Son of the famous British Arabist Harry St. John Bridger Philby.
Biography
Shortly before his death, in 1988, Philby in his Moscow apartment gave an interview 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, the defector lived in an apartment that 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 to a new house, the KGB immediately recommended Philby's vacated home. “I immediately grabbed this apartment,” the scout said in his last interview. - Even though it is located in the center of Moscow, it is so quiet here, as if you were outside the city. The windows face east, west and southwest, so I catch the sun all day long.”
It is noted that Philby’s apartment, based on the possibility of his abduction by British intelligence services, was in the best location from a security point of view: travel to the house is difficult, the entrance itself and the approaches to it were easily visible and controlled. Philby's telephone number was not indicated in address books and lists of Moscow subscribers; correspondence came to him through a post office box at the Main Post Office.
Philip Knightley spoke about Philby’s last home: “From the large entrance hall, a corridor leads to the matrimonial bedroom, a guest bedroom, a dressing room, a bathroom, a kitchen and a large living room the width of almost the entire apartment. A spacious office is visible from the living room. The office contains a desk, a secretary, a couple of chairs and a huge refrigerator. A Turkish carpet and wool carpet cover the floor. Philby’s library, numbering 12 thousand volumes, is housed on bookshelves occupying three walls.”
Kim Philby died on May 11, 1988. He was buried at the new Kuntsevo cemetery.
Awards
- He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Patriotic War, 1st degree, Friendship of Peoples and medals, as well as the badge “Honorary State Security Officer.”
Rufina Pukhova
Rufina Ivanovna Pukhova(sometimes a double surname is indicated Pukhova-Philby, R. September 1, 1932, Moscow) - the fourth and last wife of the Soviet intelligence officer and member of the Cambridge Five, Kim Philby, and the author of memoirs about his life in Moscow. She was born from a Russian father and a Polish mother in Moscow in 1932. She worked as a proofreader and survived World War II and cancer. She married Kim Philby in 1971, having met him after he fled to the USSR, through George Blake, and lived with him until the latter's death in 1988 in an apartment near the Kievsky railway station and the Moskva River. These years were not easy - at first, my husband drank, and he also suffered from depression and disappointment with some Soviet realities. When Philby eventually died, his widow dismissed rumors of his suicide, insisting that he died from heart problems. In her memoirs, which were published after the death of her husband, she described the years spent in his company, his motives and hidden thoughts, and the texts also included previously unpublished autobiographical fragments written by Kim Philby himself.
Memoirs written by Rufina Ivanovna
- Island on the Sixth Floor(included in the collection about Kim Philby)
- The private life of Kim Philby: the Moscow years ( The Private Life of Kim Philby: The Moscow Years) (2000).
see also
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Notes
Literature
- Knightley F. Kim Philby is a 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. - (ZhZL Series) - M.: Young Guard, 2011.
Links
Excerpt characterizing Philby, Kim
“That’s why I asked,” Natasha whispered to her little brother and Pierre, whom she looked at again.“Ice cream, but they won’t give it to you,” said Marya Dmitrievna.
Natasha saw that there was nothing to be afraid of, and therefore she was not afraid of Marya Dmitrievna.
- Marya Dmitrievna? what ice cream! I don't like cream.
- Carrot.
- No, which one? Marya Dmitrievna, which one? – she almost screamed. - I want to know!
Marya Dmitrievna and the Countess laughed, and all the guests followed them. Everyone laughed not at Marya Dmitrievna’s answer, but at the incomprehensible courage and dexterity of this girl, who knew how and dared to treat Marya Dmitrievna like that.
Natasha fell behind only when she was told that there would be pineapple. Champagne was served before the ice cream. The music started playing again, the count kissed the countess, and the guests stood up and congratulated the countess, clinking glasses across the table with the count, the children, and each other. Waiters ran in again, chairs rattled, and in the same order, but with redder faces, the guests returned to the drawing room and the count's office.
The Boston tables were moved apart, the parties were drawn up, and the Count's guests settled in two living rooms, a sofa room and a library.
The Count, fanning out his cards, could hardly resist the habit of an afternoon nap and laughed at everything. The youth, incited by the countess, gathered around the clavichord and harp. Julie was the first, at the request of everyone, to play a piece with variations on the harp and, together with other girls, began to ask Natasha and Nikolai, known for their musicality, to sing something. Natasha, who was addressed as a big girl, was apparently very proud of this, but at the same time she was timid.
- What are we going to sing? – she asked.
“The key,” answered Nikolai.
- Well, let's hurry up. Boris, come here,” Natasha said. - Where is Sonya?
She looked around and, seeing that her friend was not in the room, ran after her.
Running into Sonya’s room and not finding her friend there, Natasha ran into the nursery - and Sonya was not there. Natasha realized that Sonya was in the corridor on the chest. The chest in the corridor was the place of sorrows of the younger female generation of the Rostov house. Indeed, Sonya in her airy pink dress, crushing it, lay face down on her nanny’s dirty striped feather bed, on the chest and, covering her face with her fingers, cried bitterly, shaking her bare shoulders. Natasha's face, animated, with a birthday all day, suddenly changed: her eyes stopped, then her wide neck shuddered, the corners of her lips drooped.
- Sonya! what are you?... What, what's wrong with you? Wow wow!…
And Natasha, opening her big mouth and becoming completely stupid, began to roar like a child, not knowing the reason and only because Sonya was crying. Sonya wanted to raise her head, wanted to answer, but she couldn’t and hid even more. Natasha cried, sitting down on the blue feather bed and hugging her friend. Having gathered her strength, Sonya stood up, began to wipe away her tears and tell the story.
