. He did not let his beloved know his secrets.

And it seems to me that Eileen still guessed. The woman on the bed is counterintelligence. But not necessarily hostile.

In 1944, Philby reported to the Center that one of the leaders of American intelligence told him in confidence about the joint secret work of British and American nuclear scientists on an atomic bomb using uranium. Moscow realized that if the allies joined forces, then they are close to the goal. This, in turn, spurred on Stalin and Beria, forced them to mobilize scientific personnel as much as possible and allocate considerable financial resources for the creation of the Soviet atomic bomb.

Philby also managed to get documents that spoke about the post-war plans of the British in relation to the USSR. The outcome of the war was already clear, and our allies were now preoccupied with the prospect of the formation of socialist states in Eastern Europe. So the USSR turned into the main enemy for the Western world. In this regard, at the SIS, on the initiative of Philby's patron Valentine Vivian, a special department was created to combat the Soviet Union.

The English plans for subversive activities against the USSR were taken more than seriously in Moscow. Philby was not given the task to get all these documents, they asked at least to inform about their content. And Philby once again did the impossible.

An experienced intelligence officer, Vivian, developed methods of fighting against Soviet intelligence, figured out how to sow enmity between the USSR and the communist parties of the West, how to split and incite the international communist movement against the Soviet Union with the help of disinformation. All these documents were kept in a secret folder called "Vivian's Documents".

But Philby outplayed family friend Vivian, who touchingly took care of him and promoted him through the ranks. The Vivian Papers sent by Philby allowed the Soviet leadership to take the necessary measures during the war.

Philby collected data on agents thrown by England into different countries. At first, these were only complex code aliases, then they took on real shapes and real names. A few years later, the Center already had an impressive list. There were so many of these spies that Moscow did not touch some of them, who settled in distant lands. Others, who settled closer to the Soviet borders, on the contrary, aroused great interest.

Unlike Burgess or Cairncross, Philby was an excellent conspirator. The lessons of his first teacher - the illegal "Otto" - Deutsch were not in vain. He tried to instill a simple truth for him in the other members of the "five": their safety largely depends on themselves. Guy Burgess especially bothered him. And, as subsequent events showed, not in vain.

And further. Philby, a man of a completely traditional sexual orientation, did not start moralizing conversations with any of his friends that their homosexual relationships could attract someone's attention, interfere with work. Here he hoped for luck. However, Burgess was expelled from intelligence because of too conspicuous, sometimes publicly advertised predilections.

Apparently, Philby correctly hinted to his contacts that “this” should not be discussed with his friends. The bad tendencies acquired in childhood in some privileged private school in Marlborough could not be corrected by exhortation. It would not bring benefits, but it would cause unnecessary irritability among colleagues in the "five".

And all the liaisons, from "Otto" - Deutsch to "Peter" - Modin, followed Philby's advice. This topic has been avoided for many years of cooperation.

Shortly after the outbreak of war, Philby was assigned to oversee the Allied negotiations to open a second front. And here he showed miracles of efficiency.

The delay with the opening of the second front turned into a strategic task for the Western allies. And any information on this subject from London fell on Stalin's desk. The leader was annoyed by the constant excuses, and then the promises of Roosevelt and Churchill that did not come true. He was especially infuriated by the duplicity of the British Prime Minister. He promised Stalin that the second front would open very soon, and Roosevelt convinced that the time had not yet come. Philby informed that the opening of the second front was deliberately delayed and that the Soviet side should not have any illusions on this score.

At the end of the Great Patriotic War, another unpleasant disagreement arose between the USSR and the allies. The deliveries of explosives, which were so expected from the British, were disrupted. Their caravans delivered any kind of cargo to Murmansk, but not explosives, which the advancing Red Army really needed. Philby's message that this was being done quite deliberately, and not through oversight or negligence, oddly enough, reassured Stalin. He realized that here, too, one must rely on one's own strength.

