Donald Maclean pictured in his teens whilst at Gresham School - he fell for Melinda the moment he met her among the bohemian set he socialised with in Paris, Donald Maclean Soviet was Third Secretary in Paris for the British Embassy and stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries in the back row, (second from the right), Donald Maclean (arrowed in the second rank) taking part in an anti-war march in Cambridge in 1933. After reading it briefly, my dad had simply shrugged and tossed the note in the bin. Find out where Kim Philby was born, their birthday and details about their professions, education, religion, family and other life details and facts. Eventually, Melinda went back to her home country, the U.S., bringing to an end nearly 40 years of endurance, loyalty and betrayal. When you look at the way Edith is referred to in the [security services] files as that foreign woman, I wonder whether theres a sense of embarrassment too. He said, 'Why do old people live so badly here? An Indian Civil Service officer turned Arabist and explorer, he spent 20 years travelling across the desert on camelback charting Saudis unexplored Empty Quarter, crossing paths with Lawrence of Arabia, and eventually marrying a slave-girl given to him by his friend King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, to whom he spent many years as personal advisor. So Philby left his wife and children in England in September 1956, arriving in a country for which he had little natural sympathy. But so it was. [1] Philby began his work for the Soviet Union as a spy in 1934. Born in 1946, Dudley 'Tommy' Philby is the third of Kim's five children with his second of four wives, Aileen Furse Philby. To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Of course, if there is a conflict, the political person comes first.. 23. He did all he could do for a cause he believed in: what was there to regret? Photograph: Daily Mail/Rex Features, MI5missed early chance to expose Soviet agent Kim Philby, files reveal, Charlotte Philby: We visited Kim in Moscow, Love and Deception: Philby in Beirut by James Hanning review the spy who loved, maybe, ASplinter of Ice review Graham Greene and Kim Philby clink glasses, Graham Greenes showdown with Soviet spy Kim Philby: A Splinter of Ice review, KimPhilby: new revelations about spy emerge in secret files, George Blake exemplified the desolation, waste and treachery of the cold war, Moscow names square after British double agent Kim Philby, Athriller of spies and betrayal: by Kim Philbys granddaughter. Just five years ago, my mum and I were refused service in a shop in Arizona on account of the name on our credit cards. He needed a secret sharer in his life as well as someone to admire him. The KGB's only object in the world is to destroy me and the agency. "I tried everything to save him; after all, he was killing himself. Charlotte is the granddaughter of Kim Philby, Britain's most famous communist double-agent, the elusive 'third man' in the notorious Cambridge spy ring. ", His habit was fuelled by his sorrow over what he saw around him, she added. For another, hed made his bed. In the living room, the same furs hang above the sofa, alongside a pair of Afghan guns a gift from the KGB colleague whom I spoke to earlier. And this was the line Melinda presented to MI5 after his defection with fellow mole Guy Burgess: she had been every bit as duped as theyd been. Understandably, as a consequence, he is loathed by many. To order a copy for 15, visit mailshop.co.uk/ books or call 0844 571 0640. We walk on in silence; the others hold back, bowing their heads, as I take my place in front of another plot a few feet away. 1942Marries Aileen Furse, with whom he has two daughters and three sons. He believed in freedom of speech and thought that Stalinism and all that were temporary and obviously, the outcome proved otherwise. She also helped find homes for Kindertransport children and during the Second World War helped set up the British Restaurants for people who had been bombed in the Blitz. November 16, 2017. Charlotte Philby, daughter of John Philby, H.A.R. 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. No doubt your grandfather would have disapproved of the sharp contrasts in present-day Russia, he said. Entering through the front doors and under a rickety, freestanding metal detector, its like walking through a time-warp. birth date: 1912-01-01. birth place: Ambala. But neither was entirely impervious. But no matter; allowing myself plenty of time to get lost, Im soon heading towards the apartment where my grandfather lived out the final 25 years of his life under the watchful eye of Moscow and where his widow Rufa is currently preparing an enormous spread for our afternoon tea. Burgess did not cope well. But as the author Graham Greene my grandfathers close friend and a fellow British intelligence officer, who worked under him at MI6 wrote in the introduction to Kims autobiography, My Silent War: The end, of course, in his eyes is held to justify the means, but this is a view taken, perhaps less openly, by most men involved in politics, if we are to judge them by their actions, whether the politician be a Disraeli or a Wilson. 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. You should have seen his face.". The Soviet authorities buried him with honors when he died in 1988. 