- Nikolenka is leaving in a week, his... paper... came out... he told me himself... Yes, I still wouldn’t cry... (she showed the piece of paper she was holding in her hand: it was poetry written by Nikolai) I still wouldn’t cry, but you didn’t you can... no one can understand... what kind of soul he has.
And she again began to cry because his soul was so good.
“You feel good... I don’t envy you... I love you, and Boris too,” she said, gathering a little strength, “he’s cute... there are no obstacles for you.” And Nikolai is my cousin... I need... the metropolitan himself... and that’s impossible. And then, if mamma... (Sonya considered the countess and called her mother), she will say that I am ruining Nikolai’s career, I have no heart, that I am ungrateful, but really... for God’s sake... (she crossed herself) I love her so much too , and all of you, only Vera... For what? What did I do to her? I am so grateful to you that I would be glad to sacrifice everything, but I have nothing...
Sonya could no longer speak and again hid her head in her hands and the feather bed. Natasha began to calm down, but her face showed that she understood the importance of her friend’s grief.
- Sonya! - she said suddenly, as if she had guessed the real reason for her cousin’s grief. – That’s right, Vera talked to you after dinner? Yes?
– Yes, Nikolai himself wrote these poems, and I copied others; She found them on my table and said that she would show them to mamma, and also said that I was ungrateful, that mamma would never allow him to marry me, and he would marry Julie. You see how he is with her all day... Natasha! For what?…
And again she cried more bitterly than before. Natasha lifted her up, hugged her and, smiling through her tears, began to calm her down.
- Sonya, don’t believe her, darling, don’t believe her. Do you remember how all three of us talked with Nikolenka in the sofa room; remember after dinner? After all, we decided everything how it would be. I don’t remember how, but you remember how everything was good and everything was possible. Uncle Shinshin’s brother is married to a cousin, and we are second cousins. And Boris said that this is very possible. You know, I told him everything. And he is so smart and so good,” Natasha said... “You, Sonya, don’t cry, my dear darling, Sonya.” - And she kissed her, laughing. - Faith is evil, God bless her! But everything will be fine, and she won’t tell mamma; Nikolenka will say it himself, and he didn’t even think about Julie.
And she kissed her on the head. Sonya stood up, and the kitten perked up, his eyes sparkled, and he seemed ready to wave his tail, jump on his soft paws and play with the ball again, as was proper for him.
- You think? Right? By God? – she said, quickly straightening her dress and hair.
- Really, by God! – Natasha answered, straightening a stray strand of coarse hair under her friend’s braid.
And they both laughed.
- Well, let's go sing "The Key."
- Let's go to.
“You know, this fat Pierre who was sitting opposite me is so funny!” – Natasha suddenly said, stopping. - I'm having a lot of fun!
And Natasha ran down the corridor.
Sonya, shaking off the fluff and hiding the poems in her bosom, to her neck with protruding chest bones, with light, cheerful steps, with a flushed face, ran after Natasha along the corridor to the sofa. At the request of the guests, the young people sang the “Key” quartet, which everyone really liked; then Nikolai sang the song he had learned again.
On a pleasant night, in the moonlight,
Imagine yourself happily
That there is still someone in the world,
Who thinks about you too!
As she, with her beautiful hand,
Walking along the golden harp,
With its passionate harmony
Calling to itself, calling you!
Another day or two, and heaven will come...
But ah! your friend won't live!
And he had not yet finished singing the last words when the young people in the hall were preparing to dance and the musicians in the choir began to knock their feet and cough.
Pierre was sitting in the living room, where Shinshin, as if with a visitor from abroad, began a political conversation with him that was boring for Pierre, to which others joined. When the music started playing, Natasha entered the living room and, going straight to Pierre, laughing and blushing, said:
- Mom told me to ask you to dance.
“I’m afraid of confusing the figures,” said Pierre, “but if you want to be my teacher...”
And he offered his thick hand, lowering it low, to the thin girl.
While the couples were settling down and the musicians were lining up, Pierre sat down with his little lady. Natasha was completely happy; she danced with a big one, with someone who came from abroad. She sat in front of everyone and talked to him like a big girl. She had a fan in her hand, which one young lady had given her to hold. And, assuming the most secular pose (God knows where and when she learned this), she, fanning herself and smiling through the fan, spoke to her gentleman.
- What is it, what is it? Look, look,” said the old countess, passing through the hall and pointing at Natasha.
Natasha blushed and laughed.
- Well, what about you, mom? Well, what kind of hunt are you looking for? What's surprising here?
In the middle of the third eco-session, the chairs in the living room, where the count and Marya Dmitrievna were playing, began to move, and most of the honored guests and old people, stretching after a long sitting and putting wallets and purses in their pockets, walked out the doors of the hall. Marya Dmitrievna walked ahead with the count - both with cheerful faces. The Count, with playful politeness, like a ballet, offered his rounded hand to Marya Dmitrievna. He straightened up, and his face lit up with a particularly brave, sly smile, and as soon as the last figure of the ecosaise was danced, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted to the choir, addressing the first violin:
- Semyon! Do you know Danila Kupor?
This was the count's favorite dance, danced by him in his youth. (Danilo Kupor was actually one figure of the Angles.)