With great anxiety, Moscow received information from Philby about a possible war between the USSR and the Allies. They discussed among themselves whether it was realistic to start hostilities against the Soviet Union if Stalin continued his offensive against West Germany after the capture of Berlin. Perhaps this message from Philby to some extent cooled the ardor of Joseph Vissarionovich.

Note that the "five" acted separately. It was not a single group, a well-coordinated team. Under the terms of the game, its members did not have the right to contacts. The role of the unifying link was performed, with the strictest secrecy, by Kim Philby. Sometimes even the self-confident Burgess turned to him for professional advice.

Were there any repetitions in the information transmitted to Moscow? Of course there were. For example, information from counterintelligence that came from Blunt was not duplicated, but confirmed by Philby. In intelligence, the concept of "a lot of information" is missing. It is very important that the data of one source be confirmed by all others.

Despite suspicions of disinformation that hovered in the corridors of the Lubyanka, the Cambridge Five was appreciated, especially after Philby and Cairncross warned Moscow of the German advance at Kursk.

Analyzing the information transmitted by all members of the Cambridge Five, one comes to the conclusion that the most important source was Kim Philby. And from 1947, when he headed the notorious 9th department for the fight against communism, and until 1951, he had no equal either in value or in efficiency.

In 1945, the Cambridge Five were almost destroyed by the betrayal of the Soviet intelligence officer Konstantin Volkov, who worked in Istanbul under the roof of the Soviet consulate. For 30 thousand pounds sterling, he was going to tell the British, among other secret data, the names of three Soviet agents who worked in the Foreign Office and in counterintelligence.

In London, this information came to Philby. After long delays, he allowed himself to be persuaded to go to Istanbul, having managed to report Volkov's betrayal to the Soviet resident. Philby immediately understood who Volkov intended to betray - Burgess with McLean and Philby himself.

Bad weather delayed his flight to Turkey. And when he finally arrived there, no trace of Volkov could be found in Istanbul - Soviet intelligence managed to take Volkov to the Union. There has never been an official announcement of his fate. One can only guess about her.

Can you imagine Philby or Burgess coming in and offering to betray their comrades for 30 pieces of silver or 30,000 pounds? Unthinkable.

Even in England, where many people hate Philby and brand him a spy, it was recognized that “he was firm in his faith, absolutely devoted to his ideals, consistent in his actions. All this was aimed at creating and strengthening communist influence throughout the world. So wrote the City-Zen newspaper after Philby's death in May 1988. No one, even in the West, could reproach him for working for the USSR for money.

Philby had amazing stamina. She often helped in his dangerous work. But it must be admitted that he was lucky. Volkov's case fell to him, and not to someone else. An employee who was supposed to go to Istanbul was terrified of flying. Although Philby also did not like to travel by air, he replaced a cowardly colleague on the orders of the head of the SIS. Soviet intelligence worked exceptionally quickly, taking Volkov out of Turkey. And the British were too slow. Even the forces of nature were on Philby's side. His plane had to land in Tunisia because of a thunderstorm. And when Philby arrived in Istanbul, he did not find the British ambassador there, without whose consent it was impossible to make contact with Volkov. The diplomat went to rest for the weekend outside the city.

Are there not too many instances of an astonishing confluence of favorable circumstances for Philby? But this is reality. Or confirmation of the proverb - lucky strong.

And here it is - a double-edged sword. Heading a department whose goal was to actively fight against the USSR, Philby took daily risks. If the agents he sent in immediately failed, the head of the department would be taken under suspicion, and maybe even figured out. If he had not regularly reported on agents sent to the USSR not only by the British, but also by the intelligence services of other countries, the Soviet Union could have suffered damage. Dilemma?

Philby solved it together with colleagues from the Center. He warned about the upcoming sending of agents, and in Moscow they carefully considered what to do with them. Mostly they were people from the Caucasus, from the Baltic states, who fled with the Germans and went over to the side of the former allies of the Soviet Union. Sometimes they were deliberately let through by border guards who knew in advance about crossing the border, they were allowed to settle in our country, their connections were identified, and then they were arrested. Some offenders died. Philby assured them that there was not a single Englishman among them. Spies were often recruited. Then they played radio games.

