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
- published: 17 Jan 2015
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