“Look at dad,” Natasha shouted to the whole hall (completely forgetting that she was dancing with a big one), bending her curly head to her knees and bursting into her ringing laughter throughout the hall.
Indeed, everyone in the hall looked with a smile of joy at the cheerful old man, who, next to his dignified lady, Marya Dmitrievna, who was taller than him, rounded his arms, shaking them in time, straightened his shoulders, twisted his legs, slightly stamping his feet, and with a more and more blooming smile on his round face, he prepared the audience for what was to come. As soon as the cheerful, defiant sounds of Danila Kupor, similar to a cheerful chatterbox, were heard, all the doors of the hall were suddenly filled with men's faces on one side and women's smiling faces of servants on the other, who came out to look at the merry master.
- Father is ours! Eagle! – the nanny said loudly from one door.
The count danced well and knew it, but his lady did not know how and did not want to dance well. Her huge body stood upright with her powerful arms hanging down (she handed the reticule to the Countess); only her stern but beautiful face danced. What was expressed in the count's entire round figure, in Marya Dmitrievna was expressed only in an increasingly smiling face and a twitching nose. But if the count, becoming more and more dissatisfied, captivated the audience with the surprise of deft twists and light jumps of his soft legs, Marya Dmitrievna, with the slightest zeal in moving her shoulders or rounding her arms in turns and stamping, made no less an impression on merit, which everyone appreciated her obesity and ever-present severity. The dance became more and more animated. The counterparts could not attract attention to themselves for a minute and did not even try to do so. Everything was occupied by the count and Marya Dmitrievna. Natasha pulled the sleeves and dresses of all those present, who were already keeping their eyes on the dancers, and demanded that they look at daddy. During the intervals of the dance, the Count took a deep breath, waved and shouted to the musicians to play quickly. Quicker, quicker and quicker, faster and faster and faster, the count unfolded, now on tiptoes, now on heels, rushing around Marya Dmitrievna and, finally, turning his lady to her place, made the last step, raising his soft leg up from behind, bending his sweaty head with a smiling face and roundly waving his right hand amid the roar of applause and laughter, especially from Natasha. Both dancers stopped, panting heavily and wiping themselves with cambric handkerchiefs.
“This is how they danced in our time, ma chere,” said the count.
- Oh yes Danila Kupor! - Marya Dmitrievna said, letting out the spirit heavily and for a long time, rolling up her sleeves.
While the Rostovs were dancing the sixth anglaise in the hall to the sounds of tired musicians out of tune, and tired waiters and cooks were preparing dinner, the sixth blow struck Count Bezukhy. The doctors declared that there was no hope of recovery; the patient was given silent confession and communion; they were making preparations for the unction, and in the house there was the bustle and anxiety of expectation, common at such moments. Outside the house, behind the gates, undertakers crowded, hiding from the approaching carriages, awaiting a rich order for the count's funeral. The Commander-in-Chief of Moscow, who constantly sent adjutants to inquire about the Count’s position, that evening himself came to say goodbye to the famous Catherine’s nobleman, Count Bezukhim.
The magnificent reception room was full. Everyone stood up respectfully when the commander-in-chief, having been alone with the patient for about half an hour, came out of there, slightly returning the bows and trying as quickly as possible to pass by the gazes of doctors, clergy and relatives fixed on him. Prince Vasily, who had lost weight and turned pale during these days, saw off the commander-in-chief and quietly repeated something to him several times.
Having seen off the commander-in-chief, Prince Vasily sat down alone on a chair in the hall, crossing his legs high, resting his elbow on his knee and closing his eyes with his hand. After sitting like this for some time, he stood up and with unusually hasty steps, looking around with frightened eyes, walked through the long corridor to the back half of the house, to the eldest princess.
LONDON — He died with a bottle of cognac, not Russian vodka, in his hand. He drank to forget his great disappointment, to ignore the failures of Soviet communism, and in the end with the tenacity of a man who wants to die. Kim Philby, the most famous British agent to defect to the Soviet Union, the inspiration for novels, films and furious recriminations between the West and Moscow, painfully asked his wife: “Why are people living so poorly here? In the end, the Soviet people won World War II. Why?"
He never found the answer. And if he did find it, he didn’t tell anyone about it publicly. But to his Russian-Polish wife, Rufina Pukhova, whom he married after being smuggled into the USSR, he confided his doubts, questions and a deep sense of disappointment that undermined his confidence in the correctness of his decision when he committed betrayal against to his native Great Britain and defected to the Soviet Union. “Kim chose the USSR because he believed in a society based on justice, and after he was behind the Iron Curtain, he devoted his whole life to the cause of communism,” his widow told the London Guardian newspaper. “But once in the USSR, he experienced severe disappointment, so deep that tears came to his eyes.”
He found a solution in alcohol. Two glasses of cognac after dinner every evening, after which he often drank the entire bottle during sleepless nights. Sometimes he asked his wife to hide the cognac from him, but then he began to look for it. Only at the end of his life, when he was afraid of losing her, and for the sake of saving him she threatened to leave if he did not stop drinking, Philby told her that there was no need to hide the bottle, that he would limit himself to two glasses and for some time “kept his word.” But in any case it was already too late. “He drank to commit suicide,” the widow claims, and he succeeded.