Since 1945, the British tried to send as many spy groups as possible to the Baltic republics and Ukraine. But the spy groups, trained mainly from native Ukrainians who fled to Canada after the war, were waiting for arrests. Philby even passed on the names of agents - paratroopers from three groups.

The year 1946 showed that the British did not have any suspicions about Philby. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire. (It is somewhat blasphemous to compare it with the Order of Lenin, which Philby was also awarded, but the essence is clear.) Philby's chief Menzies wrote the idea of awarding Philby. The award and subsequent celebrations at Buckingham Palace further boosted Philby's stock.

Therefore, the allegations that appeared in the 1980s that back in the early 1950s, Sir Stuart Menzies, who later headed the SIS and suspected a Soviet agent of a colleague, fooled Philby by deliberately slipping misinformation on him, sound ridiculous.

Complete nonsense, one CIA veteran who closely followed the Philby case told the Washington Post. - This man was a Soviet spy from the very beginning to the end. By the time of his death, he acquired all the necessary attributes of the hero of a work of art.

But the fact of the matter is that the intelligence officer lived a real everyday life. He finally divorced Litzi and married a life partner of many years, Eileen Fierce. Before the wedding, they already had three children, and soon a fourth appeared. Family life developed quite well.

Not surprisingly, Philby claimed to become Mr. "C" - that is, to become the head of British intelligence. How then could his fate have been? Philip Knightley, a well-known researcher of the British and other intelligence agencies, views such an appointment with a healthy dose of English skepticism. “There is a school of thought in the world of the secret service that says that an infiltrator who climbs too high cannot be of much use to the outsider,” he writes. - If Philby became a "C", he would have access to such important information that the KGB would have to use it, and this would mean exposing Philby. Thus, the usefulness that he could bring, having reached the top of the British intelligence tree, would be limited.

I do not agree 100 percent with this statement, but there is some truth in it. Although I am sure: Philby would have found a way out of this situation.

He made a career in British intelligence in just five or six years. Of course, experience can be acquired, but Philby did not have enough of it. After all, at home they did not know about his, one might say, parallel work, which, no doubt, gave in practical terms no less than successful work in the British intelligence service.

By the will of fate, or by the will of Philby, he, as it were, accidentally converged with people who were of great interest to Soviet intelligence. It is believed that Moscow knew nothing about Operation Venona, which had been carried out by the Americans since the war years. In short, thanks to the decryption of the intercepted telegrams of Soviet intelligence, by the end of the war, and especially after it, many agents of the USSR were identified. Among them, for example, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed at the height of McCarthyism in the United States. That's what the Americans say.

Operation Venona was kept a secret for many years. Even the Soviet agents who were put on trial were not charged, which could have made it clear to the KGB that some of the coded messages had been deciphered.

Back in the 1990s, Hero of Russia Vladimir Borisovich Barkovsky told me that, firstly, the “main enemy” managed to decipher only fragments of several telegrams, which yielded little. Barkovsky considered Venon to be an almost useless waste of a huge amount of money. And secondly, we knew about all these Venons back in the late 1950s. To my legitimate question "from where?" Barkovsky just shrugged.

When the archives - ours and others' - were slightly opened, the answer became absolutely clear. From Philby. He first heard about this before leaving for the United States from the head of the 9th department, Maurice Oldfield. Of course, the SIS wanted to know how the decryption was going, in which the British provided all possible assistance to the allies from the States.

I read the book "Operation Venona" and I believe that things, although slowly, were moving. Philby managed to get acquainted with the talented codebreaker Gardner. Friendship between them grew into friendship. Philby sometimes even managed to see the results of Gardner's work out of the corner of his eye. That's why I learned that secret American documents were constantly being leaked from the British Embassy in Washington. Philby realized that his friend in the "five" Donald McLean was under real threat.

