Maclean was unsure how to act, feeling a mixture of guilt and love, not knowing where he stood with the children he had abandoned and not been able to contact. Harry St John Bridger Philby Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) (3 April 1885, Badulla, British Ceylon - 30 September 1960, Beirut, Lebanon), also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah ( ), was a British Arabist, adviser, explorer, writer, and colonial office intelligence officer. He had got afraid that I would leave, and hidden the boot.". Harry St John Philby on his 1917 trek across the Arabian Peninsula, which he recorded in his 1922 book 'Heart of Arabia'. J. Edgar Hoover complained that Burgess used British Embassy automobiles to avoid arrest when he cruised Washington in pursuit of homosexual encounters. Maclean accused Philby of being a double agent working for the British and they stopped speaking. Garbo/Pujol of WW II fame was a double agent, i.e. They had already been down to the Embassy but being unable to work had come back". For most of us, January 23, 2013, was a day like any other. 4 Comments. Guarded night and day by KGB troops, and rigorously de-briefed to make sure they were not double agents, to all intents and purposes they were under house arrest. However, when Elliott asked him to sign a written statement, he hesitated and requested a delay in the interrogation. Birthdate: circa 1922. Philby was only an agent of one service, the KGB. regarding his possible Soviet affiliations continued. (LogOut/ Hed been worried about leaving her and their children to carry on without him, but shed given him the all-clear to go. Volkov had insisted that all written communications about him take place by bag rather than by telegraph, causing a delay in reaction that might plausibly have given the Soviets time to uncover his plans. , updated [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". "[69] Prompted by Elliott's accusations, Philby confirmed the charges of espionage and described his intelligence activities on behalf of the Soviets. [66] She recalled returning home to Beirut from a sight-seeing trip in Jordan to find Philby "hopelessly drunk and incoherent with grief on the terrace of the flat," mourning the death of a little pet fox which had fallen from the balcony. He used a simpler system for MI6, delivering post at Hendaye, France, for the British embassy in Paris. Krivitsky claimed that two Soviet intelligence agents had penetrated the Foreign Office and that a third Soviet intelligence agent had worked as a journalist for a British newspaper during the civil war in Spain. "[59] Following this, Philby gave a press conference in whichcalmly, confidently, and without the stammer he had struggled with since childhoodhe reiterated his innocence, declaring, "I have never been a communist. he was an agent of two services, namely MI5 and the Abwehr. [50] Burgess was sent back to England, where he met Maclean in his London club. 894646. He later wrote "she had got a tantalising scrap of information about a young English journalist whom the Soviet intelligence had sent to Spain during the Civil War. She cashed a substantial cheque, bought her toddler daughter some new clothes and settled an outstanding garage bill. They went to live with an aunt and uncle, and saw little of his father. Aileen Philby had suffered since childhood from psychological problems which caused her to inflict injuries upon herself. We got together in our cabin to discuss our plans. The double spys fourth wife and widow, Rufina Philby, told the paper that her British husband, whom she married in 1971, eight years after his defection, was disappointed about some of what he saw in the USSR. She asked, "Could the SIS really be such fools they failed to notice suitcase-loads of papers leaving the office? They travelled together in Spain through August 1939. LONDON Kim Philby, called the "spy of the century" because of his work for the Soviet Union while a senior officer in British intelligence, died Wednesday in Moscow, the Foreign Office said. Another effort was made using a Turkish gulet for a seaborne landing, but it never left port. Years after the war, Sir Hardy Amies, who had served as an intelligence officer during the war, recalled that Philby was in his mess and on being asked what the infamous spy was like, Hardy quipped, "He was always trying to get information out of memost significantly the name of my tailor". After leaving Cambridge, Philby worked as a journalist, covering the Spanish Civil War and the Battle of France. And he kept his word to the end." Nonetheless, the information was publicized in 1967 when Philby granted an interview to Murray Sayle of The Times in Moscow. Philby's work led to the deaths of dozens of British agents, making him a reviled traitor once he was exposed in Britain. [85], Philby found work in the early 1970s in the KGB's Active Measures Department churning out fabricated documents. Philby was given the task of dealing with Volkov by British intelligence. The photographs depict many of the protagonists in this political and military struggle, including Colonel T.E. Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby ORB, OL ODN (1 January 1912 11 May 1988)[1] was a British intelligence officer and a double agent for the Soviet Union. He got himself a job teaching English in a school. Barclay reported the complaint to London. A more serious threat to Philby's position had come to light. [43][pageneeded] Clearly there had been leaks and Philby was later suspected as one of the leakers. As a result of this accident, Philby, who was well-liked by the Nationalist forces whose victories he trumpeted, was awarded the Red Cross of Military Merit by Franco on 2 March 1938. He is widely considered historys most successful double spy. Philbys defection sent ripples of shock across Western intelligence and is often described as one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War. The next day she notified the British Consul in Geneva. Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE (3 April 1885 - 30 September 1960), also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah ( Arabic: ), was a British Arabist, adviser, explorer, writer, and a colonial intelligence officer who served as an advisor to King Abdulaziz al-Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia . This role allowed him to conduct sabotage and instruct agents on how to properly conduct sabotage. And here she was plunked down in my midst! Philby was posted to the United States the following year, and Burgess, who was second secretary at the British Embassy, lodged with the Philbys at their ramshackle house in Washington. He was implicated in a similar campaign in Albania. I dont accept Philbys excuses. After all, they won the war.'". He told the paper that Kim eventually came to think that it was all wrong, implying that Philby grew disillusioned with the Soviet system. After the magazine's owner changed the paper's role to covering Anglo-German trade, Philby engaged in a concerted effort to make contact with Germans such as Joachim von Ribbentrop, at that time the German ambassador in London. Solomon went to work for the British retailer Marks & Spencer. He fell for her the moment he met her among the bohemian set he socialised with in Paris, where he was a British diplomat. Years later, Philby snr told his son that Burgess had kept his standard-issue KGB revolver and camera hidden under the boy's bed. He was given a hero's funeral, and posthumously awarded numerous medals [87] by the Soviets: Order of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner, Order of Friendship of Peoples, Order of the Great Patriotic War, Lenin Medal and Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 19411945". [citation needed], The SIS planned to interrogate Maclean on 28 May 1951. [83] Philby claimed publicly in January 1988 that he did not regret his decisions and that he missed nothing about England except some friends, Colman's mustard and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce. Harry George Philby Birth. In the capital, he became a magazine correspondent, then a teacher and analyst in a research institute for foreign and economic affairs. 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. When Jane Archer (who had interviewed Krivitsky) was appointed to Philby's section he moved her off investigatory work in case she became aware of his past. I think that he was of Czech origin; about 5ft 7in, stout, with blue eyes and light curly hair. Philby replied that none had been sent and that none was undergoing training at that time. The intercepted messages revealed that the British Embassy source (identified as "Homer") travelled to New York City to meet his Soviet contact twice a week. 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. There, a porter recalled taking their luggage to a waiting car with Salzburg number plates which drove off towards Vienna. He was tall and fair; she was slight with curly, dark hair. [84] Despite reports to the contrary, Philby's wife claimed in a 1997 interview that the idea of Philby becoming depressed and destitute in Moscow was "a myth". Eventually, Tommy visited Kim five times in Moscow in the 1970s. [4][5], Nicknamed "Kim" after the boy-spy in Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim,[3] Philby attended Aldro preparatory school, an all-boys school located in Shackleford near Godalming in Surrey, England, United Kingdom. Aileen Philby resented him and disliked his presence; Americans were offended by his "natural superciliousness" and "utter contempt for the whole pyramid of values, attitudes, and courtesies of the American way of life". When he was instructed to remove and replace his boss, Felix Cowgill, he asked if it was proposed "to shoot him or something", but was told to use bureaucratic intrigue. His mother resented Burgess and his close relationship with her husband, and began staging accidents to claim attention; she reported being mugged