He was born in India in 1912 and graduated from the University of Cambridge. During his student years, he began to sympathize with the communists. In the thirties, he already worked in London as a KGB informant, continued this activity when he was a special correspondent for the Times newspaper during the Spanish Civil War, then, on the eve of World War II, he joined the British counterintelligence service Mi-6 and made a fast career . But he played a double game, transmitting numerous secret data to the Kremlin. In 1963, while on Her Majesty's Secret Service in Beirut, he disappeared and fled to Moscow, where he was treated with respect. He led an isolated life under the protection or tutelage of KGB agents who watched his every move. For some time he was accompanied by other British agents who had defected to the USSR and were part of the “Cambridge Five”, with whom he studied at the university. The university then provided fertile ground for those who wanted to work in the secret service, but at the same time it was permeated with socialist and revolutionary ideas. In particular, one of the five Englishmen who fled to Moscow during these years, George Blake, the only one who is still alive, shared Philby’s sentiments. But they could not help but see that the idea of communism had failed, that it was not possible to build a new society based on justice and respect for human dignity, in which they believed so much.
“He told me that when he came to the USSR, he had so many ideas, so many proposals,” says Pukhova, whom Philby married in 1973, when he was 59 and she was 38, “but it seems no one I wasn’t interested in his opinion.” Thus, he decided to resort to alcohol. “One time he directly told me that this was the easiest way to end my life. He quickly became drunk and changed before my eyes. Became a different person. But he wasn't aggressive. After a while he got up and moved to bed.” He died in 1988, twenty-five years after his defection to the Soviet Union.
The information that Philby passed on to the USSR led to the deaths of dozens of British agents and Soviet informants. In London he was condemned and cursed as a traitor. In Russia he was officially considered a hero. A plaque in his honor was unveiled last December by the head of Russian intelligence at its headquarters in Moscow. But perhaps Kim Philby himself no longer felt like a decent person, having devoted his life as a spy for communist Russia and service in the KGB.
In addition to its factual interest, the book is also interesting from a literary point of view. Milne is the nephew of the famous writer Alan Alexander Milne, author of Winnie the Pooh, and he is also no stranger to literary talent.
Their friendship began long before Philby was recruited in 1933 into the so-called Cambridge Five, which included, in addition to him, Guy Burgess, Donald Dewart Maclean, John Cairncross (his participation was always in question) and Anthony Blunt, who allegedly recruited everyone. At the end of his life, Philby argued that in fact there was no “five” and Cambridge was not at all the starting point in the collaboration of English intellectuals with Soviet intelligence - they worked for the idea and refused payment.
Philby attended Westminster School with Milne, one of the oldest all-male private schools in London, founded in 1560. And although they entered different universities - Philby went to Trinity College at Cambridge University, and Milne went to Christ Church in Oxford, connections were not interrupted in the future. Soon they also became workers: Milne first served under Philby, and then himself became an important intelligence officer. The date of the final break can apparently be considered 1963, when Philby fled to Moscow.
But their relationship did not break even in those years when Philby found himself under the suspicion of his British colleagues and for some time was even forced to leave the Secret Service. The newspaper “Top Secret” publishes a fragment of a chapter dedicated to this time.
To make reading the book easier, it is worth recalling the specific word usage
Milne's rebirth. The author of the memoirs uses the term “SIS” to refer to the intelligence service MI6, and the term “Secret Service” to refer to MI5. The abbreviation ISOS also requires decoding: Intelligence Source Oliver Strachey (translated as “Oliver Strachey Intelligence Source”). This service is named after the British Foreign Office cryptographer Oliver Strachey (1874 -1960), who was involved in intercepting and decrypting German Abwehr messages during the Second World War.
The name of Konstantin Volkov also requires comment: the vice-consul of the Soviet Consulate General in Istanbul in 1945 decided to ask his wife for asylum from the British, promising to give them a lot of NKVD secrets in exchange for a passport. As a result, he was transported secretly to Moscow, where he was shot as a traitor.
Chief of subsection Vk
...Although I had left the Vd subsection (now Desmond Pakenham had been put in charge), Kim, as chief of the Vk, was still my immediate superior. Our attention was increasingly occupied by the topic of anti-Hitler conspiracies within Germany and the attempts of the conspirators to attract the interest and support of the Allies. I instructed one of my officers, Noel Sharpe, to devote all his working time only to this issue. Back in the summer of 1942, Otto John, during one of his visits to Madrid as a legal adviser for Lufthansa, began to transmit information to an SIS agent about a group of people, including Ludwig Beck, Karl Friedrich Goerdeler and others, who allegedly planned to overthrow Hitler's regime. Over the next two years, similar information came from other agents such as Adam von Trott and Hans Bernd Gisevius. The group's political goal was to form a government that was friendly to Britain and America and prepared to make peace.
A myth has emerged that Kim - in the interests of the Russians - somehow managed to withhold such reports or at least regard them as unreliable. I have no doubt that if he saw in that situation an opportunity to help the Russians without exposing himself to danger, he would certainly take advantage of it. However, in fact, his position did not allow him to somehow influence events. On the one hand, the conspirators maintained contact with both the Americans and the British. Within the SIS structure, it was Section I, not V, that decided what political information should be passed on to the Foreign Office and other White departments.
hall As far as I remember, Yon's reports were indeed distributed by Section I - with reasonable notes that since the source was not a regular SIS agent, his messages could not be fully vouched for. I assume that something similar happened with reports from other emissaries. (...)