Fortunately for all five, the British for some reason decided that the leak was coming from technical, support personnel, and not from diplomats. Lower-ranking personnel were tortured with universal checks. This delayed the investigation for years.

American sources flashed information about the connections of Philby, who constantly worked as a representative of the SIS in Washington, with another legendary Soviet intelligence officer - illegal immigrant William Fisher - Colonel Rudolf Abel. They probably knew each other from work in pre-war England, but met far from the American capital, presumably in Canada. There was no friendship between them. Fisher was ascetic and strict. And Philby's temperament was his antipode. But this did not interfere with the joint work of the intelligence officers who ended up in the States.

The British accuse Philby of betrayal. In fact, he remained true to the oath he had taken in his youth. Philby began to cooperate with the Soviet foreign intelligence in the 1930s, and was recruited into the ranks of another special service during World War II. So who did he betray? His selfless work in the name of the idea causes only respect. Principle, honesty, gentlemanship helped him live life the way he wanted.

Philby did not betray his compatriots, never worked against England. And he taught his Moscow students to work not “against England”, but “according to England”. Philby said more than once that not a single Englishman died through his fault or as a result of his actions. He worked "in England" - everyone passes this on deaf ears. He had a different approach to intelligence.

Yes, agents were destroyed, for example, in post-war Albania. And Philby gave an answer to this to the British journalist Philip Knightley: “Regrets should not arise. Yes, I played a certain role in disrupting the plan developed by the West to organize a bloody massacre in the Balkans. But those who conceived and planned this operation admitted the possibility of bloodshed for political purposes. The agents they sent to Albania were armed and determined to carry out acts of sabotage and assassination. Therefore, I did not feel sorry for the fact that I contributed to their destruction - they knew what they were doing.

And in Turkey, during the Great Patriotic War, saboteurs from various diasporas crossing the Soviet border were arrested. They were sent to fight against their compatriots in Armenia, Georgia and other republics.

And the traitor Volkov, who offered services to the British in the first post-war years, was taken out of Istanbul. It is clear what fate awaited him. But if Volkov went over to the wrong side, how many people would be arrested and executed.

Here is what Philby said in one of his rare interviews with Soviet television: “I have no doubt that if I had to repeat everything from the beginning, I would start the way I started and even better.”

And in a conversation with Knightley in his Moscow apartment, he said: “As for returning home, the current England is a foreign country for me. The life here is my life and I'm not going to move anywhere. This is my country, which I have served for over fifty years. I want to be buried here. I want my remains to rest where I worked."

Some of Kim's friends, who worked with him for the USSR, the same Anthony Blunt, eventually fell out of the race: 1945, the war ended, and they honestly stated: they say, they helped defeat a common enemy - fascism, and now - that's it, bayonet into the ground. Philby stayed with us always. And when, before the war, because of Stalin's repressions, for almost a year and a half, the "five" had no connection with the Center. And when he was considered a double agent. For decades he worked for the Soviet Union away from it, and then 25 years in Moscow, which became his home.

But sometimes there was distrust towards Philby. He and his friends came to meetings with Soviet liaisons at any time, did not hide in bomb shelters, even when the Germans bombed London. It was a huge risk. They worked in force majeure circumstances. And in Moscow they were sometimes not believed. So the Kursk Bulge became a turning point not only in the Great Patriotic War, but also in relation to the Cambridge Five.

Perhaps some suspicions arose during the period of repressions in 1937. They shot at that time both English spies, and German, and American - all in a row. And suddenly an English source appears who writes: “There are only two or three Soviet agents on the line at the British Embassy in Moscow.” Two three! How so? "English agents" in the NKVD were shot by hundreds, thousands, and someone from London writes that they have only two or three agents. Yes, it can not be! So he's lying. It turned out that the wave of those repressions gave rise to distrust in themselves.

