[14] Philby later recalled: Lizzy came home one evening and told me that she had arranged for me to meet a "man of decisive importance". A man of affluent bourgeois background who decided to cut ties with his class and devote himself to the struggle of the working class by serving the Soviet Union secret services. 2023-01-17 23:56. Two years later Philby was recruited by the Soviet intelligence officer Arnold Deutsch and proceeded to supply. She also enjoyed his recourse to humour, in contrast to her husband, a more serious presence who thought of little but his work. These were life-or-death questions that tormented Philby night and day. Eleanor arrived there, explaining that Philby would be along shortly. 13. [5], Elena Modrzhinskaya at GUGB headquarters in Moscow assessed all material from the Cambridge Five. His father Harold ''Kim'' Philby was a product of the British ruling class but, like his own eccentric father, the explorer and Arabist St John Philby, contemptuous of it. But colleagues saw something different. Drink had become not a threat to his big secret but an accessory to it, part of an inner search for balm in his tormented double life. He is widely considered history's most successful double spy. Born in Ambala, Punjab, British India, Harold Adrian Russell Philby was the son of Dora Johnston and St John Philby, an author, Arabist and explorer. They had already been down to the Embassy but being unable to work had come back". Philby was suspected of tipping off two other spies under suspicion of Soviet espionage, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, both of whom subsequently fled to Moscow in May 1951. However, his son told The Telegraph that his fathers contribution to the physical demise of Western intelligence operatives is overstated: there is no information that anyone died as a result of Kim Philbys treachery, he said. That 'girl' was Eleanor Brewer, a 44-year-old married woman and mother of one, with whom Philby had been carrying on almost from the moment he arrived in Beirut. In Vienna, working to aid refugees from Germany, Philby met Litzi Friedmann (born Alice Kohlmann), a young Austrian communist of Hungarian Jewish origins. He had been preparing an escape plan for a long time, but would it work? The investigation into the British Embassy leak continued and the stress of it was exacerbated by the arrival in Washington, in October 1950, of Guy BurgessPhilby's unstable and dangerously alcoholic fellow Soviet spy. He explained how ill she had been and that her dying was best for everyone. As he liked to tell me: never explain, never apologise (though Im afraid I dont pay much attention to that). Finding himself the son of Britain's most reviled man, he was surprised to discover how like his father he was. [57] Another meeting was scheduled to take place in the last week of January. When John's mother died in 1957, none of her children was invited to the funeral, and he never knew where she was buried. Two days later, on January 23, they were at home, with plans to visit friends that evening for supper. Setelah meninggalkan Cambridge, Philby bekerja sebagai jurnalis dan meliput Perang Saudara Spanyol dan Pertempuran Prancis. He valued his anonymity - but he never changed his name. Tommy passed away. That they were both married didn't bother them. "[20], In 1938, Walter Krivitsky (born Samuel Ginsberg), a former GRU officer in Paris who had defected to France the previous year, travelled to the United States and published an account of his time in "Stalin's secret service". One female admirer likened him to 'a manly teddy bear', while another was smitten by what she saw as 'his touch of animal roughness'. The writer, who has just landed a book deal with Harper Collins for her debut novel, The Most Difficult Thing, has grown up with the legacy of Kim Philbys betrayal and defection to the Soviet Union in 1963 once he was exposed as the elusive third man in the Cambridge spy ring. Pada tahun 1940, ia mulai bekerja untuk MI6. His public position was that of First Secretary at the British Consulate; in reality, his intelligence work required overseeing British agents and working with the Turkish security services.[41]. For most of us, January 23, 2013, was a day like any other. But did I ever wonder if he was a spy?. Philby worked at first as a freelance journalist; from May 1937, he served as a correspondent for The Times, reporting from the side of the pro-Franco forces. Before long Philby was suggesting an affair, to which an infatuated Eleanor agreed. In 1940, Guy Burgess, a Soviet double agent, recruited Philby into MI6. The next day, an acquaintance claimed that a friend had seen Philby near the Patisserie Suisse, a chocolate shop in downtown Beirut, the previous evening. That peculiar logic rings perfectly true. The boss of MI5, Dick White, thought so but had no proof and Philby was publicly exonerated by the Government. '', he would reply: ''Oh yes, I'm his son.''