However, Noel Sharp and I followed this group of conspirators with increasing interest and optimism, and I do not remember that Kim's opinion on this matter was contrary to ours. Objections to the provision of support for these and similar attempts were expressed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the adopted strategy, anything that could be interpreted as an attempt to drive a wedge between the Western Allies and Russia was rejected. Perhaps there was also a reluctance - both in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself and in other departments - to believe that this was no longer some small group of inexperienced amateurs, hardly capable of achieving anything.
Shortly after the explosion of the infernal machine on July 20, 1944, several of our officers, as usual, listened to the news, gathered around the radio at 14 Ryder Street. Noel and I, mouth open and speechless with surprise, learned that most of the conspirators had already been caught and even shot . Perhaps many of them had been kept under surveillance for a long time, but the Gestapo still failed to stop the actions of Claus von Stauffenberg, who managed to personally place a bomb under Adolf Hitler’s conference table.
Noel Sharp, who later became Keeper of Printed Literature at the British Museum, recently confirmed to me that he had no evidence, reason or suspicion that Kim was trying to withhold or classify as unreliable any of the reports we received on the matter , or that he was playing some kind of game of his own, especially in everything that related to the participants in the July 20 conspiracy. It is also appropriate to note that Kim participated in sending Klop Ustinov (father of the famous Peter Ustinov) to Lisbon. I remember this happened somewhere in early 1944. He was given a letter whose purpose was to restore friendly relations with anti-Hitler Germans whom he had known in the past. (...)
End of connection
Most people have to overcome bad patches in life, but Kim Philby's ordeal was of a slightly different order. His whole world seemed to collapse. A brilliant career, great hopes disappeared, dissolved, now he has become an outcast, falling under serious suspicion. Eileen later confided to Mary that for several weeks their house in Rickmansworth had been under the surveillance of a crew of workers who were doing some unconvincing road work nearby. Perhaps this was true, or perhaps they were just very lazy workers. As soon as you think you are being watched, everything around you takes on an ominous hue. Kim, according to Eileen, was in a state close to shock and really didn’t want to be left alone. At the same time, he wouldn’t have left the house anyway...
This was the period of the main MI5 interrogations, that is, the “forensic investigation” carried out in November 1951 with the participation of G.P. Milmo, formerly an MI5 officer and by this time a QC. Philby was interrogated several times by experienced interrogator Jim Skardon. While in Germany, I heard little about this, except for some scraps of information, which were also not always reliable. For example, it was said that when Kim tried to light a cigarette, Milmo angrily snatched it and threw it on the floor. I also heard, perhaps as Eileen later reported, that Kim was particularly distressed by having to answer questions in the face of old MI5 colleagues like Dick White and Milmo, who had previously held him in such high esteem. It may seem strange that the attitude of his friends in SIS and MI5 was so important to him, but I am sure that, on the one hand, Kim was completely and completely sincerely involved in the life of SIS and was just as interested in work, company and good opinion colleagues, just like any other SIS officer. I don't think the same is true of any other spy of Kim Philby's stature; for example, I very much doubt that this generally applies to George Blake, although since I did not have the chance to get to know him better - somewhere outside the office - this is all just my personal impression.
By the time Mary and I returned to England in August 1952, the interrogations of Kim Philby had already ended; Obviously, the results were controversial, ambiguous, and the main tension passed. But hopelessness remained. All official or semi-official posts were now, of course, closed to him. Some time passed before he managed - through Jack Ivens - to find a place in a trading firm, where he worked for several months. Kim did not have the slightest desire for commerce. It was sad to see him doing uninteresting, dreary work that was both below his abilities and, in a sense, above them; it's like a Czech language teacher sweeping the street, and he doesn't do it very well. For Kim, a man who naturally belonged to the elite, it was extremely difficult to come to terms with a tedious and completely unsuitable occupation. But I imagine that if necessary, he would put up with it. Now he was in search; he needed a chance to do something for the Russians again.
Kim Philby with his wife Rufina. Photo from the KGB document archive
Information leak
Over the next three years, until we were sent overseas again in October 1955, Mary and I met with Kim and his family quite regularly, at intervals of several weeks. I did not receive any instructions from my superiors preventing such meetings; Moreover, no one ordered me to meet and then report everything that I saw or learned. Although Kim himself, when he saw me, may have asked himself this question. Most of his old friends in SIS and other official departments thought it wiser to cut off the acquaintance altogether. And indeed, I can remember very few who were in the service and continued to see him regularly. (...)
Many in the SIS, who, like me, knew very little about Kim's case, were of the opinion that he had not committed any serious crimes after all. Although we admitted that we do not have any reliable facts to judge this so. One important thing that we didn't know about, and which I only learned about by reading his book My Secret War, was that there were two very ominous little things in the background of the evidence presented to him during his MI5 interrogations. Two days after information about Volkov arrived in London in 1945, there was an "impressive" increase in the volume of NKVD telegraphic correspondence between London and Moscow, accompanied by a similar increase in the volume of correspondence between Moscow and Istanbul. And in September 1949, shortly after Kim learned that the British and Americans were investigating a suspicious leak from the British Embassy in Washington that had occurred several years earlier, there was a similar increase in the flow of NKVD cables. Kim does not say whether MI5 showed him any statistics to back up this evidence, or simply expected him to take his word for it.