But Philby endured that too. His wife Rufina Ivanovna told me that Kim was very offended by Guy Burgess, who had fled to Moscow. McLean obeyed Philby - saving his life, eluded the inevitable arrest. Why did Burgess stay in Moscow? After all, if not for his disappearance, Philby, he firmly believed in it, he could work and work. And so the career of a scout actually ended. Despite the suspicions of the investigation, Philby managed to stay at large, even getting a job as a journalist in Beirut. But in 1963 he had to flee from there on a Soviet cargo ship.

Kim Philby was already over fifty when he found himself in a new, unusual environment. If you like, Philby ended up in Moscow in our political stagnation. He saw and understood everything. According to Rufina Ivanovna, he reacted to Brezhnev's "dear comrades" and protracted kisses with his comrades-in-arms with swearing. But don't give up. Brezhnevism flourishes, Philby is inactive, his mighty potential is not being used. New recognition - his studies with young intelligence officers, the publication of his books - came much later. The truth always breaks through.

Philby took the restructuring well, perked up. However, a whole era was leaving, which was also his era. And Philby went with her. He left in an aura of purity, romanticism and faith in the country for which he worked and risked for several decades ...

For outstanding services, Kim Philby was awarded the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the Order of Friendship of Peoples. His personal contribution to the Victory in the Great Patriotic War over Nazi Germany is enormous. This is recognized by everyone, even those who hate him.

One of my high-ranking interlocutors from the special services said:

Philby did so much for the Victory over Nazi Germany! When I went into the materials, into the file, looked at it carefully, a feeling of injustice arose. How is it that he did so much and was not a Hero of the Soviet Union? Why? I began to bring this idea to management. They explained to me that the time was not right - 1987. Maybe Gorbachev didn't want complications with the British. However, this idea was not supported. And suddenly a document comes from our then chief Kryuchkov, which in turn came from the reception room of Yasnov, then chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. And a note to him: “Vladimir Alexandrovich, (this is Kryuchkov) I ask you to consider the attached letter.” In it, three Kharkov students write: how is it that such an outstanding person made a great contribution to the cause of the Victory and is not a Hero? Shortly before that, Philby's interview with the famous journalist Genrikh Borovik was shown on television, and the guys apparently watched this program. And if an appeal was received to confer the title of Hero in this way, then they gave the command to prepare a performance. We started to prepare documents. But on May 11, 1988, Kim Philby passed away. And somehow forgot about the show.

Declassified: Philby intelligence This chapter was written by Kim Philby himself - it was completed in September 1964 in Moscow, after fleeing from Beirut. It is unlikely that these notes, published for the first time, were intended for publication: rather, it is something like a diary written in hot

Science from Kim Philby Once at my house the evening bell rang: on the receiver - my old friend, with whom we, going through different life paths, occasionally communicate. We talked about this and that, and suddenly: - I saw a program on intelligence on television. Agree with your statement -

How Philby was “discovered” It is difficult for me to talk about what happened before 1975-1976. Philby and I met during these years. Yes, until that time over Philby - a veil of secrecy. Even for their own. He was protected and kept safe. And in principle, this is understandable. But how did it arise in

I serve in protection In the morning I have dialed the necessary phone number. I introduce myself. “Mikhail Fedorovich, there is an offer to work in the combat training of the Customs Committee. Recently, a customs protection department has been created, it has a combat training department.” Briefly explained what

I SERVE THE WORKING PEOPLE The news of the October Socialist Revolution, as well as the February Revolution, came to Orenburg a little later than to other cities located closer to the center of Russia. In the Orenburg province, a significant part of the Cossacks lived prosperously and therefore was

4. I SERVE THE SOVIET UNION! Aviation Day has come - August 18th. Already on the eve it was known that the weather was expected to be non-flying and the air parade would not take place. I decide to spend the holiday with old friends. The part in which my fighting life began was not far from

I serve in the army In Tambov, where we, a group of shaved-off recruits, arrived early in the morning from Moscow, we were placed in a summer soldier's camp. Thank God that the weather was good, as we also had to set up tents ourselves. After that we were calculated in

I serve the Soviet Union! Whether due to our Russian laxity, or for some other reason, incomprehensible in other countries, but the autumn conscription somehow bypassed me. My peers had been called up for a month, marched in formation, singing the favorite song of Soviet generals in unison.