. Now Josephine, the eldest of his five children, has described how his family coped with the aftermath of a betrayal that shocked the nation. Women adored him. In 1956, Philby began an affair with Eleanor Brewer, the wife of New York Times correspondent Sam Pope Brewer. Kim Philby, born on January 1st, 1912, is one of the best known double agents of the Cold War era. Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com. Part of the Georgetown University Manuscripts Repository . So instead her book concentrates on how family and friends are treated once a key decision has been taken and the world becomes darker and uncontrollable. Under a cloud of suspicion raised by his highly visible and intimate association with Burgess, Philby returned to London. Colonel David Smiley, an aristocratic Guards officer who had helped Enver Hoxha and his Communist guerillas to liberate Albania, now prepared to remove Hoxha. [80] In the book, Philby says that his loyalties were always with the communists; he considered himself not to have been a double agent but "a straight penetration agent working in the Soviet interest". For most of us, January 23, 2013, was a day like any other. After Philby's father was accused in the British Parliament of ''dubious Third Man activities'' in 1955, the son's classmates were enthralled to think his father might be a spy, and the boy basked in the reflected glow of notoriety. However, when Elliott asked him to sign a written statement, he hesitated and requested a delay in the interrogation. Philby confirmed that he had worked for the KGB and that "his purpose in life was to destroy imperialism".[79]. Some suspected Philby might have killed her, while some at MI6 believed the KGB had murdered her to prevent her from providing evidence of her husband's guilt. This entailed responsibility for a network of undercover operatives in several cities such as Madrid, Lisbon, Gibraltar and Tangier. Philbys defection sent ripples of shock across Western intelligence and is often described as one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War. (He is pictured, left, in Moscow with his father Kim, centre, and the escaped spy George Blake.). He then invited friends for a drink to celebrate. He was a sad traitor. Philby told her she was among 'the easiest, most soothing presences I have ever met' and assured her of his love: 'That is solid fact.'. He could stay quiet for hours and let you drivel on, and then he could cut you dead with a single sentence. In a way hes always just been my father. They went to live with an aunt and uncle, and saw little of his father. In January 1963, having finally been unmasked as a Soviet agent, Philby defected to Moscow, where he lived until his death in 1988. Born in 1946, Dudley 'Tommy' Philby is the third of Kim's five children with his second of four wives, Aileen Furse Philby. He trained Albanian commandossome of whom were former Nazi collaboratorsin Libya or Malta. While a student at the University of Cambridge, Philby became a communist and in 1933 a Soviet agent. For my first book I wanted to steer away from that, because in a way, although its his experience that sparked my interest in the murky world of espionage, what I wanted to convey is the level of emotional dishonesty involved and that you can never truly trust people around you, or expect to be trusted, in that world, she said. In 1949 Philby was appointed first secretary to the British Embassy in Washington and served as chief British liaison with American intelligence agencies. Please try again later. Philby had to help discover the identity of "Homer" but also wished to protect Maclean. Kim Philby. At the same time, Burgess was trying to get her into MI6. She told a BBC documentary: He was just dad. Because of him, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of British agents in Eastern Europe were imprisoned, tortured and shot. It is possible that it was a Viennese-born friend of Friedmann's in London, Edith Tudor Hart herself, at this time, a Soviet agent who first approached Philby about the possibility of working for Soviet intelligence. By 1945, Philby was head of counterespionage for MI6. [74], Upon his arrival in Moscow in January 1963, Philby discovered that he was not a colonel in the KGB, as he had been led to believe. After Philby defected to the Soviet Union in 1963, Eleanor visited him in Moscow. He didnt care what others thought and he would never be made to feel ashamed. In 1963, Philby was revealed to be a member of the spy ring now known as the Cambridge Five, the other members of which were Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess . A journalist who popped round to see him the day after the news of Blake's sentence broke remembered him 'looking terrible, nursing a hangover and incoherent. But increasingly he was cold towards his wife and she was frustrated with him. 1962 George Blake is caught. He was very good when he was around. In a 1981 lecture to the East German security service (the Stasi), Philby attributed the failure of the British Secret Service to unmask him as due in great