If the latter is true, then it cannot be ruled out that MI5 was bluffing a little, exaggerating the real data on the volume of NKVD correspondence. But Kim's answer probably only deepened suspicions: when asked if he could somehow explain such a sharp increase in the number of telegrams, he simply replied that he could not. This is hardly the reaction of an innocent person. Kim argued that the reason Donald MacLean was alerted to the danger was because he himself noticed the surveillance, and because certain categories of classified documents were taken from him.
But new independent evidence has surfaced, suggesting that the Russians may indeed have been tipped off by someone. At least about the episode with Volkov. One would expect an innocent person to tell his interrogators without much thought that if the numbers meant anything at all, then MI5 should be looking among those still at large. I think that if the facts about the movement of the NKVD telegrams had become known to the SIS, Kim’s guilt would not have seemed so controversial. Many also wonder to what extent those who briefed Harold Macmillan before his speech in the House of Commons in November 1955 were aware of this seemingly damning evidence...
One evening, after Kim had dinner with us, he started talking about Guy Burgess. Guy's life, he said, by 1951 was obviously one of complete despair, and if he really was a Russian spy, then this tension must have been completely unbearable for him. Continuing, Kim said that he dug through his memory for a long time in search of any details that would help find out the truth about Guy, and he remembered one, probably very significant thing. During the war, Guy spent some time assiduously wooing a lady from a prominent family who worked at Bletchley. Obviously, Kim suggested, Guy expected that sooner or later she would tell him about her work and tell him some important details. Somewhat puzzled, I asked if he expected me to pass this information on to security. “In general, yes,” Kim answered, slightly surprised. “That’s why I mentioned it.” The more I thought about it, the more mysterious this incident seemed to me. Two things seemed absolutely obvious. Firstly, if Guy really sought communication with that lady, then this fact would have been common knowledge by now. Secondly, the reason most likely has to do with her famous name rather than anything else. Guy had always had a thing for celebrities; as Denis Greenhill once put it in an article in The Times, “I have never heard of a man who boasts of knowing famous people coming from the same background.” When I mentioned this story to the relevant department, it did not arouse any interest - apparently for the reasons mentioned above.…
Escape options
I read in other sources that during this period he drank heavily, but I did not get that impression. On the one hand, a lot of money was required for drinking. First of all, during these years of my infrequent visits to the Philby family, I remember the small children: Kim’s five children, our own child and also the children of our neighbors. There was noise and hubbub everywhere, but the children were still under close supervision and were brought up properly. With all the problems and hardships that befell the family, Kim and Eileen were good parents. Children were of great importance to Kim. I got the feeling that if it weren’t for these five, he might have already moved to Russia. This did not present any great difficulties. He wasn't banned from traveling abroad. In his book, he writes that in 1952 he visited Madrid as a freelance journalist (I don’t remember this, but apparently I was still in Germany at that time). Later, if my memory serves me correctly, he flew to Tripoli on business for a business firm, and in 1954 he took Connie to Mallorca, where they stayed in the house of Tommy and Hilda. In his book, he writes that he considered several options for escape during that period. He mentions a plan originally designed for America, but requiring only minor modifications to make it suitable for Europe. I don't think there was any meticulous planning required. He could, with his existing British passport, travel to some Western country with air links to the Soviet bloc, and from there, after visiting the Soviet embassy or perhaps an Aeroflot office and obtaining a visa, go straight to Moscow, Prague or elsewhere.
He left his job in the export-import business after a few months, and then for more than two years he did not have a regular job. Only occasionally, very irregularly, did he earn something as a freelance journalist. At some point, he had hopes that he would be offered work on a film script about primitive people. “There was one detail that was attractive about this idea,” Kim told me. “I don’t think there’s ever been a film made that featured completely naked men and women.” They say that some very famous actors were involved in the film, and Kim had several interviews, but in the end nothing came of this venture.
The editors thank the Tsentrpolygraph publishing house for providing a fragment of the book “Kim Philby. The unknown story of a KGB super spy"
Authors:
The life of the successor of one of the ancient families of England, who became a Soviet spy, its kinks and bends, even today, years after his death, remains shrouded in thick fog.
During his lifetime, Philby published the book “My Secret War,” but it did not conceal any special revelations. He already knew what he could talk about and what he couldn’t. In his introduction, Kim wrote that “although this book strictly adheres to the truth, it does not claim to be the whole truth.” In addition, the manuscript was probably squeezed dry by the always wary Soviet censorship.
"We don't know the truth about Philby," Robert Littell, author of the novel about the spy, told Le Nouvel Observateur. In it, the Englishman appears as a triple (!) agent who simultaneously worked for Great Britain, the USSR and the USA. According to Littell, "he remains the most amazing spy of the 20th century." There are indeed many strange episodes in Philby's biography. For example, his sudden disappearance from Beirut in 1963. At the beginning of June, British intelligence received stunning information: Philby was in Moscow! Soon the incredible became obvious: the Izvestia newspaper reported that he had asked for political asylum in the Soviet Union.
Kim reached Odessa on the cargo ship Dolmatov. Early in the morning he was met by several police officers and an employee of the State Security Committee. He put his hand on the Englishman’s shoulder and said that his mission was over: “In our service there is a rule: as soon as counterintelligence begins to be interested in you, this is the beginning of the end. We know that British counterintelligence became interested in you in 1951. And now it’s 1963…”
It turns out that Philby was “under the hood” for 12 years! But why did he remain free? Why, after he settled in the Soviet capital, were there several dozen people who suspected him a long time ago?
In the same interview, Littell said that although KGB chief Yuri Andropov received the British spy in public with full honors, he was never promoted, lived under 24-hour security and was not allowed into the Lubyanka.
