Fergus announced to some children with whom he was playing that My Daddy wants to stop all wars. Viktor Suvorov . Kim Philby, byname of Harold Adrian Russell Philby, (born January 1, 1912, Ambala, Indiadied May 11, 1988, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.), British intelligence officer until 1951 and the most successful Soviet double agent of the Cold War period. The whole plan is being masterminded by Kim Philby in Moscow. 1925Attends Westminster School in London. The two-drink tradition remained but in time there was no longer a need to hide the bottle, she added. Charlotte Philby, daughter of John Philby, H.A.R. And perhaps he felt that he certainly resented having to be escorted pretty much wherever he went for his first years in Moscow, as Rufa attests. Thanks Darryl.I live in Australia. It was bad enough with Kim and the Cambridge spies showing up the British establishment, but the idea that this foreign Jewish woman might run rings around men in positions of authority, perhaps that was embarrassing for them. The shiny black 44 rumbles slowly through the graveyard. The spy who loved us: what Kim Philby's personal letters revealed about his mind The double-agent's granddaughter, Charlotte Philby, on the correspondence of a man who betrayed his country. Kim leapt up and shouted, 'Whoever is rude to my wife is rude to me!' Regardless of what I think of her ideology, I greatly admire the fact that she was able to hold these various parts of her life being a photographer, being a single mother alongside being a revolutionary, feeling that she could change the world. (4 children) Litzi Friedmann (24 February 1934 - 1946) (divorced . 1933Leaves Cambridge a convinced Communist. birth date: 1912-01-01. birth place: Ambala. 1958Marries Eleanor Brewer, an American. The Soviet authorities buried him with honors when he died in 1988. He was 76. While I was researching this article, Bennett also the author of An Englishman Abroad, in which he imagines Guy Burgesss final years in Moscow: lonely, pathetic and wholly unfulfilled responded to a shorter opinion piece I wrote for this paper last July in which I defended my grandfathers decision not to apologise publicly for his actions. Understandably, as a consequence, he is loathed by many. Did you feel that as you uncovered her story?I feel a huge amount of sympathy for her situation, and admiration, really. Some could never quite come to terms that he was a traitor. Kim was not nave; he knew that his ideal, like any other, was susceptible to corruption. 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. 23. Takes charge of British intelligence in Spain and Portugal. George Blake, who is still alive, got on well with him than with Philby. Macleans study resembled that of a Cambridge professor, with copies of Trollope, biographies of Gladstone and airmail editions of The Times. The committee is serving as the unwitting instrument of the KGB." Kim Philby was a high-ranking member of British intelligence who worked as a double agent before defecting to Soviet Union in 1963. But more importantly, every decision he made was done consciously. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Offer valid until May 1, 2018. After five years of silence, communications were re-established with family and friends. "But he never got aggressive, and just went to bed. Occasionally, the driver would draw a curtain around the inside of the windows, and attach a flashing blue light to the roof before setting off. As Kims former KGB colleague also reiterated on the phone: Kim was a Communist idealist. He was able to order new books from Bowes & Bowes bookshop in Cambridge, who checked with MI5 whether they should be supplying him. Personal life. If we were really lucky, sometimes and this was still the 1980s thered be a distant ringing, and from a compartment near the gear stick, our escort would pull out a telephone attached to a spiral cord, which hed talk into in a low voice, repeating the same two words, horosho and da, again and again before hanging up. For another, hed made his bed. It was, in fact, those journeys to Kims flat which form some of my strongest early memories: flying down the third lane of the motorway in an unmarked car. Jeremy Hunt is mocked over toe-curling 'inflation explainer' video by ordering How much will YOUR broadband go up in price? In Philbys own eyes he was working for the shape of things to come from which his country would benefit., Kim went to great efforts upon his return to England to cover the traces of his Communist background joining the Anglo-German fellowship in 1934, and editing its pro-Hitler magazine. By the time she left Russia, Maclean was in his final decline, in and out of hospital with cancer from his lifetime of smoking. So, too, have I seen images of his cold body decorated with medals in an open coffin, armed guards at either side, as the lavish funeral procession made its way through Kuntsevo Cemetery to this very spot. Doubtless Jeremiah faced similar problems.. Cambridge-educated Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby became close friends in 1940, when they were both working in separate departments of the British Intelligence . 1955Government white paper on Burgess-Maclean affair. En route, I pass some of Kims old haunts, and heeding his advice to visitors If you can no longer feel your nose, go inside stop off briefly for coffee at that famous Soviet hangout the Hotel Metropole. But I had to find the right way to approach it. Melinda Maclean. children: Dudley Thomas Philby, Harry George Philby, John David Philby, Josephine F. Philby, Josephine Philby, Miranda Philby, Tommy Philby Born Country: India Spies British Men Died on: May 11, 1988 place of death: Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union Cause of Death: Heart Failure More Facts Recommended Lists: British Celebrities Russian Celebrities He achieved the deception by employing his occasional stutter, so as to buy himself time to think before telling another bare-faced lie. . 