[1] Philby began his work for the Soviet Union as a spy in 1934. Maclean bequeathed Blake his library of books, including Trollope, Macaulay's History of England, Morley's Life of Gladstone, and the Macmillan and Eden memoirs. That summer, friends thought her distracted. because he "didn't want his children, who were used to life of freedom, to suffer life of oppression". One of Kims old KGB comrades, whom Id been in contact with during the course of my research for this article, told me that a gang of five or six of Kims former colleagues still meet up every month and raise a toast in his honour. 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 fell for her the moment he met her among the bohemian set he socialised with in Paris, where he was a British diplomat. He reported to the Soviet NKVD from the Spanish civil war under the guise of a correspondent for the Times, and in 1940 joined the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or MI6), becoming a double agent and passing many secrets to the Kremlin. Eleanor Kearns was born in Seattle in 1914. In this article for The Independent Magazine, I returned to Moscow to discover the truth about my grandfather, the infamous Third Man. Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan states in Parliament that there is no evidence of Philby having betrayed the interests of Britain. Rufina Pukhova, his Russian-Polish wife, said Philby struggled to control his drinking by downing only two glasses of cognac a night and then handing her the bottle to hide. In the end despite having been what Allen Dulles (de facto head of the CIA from 1953 to 1961) once reluctantly described as the best spy Russia ever had Kim was watched over as much as looked after by his masters, and he was not used to his full potential. Melinda returned to Donald, but two years later moved to her own apartment. Born in 1946, Dudley 'Tommy' Philby is the third of Kim's five children with his second of four wives, Aileen Furse Philby. Joins Cambridge University Socialist Society. Eventually, Melinda went back to her home country, the U.S., bringing to an end nearly 40 years of endurance, loyalty and betrayal. Kim Philby, British intelligence officer and member of the Cambridge Five, defected to the Soviet Union in 1963. Jeremy Hunt is mocked over toe-curling 'inflation explainer' video by ordering How much will YOUR broadband go up in price? "If he continued drinking, he got inebriated quickly and changed in front of your eyes," she said. As Kim told my mother when she asked him if he felt any remorse, he believed he was a soldier, fighting a bloody war in the bloodiest century in history. He became more optimistic once the family was deemed fully rehabilitated and they moved to Moscow in 1955. Kim Philby drank while Guy Burgess, who was gay, missed his friends in London, including Anthony Blunt whose spying activities, though known to the government, were kept under wraps until they were exposed much later, in 1979. 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. Aileen and the children also moved to America and the Philby's took a spacious, ramshackle two-storeyed place at 4100 Nebraska Avenue. 1941Transferred to SIS Iberian sub-section. Putting real historical characters into a novel is a minefield, especially those who existed within living memory. In 1951, Kim tipped off his fellow Cambridge spy Donald Maclean that Britain had caught wind of Macleans spying activities and a warrant had been issued for his arrest. After graduating from Washington University, she worked for the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson in San Francisco. "I tried everything to save him; after all, he was killing himself. The pair got on well in those later years they were very similar in many ways and my father said he never felt any resentment, not even when he unfairly came under fire by virtue of his name. 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. But the place where Kims presence looms largest from every corner is in his study. Kim Philby on holiday with his last wife Rufina Pukhova, 1970s. ", Pukhova, now 78, said she was irritated by stories about Philby's drink problem, but admitted he wasn't always able to stick to his two-glass rule. 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. 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 Once hed gone, she rode out the public furore, the door-stepping journalists, the MI5 questioning, the abuse and insinuations, the bullying of her sons at school. 1925Attends Westminster School in London. Hardcover. So, perhaps, by the time he died, a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall and knowing what he must have known by then he did feel disappointed. Macmillan was, of course, Prime Minister by 1962, when the Soviet double agent George Blake was caught, and Kim could no longer hide the truth. Amnesia in Literature and Film Donald refused to become part of the twilight brigade community of defectors, down-at-heel, disillusioned and wondering how they had got there. "His story does not really go away, because there is. Perhaps. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Britain declares that Philby is the Third Man. 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. Melinda Maclean. In her article, published yesterday in British daily The Independent, she describes Kim Philby as "a proud man, and one who chose to publicly stand by his actions". That he could carry on a secret life without her being aware, while at the same time working his way up the ranks of the British Foreign Office, seemed perfectly possible. In 1963, having been exposed in Britain as the notorious Third Man in the Cambridge Spy Ring, Kim fled to Moscow, never again to set foot from behind the Iron Curtain. On the eve of his 99th birthday, I spent, At Kim's flat with his partner, Rufina. Grandpas flat is almost exactly as he left it: After Kim left, I didnt want to change anything, Rufa says. Everything has seen better days. And whenever we went to stay, wed be picked up from the airport and driven to his flat via a purposefully circuitous route in a KGB car so that no one could quite remember how we got there. Given a heros burial in Moscows Kuntsevo Cemetery. I love those images of him as a real person; for me, thats where the clues as to who he really was can be found. George Blake, who is still alive, got on well with him than with Philby. I remember at the time feeling that something very dark was happening and that I didnt feel safe. Image: Beech Beech. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. Image: Barney Beech, A Sunday Times best book of the year, here is Edith and Kim in review - and where to find signed first editions, An interview with Stephanie Merritt about Edith and Kim, the perils of writing about family, and why female spies often get overlooked, From a compendium of stories about life at the Bauhaus to a Modernist memoir by the founder of the iconic Isokon, here are some of the books that inspired my forthcoming novel, For the Telegraph, I wrote about the woman who recruited my grandfather to the Soviets - the subject of my forthcoming novel Edith and Kim, My tribute to the late - and truly great - master of spy fiction, for the i paper, From a celebration of the life of John le Carr at Cheltenham to an exploration of women and crime in Chiswick, please join me at one of the following events, across the country (and the internet!). 1958Marries Eleanor Brewer, an American. children: John David Philby Josephine F. Philby Dudley Thomas Philby Miranda Philby Harry George Philby Birth. 1940Recruited by British Secret Services and attached to the Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) under Guy Burgess. Maclean accused Philby of being a double agent working for the British and they stopped speaking. 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. We searched every corner until Kim suddenly struck himself on the head with his hand, went to a cupboard and brought back the boot. Was that a selfish decision? 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. 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. Part of the Family and A Double Life are available now. It had been a long time coming. But so it was. Philby had defected to the Soviet Union from Beirut in 1963, and was treated with respect, but felt isolated. A plaque in his honour was unveiled by the head of the foreign intelligence service at its headquarters in Moscow in December. Why do you think she has been overlooked?Partly because her files were only released to the National Archive in 2015. In 1963 he was revealed to be a member of the Cambridge Five, a spy ring which had divulged British secrets to the Soviets during World War II and in the early stages of the Cold War. Charlotte Philby, daughter of John Philby, H.A.R. . 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. 1988Dies 11 May at the age of 76. The fight against Fascism and the fight against imperialism were fundamentally the same fight.. 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. It is an old-fashioned home, not like the homes of new Russia, where everything is modern and imported. 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