in her car; on another occasion she set fire to the living room, suffering serious burns. But for intelligence history aficionados it marked the 50th anniversary of the escape to Moscow of notorious double spy Harold Adrian Russell Philby. He drank to excess, hit her, and often disappeared. He was a sad traitor. Modrzhinskaya concluded that all were double agents, working essentially for the British. After Donald Maclean fled to Moscow to escape arrest in Britain as the spy who, for 15 years, had passed state secrets to the Soviet Union, friends of his wife, Melinda, found it easy to believe that she knew nothing of her husbands treachery. [11][pageneeded], In February 1937, Philby travelled to Seville, Spain, then embroiled in a bloody civil war triggered by the coup d'tat of Falangist forces under General Francisco Franco against the democratic government of President Manuel Azaa. Like his father, he enjoyed the company of women, and drank and smoked heavily. He and his sister Josephine were flown to Moscow by the Russians for his father's funeral in 1988. Stewart Menzies, head of SIS, disliked the idea, which was promoted by former SOE men now in SIS. When he died, in 1988, he was buried with honors by the Soviet authorities. Volkov's defection had been discussed with the British Embassy in Ankara on telephones which turned out to have been tapped by Soviet intelligence. Pierre-Charles Path. Maclean seemed totally at one with Soviet ways and believed to his death that the USSR and its new society has a much better prospect than the old of overcoming the major ills and injustices of our civilisation. Kim Philby attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where, in the early 1930s, with Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and others, he espoused communism. Alasdair Soussi. On 25 October 1955, following revelations in The New York Times, Labour MP Marcus Lipton used parliamentary privilege to ask Prime Minister Anthony Eden if he was determined "to cover up at all costs the dubious third man activities of Mr Harold Philby"[57] This was reported in the British press, leading Philby to threaten legal action against Lipton if he repeated his accusations outside Parliament. [9][pageneeded]. It was a miracle. [61], It is unclear whether Philby had been alerted, but Eleanor noted that as 1962 wore on, expressions of tension in his life "became worse and were reflected in bouts of deep depression and drinking". The news that Philby, a former MI6 officer, had been spying for the Russians since 1933 sounded an alarm in Whitehall. "[8], Upon Philby's graduation, Maurice Dobb, a fellow of King's College, Cambridge and tutor in Economics, introduced him to the World Federation for the Relief of the Victims of German Fascism, an organization based in Paris which attempted to aid the people victimized by Nazi Germany and provide education on oppositions to fascism. Then, of course, there was Kim Philby's own children. He was recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1934. [3], Secret files released to the National Archives in late 2020 indicated that the UK government had intentionally conducted a campaign to keep Philby's spying confidential "to minimise political embarrassment" and prevent the publication of his memoirs, according to a report by The Guardian. by Ian Allen Change). I discovered much later from a photograph in MI5 files that the name he went by was Arnold Deutsch. While working as a senior member of British intelligence, he spied on behalf of the Soviet NKVD and KGB from the early 1930s until his defection. [20] However, such an act was never a real possibility; upon debriefing Philby in London on 24 May 1937, Maly wrote to the NKVD, "Though devoted and ready to sacrifice himself, [Philby] does not possess the physical courage and other qualities necessary for this [assassination] attempt."[20]. Philby had to help discover the identity of "Homer" but also wished to protect Maclean. Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. From April 1950, Maclean had been the prime suspect in the investigation into the Embassy leak. (LogOut/ He briefly reported from Cherbourg and Brest, sailing for Plymouth less than 24 hours before France surrendered to Germany in June 1940. In February 1947, Philby was appointed head of British intelligence for Turkey, and posted to Istanbul with his second wife, Aileen, and their family. This mistake made it possible to break the normally impregnable code. [11][pageneeded], A more serious incident occurred in August 1945, when Konstantin Volkov, an NKVD agent and vice-consul in Istanbul, requested political asylum in Britain for himself and his wife. When he died, in 1988, he was buried with honors by the Soviet authorities. He trained Albanian commandossome of whom were former Nazi collaboratorsin Libya or Malta. Johnson was killed outright, and Neil and Sheepshanks soon died of their injuries. On 23 May, concerned that Maclean had not yet fled, Philby wired Burgess, ostensibly about his Lincoln convertible abandoned in the Embassy car park. Given all that Melinda had gone through, the pity she had had to accept and the dissembling she had had to practise, that first meeting overseen by Soviet officials was a strained affair. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. During his career as an intelligence officer, he passed large amounts of intelligence to the Soviet Union, including a plot to subvert the communist regime of Albania. OX2 6JF 1 Reference code: GB165-0229 Title: Harry St John Philby Collection Name of creator: Philby, Harry St John Bridger (1885-1960) Explorer and Orientalist Dates of creation of material: c1902-1957 Level of description: Fonds Extent: 89 boxes Biographical history: PHILBY, Harry St John Bridger (1885-1960) 23. That summer, friends thought her distracted. [79]Mikhail Lyubimov, his closest KGB contact, explained that this was to guard his safety, but later admitted that the real reason was the KGB's fear that Philby would return to London. After leaving Cambridge, Philby worked as a journalist, covering the Spanish Civil War and the Battle of France. "But he never got aggressive, and just went to bed. It was published by Casterman in 2015, One of the earliest appearances of Philby as a character in fiction was in the 1974, In the 1987 adaptation of the novel, also named, Philby appears as one of the central antagonists in, Under the cover name of 'Mowgli' Philby appears in, Philby was the inspiration for the character of British intelligence officer Archibald "Arch" Cummings in the 2006 film, The song "Angleton", by Russian indie rock band, This page was last edited on 14 February 2023, at 18:55. Born in Rotterdam, George was the son of Albert Behar, a Turkish-born Sephardic Jew, and his wife, Catherine (nee Beijderwellen), a Dutch Protestant. Biografi [ redigera | redigera wikitext] Philby var son till arabisten St. John Philby. Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby, fdd 1 januari 1912 i Ambala, Provinsen Punjab, Brittiska Indien, dd 11 maj 1988 i Moskva, Sovjetunionen, var en brittisk stor spion och dubbelagent samt verste inom KGB . Melinda translated Russian stories into English for the weekly English paper, Moscow News. When they had not returned on the Sunday night, her mother was frantic. It was ten years before he was given a minor role in the training of KGB recruits. But it was resumed a few months later, when he received a letter from his father in Moscow. BROWN:: St. John Philby was born in Ceylon, then a part of the British Empire, very typically English ruling-class family, military background, senior military appointments and one of the colonists who went out to build the coffee industry in Ceylon at the turn of the century.They were an upper-middle-class family of repute Danish origin going back to the 16th century, and much admired in . Eleanor found Melinda amusing but nervous and highly strung and yearning for the luxuries of Western capitalism. Journalist Ben Macintyre, author of several works on espionage, speculated that MI6 might have left open the opportunity for Philby to flee to Moscow to avoid an embarrassing public trial. But as the months turned into years and no word came from him, she sank into depression at the realisation that she was now bringing up their children alone. When the news broke in Britain that she, too, had defected, the Press rounded on Melinda, turning the pathetic and lonely figure theyd previously portrayed her as into a scheming deceiver. Harold Adrian Russell Philby, ; 1 1912, , 11 1988, ) . No connection with Philby was made at the time, and Krivitsky was found shot in a Washington hotel room the following year. "[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". [67] When Nicholas Elliott met Philby in late 1962, the first time since Golitsyn's defection, he found Philby too drunk to stand and with a bandaged head; he had fallen repeatedly and cracked his skull on a bathroom radiator, requiring stitches. He said that at the time of his recruitment as a spy there were no prospects of his being useful; he was instructed to make his way into the Secret Service, which took years, starting with journalism and building up contacts in the establishment. [58] Golitsyn proceeded to confirm White's suspicions about Philby's role. [5] He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history and economics. [25][26] Philby and Burgess ran a training course for would-be saboteurs at Brickendonbury Manor in Hertfordshire. She would be his silent witness for all the difficult years ahead. He did a lot with us., Philby was sent to Beirut in 1956 to work for The Observer, leaving his children in London, after being. Then she drove off with the children. Donald is well and happy to be with his family again. Speaking on the anniversary of his late fathers defection, he described him as a very kind man and a very good father, who had his belief [in] communism [and] carried it out. 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