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. He travelled extensively, while also making his way up the ranks of the British intelligence services by 1944, Kim was appointed head of a newly formed anti-Soviet section, and was later sent to Washington where, as the top Secret Intelligence Service representative, he worked for several years in liaison with the CIA and FBI. Later arrives in Russia. Heavy blankets of snow have settled across the plains of Moscow, and either side of our track, the ground is a brilliant white. Where do you write?I wrote Edith and Kim all over the place because weve been in the process of moving house for the past couple of years, but now I have a shed at the bottom of our garden where I can feel Im in the middle of nowhere, and Im never leaving! Grandpas flat is almost exactly as he left it: After Kim left, I didnt want to change anything, Rufa says. Who is going to check 55 volumes for the odd sentence? During our stay, more mourners piled in, their cries and moans ricocheting off the walls. Although she would be left pitied, even censured, and alone in a country in which she had spent barely one-tenth of her life, it might be better that he should be free to live a new life in Moscow than spend a decade behind bars. But, after a silence of nearly five years, here was the first actual sighting and confirmation that the runaways were alive. Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Kim Philby in Russia in 1968, five years after defecting. Chicago-born Melinda, whom he married in France in 1940, knew all along that Donald was a spy. But such treatment did not last and they were quickly dispatched to the closed city of Kuybyshev, 600 miles east of Moscow far away, they were told, from British assassination squads. What are you writing next?After publishing four novels in four years, Im taking more time to write the next one. She was incredibly brave, incredibly loyal; she was completely faithful to the things she loved and believed in, and she had a firm belief that she had to do the right thing. It had been a long time coming. His drinking made him paranoid that his wife would abandon him. He went on to serve the KGB for 54 years. Writing Edith and Kim alongside home schooling and everything else has been a big thing and I feel now is a good time to pause and reflect. . 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. Philby was a 25-year-old reporter for The Times and had just returned from covering the Spanish Civil War when he met rebellious Aileen Furse in London in 1937. He needed a secret sharer in his life as well as someone to admire him. I remember at the time feeling that something very dark was happening and that I didnt feel safe. Image: Beech Beech. Back in England, begins to cover up his past, joining the Anglo-German Fellowship, editing its pro-Hitler magazine. "I said something to the escort and he just stayed silent, sitting, leafing through his magazine. While a student at the University of Cambridge, Philby became a communist and in 1933 a Soviet agent. But more generally womens roles in espionage have been sidelined, and I wonder if thats because a lot of this history has been recorded by men. But whether that came with any sense of self-pity is something else entirely. Shes always cast as a bit player if shes mentioned at all, but she was a remarkable woman. On the eve of his 99th birthday, I spent, At Kim's flat with his partner, Rufina. St John, who had joined the British Foreign Service in 1917, when his only son was five years old, was also a non-conformist. She and her late father, the spy's eldest son, John, both had to live with continuing speculation about the motivation for Philby's treachery. Amnesia in Literature and Film I think part of the appeal of writing this book was trying to reconcile the ways in which Ive come to understand him: as a grandfather; a father; a friend; a traitor; an idealist. Kim Philby was unmasked as a Soviet double agent in July 1963 when . Thanks for this post. The reporter adds that Kim demonstrated an iron head for drink during the course of their subsequent meetings, which took place over a series of long, boozy meals: I could detect no change in his alertness or joviality as the waiter arrived with relays of 300 grams of vodka or 600 grams of Armenian brandy. Like my father, Kim had amazing stamina for drink; the pair of them would knock it back over games of chess at the flat in Moscow (while I ran around wreaking havoc in the living room) and on the long trips to Siberia and Bulgaria they took together. Ive recorded a podcast with the BBC that will be announced later this year, and my husband and I have bought an old pub that we want to turn into a creative space to make available to charities and people who wouldnt otherwise have access to that, so thats an ongoing project. In those days, correspondence had to be sent to a PO Box; and in his reply, Kim would sign off under a special code name, Panina (a combination of Pa and Nina, the alias used for Kims wife). Elegant Princess of Wales is all smiles as she plays with children on visit to a nursery amid backlash over Thrifty Kate strikes again! I think Ive spent so long having other people project their versions of my grandfather and my family on to me that writing about it is a way of trying to reclaim the story. And sadness. Kim Philbys oldest son, has penned an extensive account of her memories of her grandfather. Kim was won over by the Communist cause while a student at Cambridge University, and upon graduation in 1933, travelled to Vienna to serve the international Communist organisation Comintern