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Kim Philby

Harold Adrian Russell 'Kim' Philby (1912 - May 11, 1988) was an employee of British intelligence and a Soviet spy.

He was member of the spy ring known as the Cambridge Five, along with Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross. Philby was nicknamed Kim after a fictional spy.

Born in Ambala, India the son of the British diplomat, explorer, author, Arabist and converted Muslim Harry St. John Philby, at one time an adviser to King Ibn Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia.

After leaving Westminster School in 1928, Philby went on to Trinity College, Cambridge. While a student there Philby was introduced to, and came to admire, the ideals of Communism. He was not exactly 'recruited' as a spy - he volunteered. He asked one of his tutors, Maurice Dobb, how he could serve the Communist movement. Dobb passed him on (possibly not knowing what it would lead to) to a Communist front organisation, which passed him on to the Comintern underground in Vienna. He was recruited by the Soviet intelligence service itself (at that time known as the OGPU) on the strength of his work for the Comintern.

After working as a journalist Philby was recruited into the British Secret Intelligence Service (the so-called M.I.6) in 1940, later joining SOE and coming into contact with OSS agents.

After the war Philby went first to Istanbul. He later became first secretary at the British embassy in Washington. He returned to Britain in 1950 and in 1951 managed to tip off Burgess and Maclean to an internal British intelligence probe, this warning allowed them time to escape to the Soviet Union. He was not uncovered until 1963 (with the defection of Anatoli Golytsin) but Philby also escaped to the Soviet Union before any arrest could be made.

He died in 1988 and was given a hero's funeral by the Soviet government.

Tim Powers based the book Declare on his unusual life story, providing a supernatural explanation for his behavior ("Tradecraft meets Lovecraft").

Chronology of Philby's career

References