part to the British class systemit was inconceivable that one "born into the ruling class of the British Empire" would be a traitorto the amateurish and incompetent nature of the organisation, and to so many in MI6 having so much to lose if he was proven to be a spy. Over the decades, until Kims death in 1988, my dad went back and forth, travelling with Kim and his KGB minders and pals. And point-to-point journalism? Philby spent the 1930s working on Anglo-German relations, trying to infiltrate the upper echelons of German society, but his attempts mostly failed. MI5missed early chance to expose Soviet agent Kim Philby, files reveal, Charlotte Philby: We visited Kim in Moscow, Love and Deception: Philby in Beirut by James Hanning review the spy who loved, maybe, ASplinter of Ice review Graham Greene and Kim Philby clink glasses, Graham Greenes showdown with Soviet spy Kim Philby: A Splinter of Ice review, KimPhilby: new revelations about spy emerge in secret files, George Blake exemplified the desolation, waste and treachery of the cold war, Moscow names square after British double agent Kim Philby. [25][26] Philby and Burgess ran a training course for would-be saboteurs at Brickendonbury Manor in Hertfordshire. Starring Guy Pearce as Philby and Damian Lewis as Elliott, "A Spy Among . His family talk about one of the Cold War's worst acts of treachery. [citation needed], The SIS planned to interrogate Maclean on 28 May 1951. She says she struggled to get him to talk, recalling how he was polite but totally noncommittal. In a family letter, never shared publicly before, the defector wrote from Moscow in the year his granddaughter was born. I started going to Garthorpe at about the same time. But for intelligence history aficionados it marked the 50th anniversary of the escape to Moscow of notorious double spy Harold Adrian Russell Philby. There is so much speculation still about why he did it and what side was he really on. His old-world solicitousness and flattering attentions struck a chord with her. She was later sent to a Swiss clinic for treatment. Austin: Our first 4th generation 3 time winner; taking Tago in 12, 13 and 16. We need it desperately." She reverted to her teenage habit of self-harming. Philby became a Communist while studying at Cambridge. Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 1912 - 11 May 1988) was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a double agent before defecting to the Soviet Union in 1963. By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org | The Americans, though, refused to trust him and he lost his job in Washington. MyHeritage Family Trees View all records MyHeritage Family Trees Tommy Philby Tommy Philby married Unknown. You can give that to the International Organisation for Aid for Revolutionaries. Documentary on the events behind the escape of one of Britain . Kim Philby was the senior officer of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in Washington in the early 1950s, working with the CIA and FBI, when ordered to investigate Donald Maclean, another double agent who had been passing British secrets to the Soviets. The drinking got worse. Philby was a 19-year-old art student when his father was exposed in 1963 as a traitor. But for author. He also helped recruit a network of like-minded subversives, a whole nest of spies at the heart of the British Establishment. Would he be kidnapped or even killed? [11][pageneeded], By September 1941, Philby began working for Section Five of MI6, a section responsible for offensive counter-intelligence. With a wife and family to support, he struggled for some years to find a new job. [57] This retraction came about when Philby was officially cleared by Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan on 7 November. [70] However, others maintain that he escaped through Syria, overland to Soviet Armenia and thence to Russia. Were working to restore it. [72] On 30 July, Soviet officials announced that they had granted him political asylum in the USSR, along with Soviet citizenship. Eleanor's friend Susan Griggs remembers lunches at which the Philbys were 'falling-down drunk by the time they went home for their afternoon nap. She was a horsey product of the. Some man in the shadows. In his early teens, he spent some time with the Bedouin in the desert of Saudi Arabia. The difference between the two concepts is important, as the information position of the two categories is rather different. The first was ignored as a provocation, but the second, when this was confirmed by the Russo-German journalist and spy in Tokyo, Richard Sorge, contributed to Stalin's decision to begin transporting troops from the Far East in time for the counteroffensive around Moscow. She decided to forego supper and go home, but there was no sign of him. In 1946, Philby arranged a divorce from Litzi. Chiefly he thought about generalizing its operation . She made some calculations and announced, "That will leave you an excess of 25. 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