Kim Philby The Spy Who Stayed in the Shadows

The British spy who worked for Moscow and never confessed.

Harold Adrian Russell Philby was an unknown face for many years. He hid in the shadows, spying for the Russians. He described himself as being born into “the ruling class of the British Empire.”

Nicknamed Kim after a spy character in a Kipling novel, he attended Cambridge University between 1929 and 1933. It was here that he was first drawn towards communism.

He was not the only young person who was drawn to the regime in the 1930s; the Soviet Union recruited up to forty Cambridge University students as spies. These agents spied on both Britain and America.

Recruitment

At Cambridge, Philby became friends with Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess. All three would go on to become assets for the Soviet Union. They shared the collective title of the Cambridge Three and had a mutual interest in Marxism.

Philby had no job and no prospects, but the Soviet intelligence service, later known as the KGB, saw his potential and recruited him. They were prepared to play the waiting game; the results would not be immediate, but they would come.

The KGB believed that he would be a good asset as he had the potential to work for the British Secret Service. Philby left Cambridge as a spy, where he married Alice “Litzi” Friedman, a communist, in her native Vienna.

Penetrating the Establishment

The first job that Philby took on to begin his cover was journalism. He worked for The Times newspaper and was sent to report on the Spanish Civil War in 1936, where he posed as a Fascist.

This assignment helped him build up contacts within the establishment. As war came, he began dropping hints about his desire to work for the government. It wasn’t long before he was interviewed and accepted into the Secret Intelligence Service, which later became known as MI6. He was working in the inner sanctum of the British state.

The KGB’s faith in him started to pay off. Out of the many recruits, very few reached a level where they could secure both British and American secrets at the highest level of government.

Amongst the secrets that they shared was information about U.S. counterespionage efforts, including plans for atomic bomb production and military strategies during the Korean War.

MI6 was oblivious to this deceit, awarding Philby an OBE in 1945 for his intelligence work during the war.

Methods of Stealing Secrets

Philby has since detailed how easy it was to steal secrets from Britain’s secret service. He made friends with the archivist who managed the files, by going out two or three times a week for a drink with him. This allowed Philby to get hold of files which had nothing to do with his job.

He had a clear routine for this work. In the evening, he would leave his office with a big briefcase full of reports, files, and documents from the archive. He would then hand them to his Soviet contact. The next morning, he would get the contents back and return them. The documents had been photographed and sent on to the KGB.

He stated, “That I did this regularly year in year out.”

Ironically, at the same time, MI6 promoted him to number two in a new sector devoted to countering Soviet espionage. His KGB handler instructed him to try to get the top job by removing his boss, Felix Cowgill. Philby stated,, “So I set about the business of removing my own chief. It was a very dirty story.”

Betrayal and Rationalisation

Philby was not only sharing British secrets; while posted in Washington DC, he would liaise with both the CIA and FBI, betraying a secret operation to send thousands of Albanians back into their country to overthrow the communist regime. Many were killed.

He rationalised his betrayal of the Albania operation, saying that if he had not compromised it and it had succeeded, the CIA and MI6 would have tried it again in countries like Bulgaria. He argued the Soviet Union would then have become involved, leading to an all-out war. He rationalised that his behaviour had prevented World War III.

Philby also used his position to report on others who were spying. In his partial confession shortly before his defection, he stated that he betrayed Konstantin Volkov, a KGB officer who tried to defect to the West with details of traitors in British intelligence. Volkov was abducted, taken back to Moscow, and executed.

Philby also stated that he tipped off Cambridge friend Maclean, saying, “The least thing I could do was to get him off the hook.”

Exposure, Denial, and The Class System

Philby was finally exposed when his fellow Cambridge spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean fled to Moscow while he was in Washington. This defection led to suspicions that Philby may be involved.

Twice during his MI6 career, Philby came close to being discovered when defecting Soviet intelligence officers hinted that a high-ranking official had been an agent since the 1930s. He evaded full-scale incrimination for more than 30 years, largely because many officials refused to believe the spiralling evidence against him.

Philby gave this as one of the reasons he got away with his espionage for so long. The other fact he said helped him was that so many in MI6 had so much to lose if it was proved he was a spy.

He officially left MI6 but was re-employed. During the 1950s and early 1960s, he denied being a Soviet agent while working for MI6. He became an agent based in Beirut under the cover of being a newspaper journalist, which allowed him to resume his spying.

The Final Escape

In 1963, while in Beirut, a colleague confronted him with new evidence of his work with the Soviets. Philby bluffed and stalled, but MI6 was not convinced.

It was during this time that Philby wrote his partial confession. He was offered immunity from prosecution if he cooperated. He allowed SIS officials to record his admissions for three days, though he was never taken into custody.

During this time an officer was left to watch over him. But, the officer was an avid skier. When news came that there had been a fresh snowfall, the officer headed off to the Lebanese mountains.

At that point, Philby got the signal from the KGB for his departure and was able to slip away. Despite being offered immunity, he fled to Moscow on 23 January 1963 aboard a Soviet ship. Even forgetting his reading glasses in his haste.

Philby became a Russian citizen, married a Russian woman, and, after his death on 11 May 1988, was buried with the honours of a KGB general. He died just before the collapse of the Communist ideal which he had spent his life serving.

During a speech to other spies, he praised his Soviet handler and advised his audience to take care of the political, as well as physical, health of any agents they run. Philby finished with one piece of advice that had served him well: never confess.

If they confront you with a document with your own handwriting then it’s a forgery - just deny everything… They interrogated me to break my nerve and force me to confess. And all I had to do really was keep my nerve. So my advice to you is to tell all your agents that they are never to confess.

Look out Monday for an in-depth look into the other members of the Cambridge Spy ring.

Until next Wednesday: Stay safe, stay curious, and beware the shadows of the past.