The Extraordinary Stories of a KGB Double Agent: An Intriguing Account of Espionage (1995)

• published: 17 Jan 2015
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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. He served as both an NKVD and KGB operative. 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, Anthony Blunt and, possibly, John Cairncross. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviet Union. His activities were moderated only by Joseph Stalin's fears that he was secretly on Britain's side. Philby was an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) from 1946 to 1965. Biographical accounts A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre is a definitive biography of Philby, published in 2014.[73] Philby: The Life and Views of the KGB Masterspy by Phillip Knightley, Deutsch, 291 pp, f.p. 1988, is a detailed and well-sourced biography. The author was able to visit Kim Philby in Moscow, during the last years of his life, and interview him. Fiction based on actual events Philby, Burgess and MacLean a Granada TV drama written by Ian Curteis in 1977, covers the period of the late 1940s, when British intelligence investigated Maclean until 1955 when the British government cleared Philby because it did not have enough evidence to convict him. Philby has a key role in Mike Ripley's short story Gold Sword published in 'John Creasey's Crime Collection 1990' which was chosen as BBC Radio 4's Afternoon Story to mark the 50th anniversary of D-Day on 6 June 1994. A character modeled on Philby appears in the 2006 spy film The Good Sheperd. Billy Crudup plays Archibald "Arch" Cummings, a British intelligence officer who eventually defects to the Soviet Union. Cambridge Spies, a 2003 four-part BBC drama, recounts the lives of Philby, Burgess, Blunt and Maclean from their Cambridge days in the 1930s through the defection of Burgess and Maclean in 1951. Philby is played by Toby Stephens. German author Barbara Honigmann's Ein Kapitel aus meinem Leben tells the history of Philby's first wife, Litzi, from the perspective of her daughter.[74] Speculative fiction One of the earliest appearances of Philby as a character in fiction was in the 1974 Gentleman Traitor by Alan Williams, in which Philby goes back to working for British intelligence in the 1970s. In the 1981 Ted Allbeury novel The Other Side of Silence, an elderly Philby arouses suspicion when he states his desire to return to England.[75] The 1984 Frederick Forsyth novel The Fourth Protocol features an elderly Philby's involvement in a plot to trigger a nuclear explosion in Britain. In the novel, Philby is a much more influential and connected figure in his Moscow exile than he apparently was in reality.[76] In the 1987 adaptation of the novel, also named The Fourth Protocol, Philby is portrayed by Michael Bilton. In contradiction of historical fact, he is murdered by the KGB in the opening scene. In the 2000 Doctor Who novel Endgame, the Doctor travels to London in 1951 and matches wits with Philby and the rest of the Cambridge Five. The Tim Powers novel Declare (2001) is partly based on unexplained aspects of Philby's life, providing a supernatural context for his behaviour.[77] The Robert Littell novel The Company (2002) features Philby as a confidant of former CIA Counter-Intelligence chief James Angleton.[78] The book was adapted for the 2007 TNT television three-part series The Company, produced by Ridley Scott, Tony Scott and John Calley; Philby is portrayed by Tom Hollander. Philby appears as one of the central antagonists in William F. Buckley Jr's 2004 novel Last Call for Blackford Oakes.[75] The 2013 Jefferson Flanders novel The North Building explores the role of Philby in passing American military secrets to the Soviets during the Korean War. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Philby