Kim Philby

Kim Philby
Philby in 1955
Born	Harold Adrian Russell Philby (1912-01-01)1 January 1912 Ambala, Punjab, British India
Died	11 May 1988(1988-05-11) (aged 76) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Burial place	Kuntsevo Cemetery Ryabinovaya Ulitsa, Moscow [1]
Nationality	British, Soviet
Education	Westminster School
Alma mater	Trinity College, Cambridge
Spouses	Litzi Friedmann Aileen Furse Eleanor Brewer Rufina Ivanovna Pukhova
Parents	St John Philby Dora Philby
Awards	Order of Lenin Order of Friendship of Peoples
Espionage activity
Country	United Kingdom
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Codename	Sonny, Stanley

Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby (1 January 1912 – 11 May 1988)^[2][3] was a British intelligence officer and a spy for the Soviet Union. 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. Of the five, Philby is believed to have been the most successful in providing secret information to the Soviets.^[4]

Born in British India, Philby was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was recruited by Soviet intelligence in 1934. After leaving Cambridge, Philby worked as a journalist, covering the Spanish Civil War and the Battle of France. In 1940 he began working for the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI6). By the end of the Second World War he had become a high-ranking member. In 1949 Philby was appointed first secretary to the British Embassy in Washington and served as chief British liaison with American intelligence agencies. During his career as an intelligence officer, he passed large amounts of intelligence to the Soviet Union, including the Albanian Subversion, a scheme to overthrow the pro-Soviet government of Communist Albania.

Philby was suspected of tipping off two other spies under suspicion of Soviet espionage, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, both of whom subsequently fled to Moscow in May 1951. Under suspicion himself, Philby resigned from MI6 in July 1951 but was publicly exonerated by then-Foreign Secretary Harold Macmillan in 1955. He resumed his career as both a journalist and a spy for MI6 in Beirut, but was forced to defect to Moscow after finally being unmasked as a Soviet agent in 1963. He lived in Moscow until his death in 1988.