On September 15, an exhibition dedicated to the life of Kim Philby, one of the most famous double agents of the Cold War era, opens in Moscow. The head of the British intelligence department, which monitored pro-Soviet and communist activities in the country, fled to the USSR in the early 1960s. In Russia, he is called the legendary intelligence officer, in the UK - perhaps the main traitor of the 20th century.

How he lived, what he believed in and what he taught future intelligence officers Kim Philby - in the material of the portal site.

"30 years in the enemy camp"

In 2016, 53 years after Philby's flight to the USSR, the BBC released a secret video allegedly taken in 1981 in Germany of Philby giving a private lecture to would-be Stasi agents. The recording was found in the archives of the secret service.

On it, an elderly man in horn-rimmed glasses tells listeners for an hour about his life as a double agent - from recruitment to escape. And although, according to the media, nothing of what Philby says can be trusted, the publication provoked a new wave of interest in the identity of the intelligence officer, who was never forgotten in Britain - the blow from the exposure of the man who headed one of the most important departments of the Secret Service was too great. British Intelligence Service.

Speaking about his life in the kingdom, Philby - a native Briton, a representative of the local aristocracy - called her 30 years "spent in the enemy camp."

british eccentric

Philby came from a prominent British aristocratic family. According to his grandmother, he was related to Bernard Montgomery, a field marshal who commanded British troops during the Second World War. Ironically, it was during the 1940s that Philby's activity as a double agent flourished.

From the end of the 19th century, his family owned plantations in Ceylon, and Philby himself was born in India in 1912. His father was a famous Arabic scholar and was an adviser to the Indian Raja. Philby Sr. was known as an eccentric among his acquaintances: he not only converted to Islam, but spent a lot of time in the deserts among the Bedouin tribes and, in the end, even got a second wife - a former slave.

So it is not surprising that the parents gave their son, who was actually called Harold Andrian Russell Philby, the nickname Kim - in honor of the character of the eponymous novel by Rudyard Kipling, which tells about the adventures of a British boy in India.

The name turned out to be prophetic. But adventures awaited Philby by no means in India, where he himself almost never visited in his childhood. The boy was brought up by his grandmother in good old England, where he entered the University of Cambridge, where he became interested in socialist ideas. In the 1930s, he was engaged in anti-fascist activities in Austria, from where he left shortly before the occupation of the country by Hitler. Together with him, one of the activists, Litzi Friedman, came to England, who in 1934 became his first wife. There will be five of them in Philby's life.

It was then, after returning from Austria, that he was recruited by Soviet intelligence.

Investment in the future

Philby's recruiter was Arnold Deutsch, another "icon" of intelligence in the first half of the last century. A Soviet illegal spy of Austrian origin, Deutsch was the creator and first curator of one of the most famous spy groups - the "Cambridge Five".

In addition to Philby, the group included four other Cambridge students: Guy Burgess, John Cairncross, Anthony Blunt and Donald McLean. All of them over the years will occupy high positions in various British structures. The three would later escape to the USSR, but Deutsch himself would not live to see it. In 1935 he will be recalled to the USSR, in 1942 he will be sent to work in Argentina. In the North Atlantic, a tanker with Deutsch on board would be attacked by German aircraft and sink.

During a lecture to future Stasi agents, Philby admitted that at the time of his recruitment, he was of little interest to intelligence. From the point of view of the USSR, his recruitment was "an investment in the future." But Philby was hinted that he was expected to get into intelligence - and he began to strive with all his might to this goal.