which was illegal in Austria with 100 in his pocket given to him by his father, St John, who was also a Cambridge graduate. Why do you think she has been overlooked?Partly because her files were only released to the National Archive in 2015. . At one stage, in the programme for his play Single Spies, the writer Alan Bennett printed a claim that my dad John had turned up late to his own fathers funeral, straight from the airport, and stood swaying behind a gravestone clutching bags of booze. Philby is summoned for interrogation and asked to resign from Foreign Service. She flirted with other men and had affairs. To the very end, as I find out when I set foot into his flat, Kim surrounded himself with things pertaining to British culture and life on the other side of the Iron Curtain: from PG Wodehouse novels to the Indian spices he used for his legendary curries. In the intervening years, there have been endless attempts to understand how this gregarious, public-school educated English chap and his fellow Cambridge spies Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross could have been persuaded to betray their country, and dupe their family and their friends. Kim Philby on holiday with his last wife Rufina Pukhova, 1970s. Today, Moscows main strip, Tverskaya Ryad which I remember from childhood holidays as a drab grey stretch clotted with queues of people who looked like they didnt know what they were waiting for (though it was usually oranges or ice cream) is barely recognisable: a knot of designer stores and mobile-phone shops, interspersed with garish billboards hanging between the buildings above the busy main road. But they were quasi-spy novels so I ended up talking about them in relation to his story anyway. He fell for her the moment he met her among the bohemian set he socialised with in Paris, where he was a British diplomat. Philby exposed. Kim Philby, British intelligence officer and member of the Cambridge Five, defected to the Soviet Union in 1963. "He once even said that it was the easiest way to bring life to an end. The little blue pill really is magic! Her mood changed, though, with Stalins death in March 1953 and the prospect that the Soviet Union might now become a more open place. The first reports that Russia ranks 143rd in a list of the worlds freest economies, just one spot higher than countries with repressed economies like Vietnam, Ecuador, Belarus and Ukraine, while the next tells how oligarch Roman Abramovich, whose wealth is valued at 7 billion, has just snapped up 35 notable artworks to decorate his 560ft private yacht. He got drunk and roamed Kuybyshev looking for action, on one occasion having his teeth knocked out in a brawl. The basic facts, after all, are well-documented. Her fourth novel, Edith and Kim, tells the linked stories of her grandfather and Edith Tudor-Hart, a Jewish photojournalist born in Vienna, who studied at the Bauhaus, married an Englishman, worked as a Soviet agent in London and introduced Kim to his Russian handler. 1940Recruited by British Secret Services and attached to the Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) under Guy Burgess. ", His habit was fuelled by his sorrow over what he saw around him, she added. 1912Harold Adrian Russell Kim Philby is born on 1 January in Amballa, India, the son of Dora and St John. Feeling a strong dissatisfaction with British policy in the Middle East, Kims father resigned from the Foreign Service in 1930, converting to Islam and taking the name Hajj Abdullah. He believed in freedom of speech and thought that Stalinism and all that were temporary and obviously, the outcome proved otherwise. There are two more mobile-phone shops inside the post-office building, and on the steps, a babushka swathed in heavy furs and surrounded by plastic bags counts out a handful of pennies. Charlotte Philby, 39, is a former investigative reporter and the author of three critically acclaimed spy novels. With his brilliant mind and First from Cambridge, Maclean could bask in being the superior intellect to an under-educated, attractive woman who was both affectionate and popular, where he was withdrawn, giving nothing of himself away. Exposure showed me along with William Boyds Restless how you can write a novel that is ostensibly a spy story but is really about the people, and the families, at the heart of a great betrayal. Melinda, it turned out, had driven to Lausanne, where tickets were waiting and luggage had been left in a station locker. The gang of British spies who ended up in Moscow in the 1950s and 1960s were employed in KGB training schools and international research institutes. P&P free on orders over 15. Because hed told her from the very start. 1941Transferred to SIS Iberian sub-section. Which author do you most admire?I dont have favourites, but I love Helen Dunmore. One can hardly overlook the irony of a man who so resolutely betrayed his country, surrounding himself in his Soviet apartment with British condiments, newspapers and light-hearted English classics. Being one of North Korea's elite, for the nation he was the highest profile defection since No Kum-sok (above . In fact, he had arrived in Moscow days earlier, and can be seen on film standing just back from his fathers coffin. "Kim said to me, 'I came here totally fully of information, I wanted to give everything I had but no one was interested," explained Pukhova. Of course, if there is a conflict, the political person comes first.. When Bennett was pulled up on the matter, he wrote my father a note explaining that he stood by what hed said as the information had come from a reliable source a BBC journalist. In the middle of the bookcase behind his desk, above his empty chair, just where Kims head would have rested, a single book looms out, cover first. 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