Philby himself contradicts these statements. More precisely, the interview he gave to the English writer and publicist Philip Knightley. In 1964, the latter wrote the book “Philby - the spy who betrayed a generation” and sent a copy to his hero in Moscow. The scout responded with a letter of gratitude, which began a correspondence that lasted more than twenty years.
Knightley recalled that “Philby’s letters were written in a relaxed style, and their reading was often a pleasure. In 1979, he complained that the Times's delivery disruptions had cut him off from contact with England: “I confess I feel empty. I miss the Times obituaries, funny letters, court reports and crossword puzzles (a 15-20 minute mental gymnastics with morning tea), as well as the information and reviews of the Sunday Times and the less pretentious sections of the Times Literary Supplement.
Soon English newspapers began to arrive regularly. But they were not Philby's only window into the world. One day, in his letter, a phrase appeared that intrigued Knightley: “Having returned from several weeks abroad, I discovered a frightening pile of incoming documents in my folder.” In the next message, the Moscow Englishman said that he “visited sunny regions, where he sipped whiskey with soda and crushed ice.” It later turned out that Philby was vacationing in Cuba, where he went on a merchant ship.
Well, he deserved a quiet, prosperous life. The weight of his contribution to the fight against Nazi Germany. As a reminder of the turbulent time, he still had a solid collection of awards in his box: the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner, Friendship of Peoples, the Patriotic War, 1st degree, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Cuban awards.
In January 1988, a meeting between Knightley and Philby took place in Moscow, timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Soviet emigration of the intelligence officer. Their conversation was captured in an in-depth interview with Knightley. This was Kim's last big conversation with the press.
According to the journalist, the intelligence officer behaved freely, was frank and did not give the impression of a nervous and intimidated prisoner, guarded day and night by harsh KGB agents. When the guest asked if there were any listening devices in the apartment, the owner replied that he was not interested...
Philby was not only an amazing intelligence officer, but also an amazing romantic, which is absolutely unusual for his harsh profession that seems to exclude any sentimentality.
Perhaps the genes of his father, St. John Philby, an orientalist who worked in the English colonial administration in India and then became a famous Arabist, leapt into him. He adopted the Muslim religion, married a Saudi girl, lived for a long time among the Bedouin tribes, became an adviser to King Ibn Sauda.
The son, named Kim after the hero of Kipling’s novel of the same name, manifested his extraordinary thinking in his own way: “When I was a nineteen-year-old student, I tried to form my views on life. Having looked around carefully, I came to a simple conclusion: the rich have been living damn well for too long, and the poor have been living damn bad for too long, and it’s time to change all this.” His aristocratic ancestors were probably turning over in their rotting graves, and the living could not believe their ears!
Philby began his speeches at election rallies with the words: “My friends, the heart of England does not beat in palaces and castles. It’s in factories and farms.” Kim also read Marxist literature. It is not surprising that soon, in the summer of 1933, he became a communist...
Kim himself claimed that he received an offer to work for Moscow in England. And without hesitation, he agreed. The man who recruited him was Arnold Deitch, nicknamed "Otto", who successfully combined espionage activities with scientific work. He was a Doctor of Psychology from the University of London.
A few years after Philby, as a correspondent for the London Times, completed several assignments in Moscow, he, a communist, was offered to join the British secret intelligence service - the Secret Intelligence Service!
There he makes a rapid career - in 1944, 32-year-old Kim becomes the head of the 9th Department of SIS, which was involved in Soviet and communist activities in Great Britain. It turns out that he, in particular, looked after himself?
Poor old England!
But strange things continued to happen to Kim. Either fate carefully protected him, or... After all, Philby seemed to almost become the head of all British intelligence! While working in Washington, he had intimate conversations with the FBI chief Edgar Hoover himself, and was friends with one of the best counterintelligence officers of the CIA, James Angleton, nicknamed the “Chain Dog” for his pathological suspicion.
The takeoff did not take place - in the memorable 1951, Philby came under suspicion: his two partners, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, fled to Moscow. However, once again the sword hanging above him did not fall on the scout’s head. He was interrogated, he was followed, but he was left free. They write that there was not enough evidence to expose him...
Five years later, he himself resigned from intelligence. But only to return a year later - with documents addressed to a correspondent for the Observer newspaper and the Economist magazine, he went to Beirut. There he “failed” and was forced to flee. His old friend Flora Solomon gave him away. Kim tried to recruit her before the war, and the woman remembered this.
But let’s return to Knightley’s interview, from which it is easy to understand that Kim lived in the USSR for his own pleasure. When the guest arrived, the table was set, which was bursting with dishes: caviar, stellate sturgeon, cold roast beef and other delicacies. They drank whiskey, of course...
It was clear from everything that Philby was not experiencing any problems and lived without denying himself anything. The spy said that since his arrival he had only been to Lubyanka twice, and even then on some unimportant business.
Philby arrived in Moscow when he was barely fifty - a most experienced intelligence officer, a man, as they say, in his prime, but at the same time, he was not used in any way. Strange? Or maybe not. After all, Kim finally “lit up.”
And they were afraid to let him “in public” in case he said something unnecessary. However, there were rumors that he occupied a high position in the KGB.
Philby, by his own admission, spent the first three years of his Moscow life trying to remember and write down everything that he experienced. This probably became the basis for his future book. At this time, the intelligence officer, in fact already a former one, felt great, and his work gave him pleasure.