It took more than five years - at first Philby worked as a journalist, including collaborating with The Times newspaper. As a war correspondent, he traveled to Spain during the Civil War (and sent reports from there to the intelligence agencies of Great Britain). He was able to get a job in the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) only in 1940, after the outbreak of World War II. Moreover, this required the help of another member of the "five" - BBC presenter Guy Burgess.

By 1941, Philby became deputy head of the department, and in 1944 he headed the department responsible for monitoring pro-Soviet and communist activities in the UK. During the war years alone, the spy handed over to the USSR about a thousand documents, some of which turned out to be priceless.

Skip a glass

According to Philby himself, he was able to access so many important papers due to the lack of strict order in the SIS. All it took to get most of them was a few drinks with an intelligence archivist, who then amicably gave Philby access to documents he wasn't supposed to see.

Perhaps this is how Philby was able to save the agents put under attack by Elizabeth Bentley. An American double agent, she worked for the NKVD from 1938. But in the fall of 1945, she realized that she was disappointed in the communist ideology, and at a meeting with Edgar Hoover she spoke about her work for the USSR. In support of her words, Bentley provided a list of Soviet agents known to her. Philby managed to get access to the document with the names in a timely manner, thanks to which most of the people were able to get out of harm's way. The list of agents disclosed by Bentley ended up in Moscow a day after Elizabeth herself handed it over to the American intelligence services.

Photo: TASS/FA Bobo/PIXSELL/PA Images

collapse

In the early 1950s, when the clouds began to gather over the "five" itself, Philby managed to warn two of its members that they had been discovered. Donald McLean and Guy Burgess managed to escape to the USSR, but because of their escape, suspicions fell on Philby himself.

In 1952, he was interrogated by British counterintelligence officers, but it was announced to the public that no evidence had been found against him. The espionage scandal that had already erupted was surprisingly easy for Philby to get away with. The double agent himself, during a lecture in 1981, attributed his luck to two factors. Firstly, belonging to high society - the British elite really did not want to believe that a representative of high society turned out to be a Soviet "mole". And secondly, his high position in the intelligence service - if he were exposed as a spy, it would cost many a career, and therefore a full-fledged investigation was not given a go.

In 1955, Philby announced that he was retiring. Then, in his apartment in London, he gave a short interview to journalists from several publications at once, in which he stated that he had never been a communist and did not adhere to communist views - this is almost his only public speech.

"Never Confess"

But already in 1956, Philby was again accepted into the service of Her Majesty. This time - to foreign intelligence, Mi-6. And immediately after that, they were sent to Beirut to work undercover - the intelligence officer came to Lebanon as a journalist for The Economist and Observer newspapers.

However, in the early 1960s, counterintelligence again had questions for him. According to some reports, Philby was summoned for interrogation, after which one of his old acquaintances came to him and offered to informally admit his guilt in exchange for immunity. It is not known whether Philby made a deal, but in January 1963 the KGB managed to secretly take their agent out of Beirut - according to the spy, he made this decision himself.

"Never confess," Philby taught future Stasi agents. “Whatever they have: even if there are documents with your signature, then it is a fake. Just deny everything."

Death of a Spy

For the last 18 years of his life, Kim Philby lived in Moscow. Most of them - in an apartment in Kuntsevo, the windows of which overlooked the banks of the Moscow River. In the USSR, he married for the fifth time - to a Soviet citizen Rufina Pukhova. In the UK, he left five children, most of whom, according to the Independent newspaper, remembered their father with fondness.

At first, according to Pukhova's recollections, Philby suffered from depression - far from everything in the new world corresponded to what he believed in the early 1930s and continued to firmly believe over the next 20 years. The KGB officers who encountered him at this time said that Philby was addicted to alcohol.

However, a few years later, the state security agencies remembered the “valuable personnel” languishing in the apartment on Kuntsevskaya. Philby began to be invited for separate consultations, they were taken to lectures to future intelligence officers. Until the end of his life, he received British mustard, jams and books of British classics in English.