But then, about a year in 1967 (the KGB was then headed by Yu.V. Andropov. - Ed.), the situation changed: “I received my salary regularly, as before, but there was less and less work... I felt disappointed, became depressed, drank terribly and, even worse, began to doubt whether I had done the right thing...”
A KGB officer was assigned to him, who was responsible for his safety. Philby said that this was not necessary, but the guard was left anyway. Of course, he also kept an eye on the Englishman. Who knows what’s on the mind of this gentleman who still hasn’t really learned to speak Russian? After all, he was probably thinking about his homeland, remembering his first wife, Eileen Fiers, with whom he had four children.
He met her in the archives of the British counterintelligence. And she, already feeling attracted to him, did not refuse her gentleman when he wanted to rummage through business and even take something home. However, other employees also violated the instructions.
Years later, Eileen said that she had no idea who her husband was. And Kim confirmed this. But it could have been the other way around - she loved him and, therefore, kept the secret.
Already in Moscow, Philby married for the last time - to Rufina Pukhova...
By the way, Knightley asked Philby if he missed his homeland. He joked: “Coleman’s mustard and Lee and Perrins sauce?” Forcing a smile, he said that he not only reads newspapers, but also listens to the BBC. I wonder what the sound was like on his radio? After all, then the “enemy voices” were desperately suppressed...
And, by the way, Philby has been abroad more than once. After Cuba I went to Czechoslovakia, then to Bulgaria. To the question - will he write new books? - replied: “No, I’ve already said everything. Maybe there are some technical details left, but materials about them are stored in the archives. I’m tired of this whole story, I’ve had enough.”
The owner of a cozy, beautifully furnished apartment on a quiet street in the center of Moscow said that he enjoyed the privileges of a general. How is his health? After all, he is already 76...
“I have an arrhythmia, and for this reason I was in the hospital,” Philby replied. “They told me that if I take care of myself, stay out of drafts and avoid lifting heavy objects, I will be fine for a few more years.” Alas, a few months after this conversation, Kim Philby retired to his last, eternal “safe” apartment - at the Old Kuntsevo Cemetery...
Knightley never understood how frank the owner was with him. What can be considered truth, what can be considered an agent's story, what can be considered information, and what can be considered disinformation?
In front of him sat a carefully combed and well-dressed man. It was impossible to understand anything from his eyes, although they radiated a benevolent calm. Philby, as Knightley wrote, tried in every possible way to convince him that their meeting was not sanctioned by the KGB. Although, who knows?
Finally, Philby told his guest: “If you ask me to sum up my own life, I will say that I have done more good than bad. Perhaps many will not share my opinion.”
One thing is certain - Philby was an amazing, in many ways unsurpassed person. Evidence of this is the numerous secrets that he took to the grave.
Special for the Centenary
(real name Philby Harold Adrian Russell) was born on January 1, 1912 in India, in the family of a British official. He studied at the exclusive Westminster School, and in 1929 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge University. Here he became close to left-wing circles and, under their influence, joined the University Socialist Society.
According to Philby, the real turning point in his worldview was 1931, which brought a crushing defeat to Labor in the parliamentary elections, showing their helplessness in the face of the growing forces of fascism and reaction. The future intelligence officer became close to the Communist Party, sincerely believing that only communism was able to block the road to the fascist threat.
Philby's progressive views were drawn to the attention of illegal Soviet intelligence officer Arnold Deitch, and in 1933, Soviet intelligence attracted him to cooperation.
After graduating from Cambridge University, Philby worked for some time in the editorial office of The Times newspaper, and then during the Spanish Civil War he was sent as a special correspondent for this newspaper under the Francoist army. There he carried out important tasks for Soviet intelligence.
Philby in 1940, on the recommendation of the station, joined the British intelligence service Secret Intelligence Service (SIS). Thanks to his extraordinary abilities, as well as his noble origin, a year later he was appointed deputy chief of counterintelligence of this service (Department B).
The intelligence officer received a promotion in 1944 and was appointed to the post of head of the 9th department of the SIS, which was engaged in the study of “Soviet and communist activities” in Britain. As SIS Resident, Philby served in Turkey and then headed the SIS Liaison Mission in Washington. Established contacts with the leadership of the CIA and FBI, including Allen Dulles and J. Edgar Hoover. He coordinated the activities of American and British intelligence services in the fight against the “communist threat.”
Philby retired in 1955. In August 1956, he was sent to Beirut under the guise of a correspondent for the British publications The Observer and The Economist.
In 1962, Flora Solomon, who knew Philby from working together in the Communist Party, informed the British representative in Israel that in 1937 Philby tried to recruit her for the benefit of Soviet intelligence. Due to the threat of failure in early 1963, Philby, with the help of Soviet intelligence, illegally left Beirut and arrived in Moscow.
From 1963 to 1988, he worked as a foreign intelligence consultant for Western intelligence agencies and participated in the training of intelligence officers. Awarded Soviet government awards.
According to Western estimates, Kim Philby is the most famous Soviet intelligence officer. He was considered for appointment to the post of head of SIS. When Philby's true role was revealed in 1967, former CIA officer Miles Copeland, who knew him personally, stated: "Philby's activities as liaison officer between SIS and the CIA led to the collapse of the entire extremely extensive Western intelligence effort during the "The years 1944 to 1951 were fruitless. It would have been better if we had done nothing at all."