1929Enters Trinity College, Cambridge. "Kim" Philby's oldest son, has penned an extensive account of her memories of her grandfather. But the place where Kims presence looms largest from every corner is in his study. Now, in an attempt to impose some order on my own understanding of my grandfather, to clarify the kaleidoscopic image of him which has formed in my mind, I have returned for the first time as an adult to the country where, in political exile, he lived out the last 25 years of his life. In 1955, Harold Macmillan, then Foreign Secretary, issued a statement confirming that there was no evidence that Kim Philby was a Soviet agent. Kim Philby was unmasked as a Soviet double agent in July 1963 when . She would be his silent witness for all the difficult years ahead. Your email address will not be published. Elliott was born in London, the son of Claude Aurelius Elliott, a don at Cambridge and Headmaster at Eton, where Nicholas was sent after Durnford School, a prep school on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset.. After leaving Trinity College, Cambridge, Elliott was offered a post in 1938 as Honorary Attache at the Hague by Sir Nevile Bland.His career in secret intelligence came by chance . In Spain, reports the Civil War from General Francos side, and is awarded the Red Cross of Military Merit by Franco. 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. The comments below have not been moderated. The shiny black 44 rumbles slowly through the graveyard. Elegant Princess of Wales is all smiles as she plays with children on visit to a nursery amid backlash over Thrifty Kate strikes again! She sensed that the Macleans marriage was a difficult one again, with Donald on occasion still getting hopelessly drunk. In his own words: I am really two people. 1963Disappears in Beirut on 23 January. 1962George Blake is caught. 1934Marries Communist Jew Litzi Friedman. 1944Appointed head of Section IX, newly formed to operate against Communism and the Soviet Union. Philby's work led to the deaths of dozens of British agents, making him a reviled traitor once he was exposed in Britain. As well as being my grandfather whom I remember from childhood trips to Russia as a funny old man with a beaming smile, who dressed almost exclusively in white vests and braces Kim Philby, to this day, remains one of the most significant double agents in modern history. And here he was struck by disappointment, brought to tears. Theirs had always been a stormy marriage, punctuated by bad behaviour on both sides and terrible rows. It is an old-fashioned home, not like the homes of new Russia, where everything is modern and imported. She cannot imagine what Kim would have made of this new world, where a minority have benefited so enormously while many outside the capital, the vast majority live in abject poverty with little support from the state. For one thing, like all the men in the Philby family, he was bloody-minded. He became more optimistic once the family was deemed fully rehabilitated and they moved to Moscow in 1955. She emphasised the strength and goodness of their fathers moral and political beliefs as a committed communist who wanted peaceful co-existence between East and West. He achieved the deception by employing his occasional stutter, so as to buy himself time to think before telling another bare-faced lie. She was a horsey product of the. Image: Beech Beech. Inside, however, the lift is as temperamental as it ever was, so I make the journey to his flat by foot, instantly recognising the strange studded-leather front door as I emerge from the stairwell. The Second Woman: Best new fiction, Mail on Sunday. 58. He feared that she would dump him because he was just a boring official in the British diplomatic service so to make myself look better and more important, I told her the reason why I led such a life. How easy did you find it to capture Kims voice?I spent so long with his letters and they gave me such an insight into the expressions he used, the way he spoke, how he flipped between being tender and reflective and witty and scathing, and his very English obsession with the weather. During our stay, more mourners piled in, their cries and moans ricocheting off the walls. 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. Offer valid until May 1, 2018. John Philby, who has died aged 65, was the eldest son of the Russian spy Kim Philby, unmasked in 1963 as a double agent and the notorious Third Man in the Cambridge spy ring of the 1930s. "Once, a big group of us were on a trip on the Volga: Kim and I and, of course, his KGB escort, and the escort's daughter. But in Russia he is still admired as a hero. . A retired CIA agent was once asked what he would say to Kim Philby, an MI5 agent who spied for Joseph Stalin, if he encountered the defector in Moscow. Donald Maclean pictured in 1937 while on a skiing holiday - in the Soviet Union he and Guy Burgess described themselves as political refugee, not spies, Donald Maclean with his daughter Mimsie near their country home in England - in the Soviet Union he assumed a new identity, chosing to be Mark Petrovich Frazer (after the Cambridge anthropologist Sir James Frazer), Donald Maclean, aged four, can be seen on the right of this picture on the right of this picture. One of the first tasks he was given was to spy on his own father, which he did, without question digging up very little, because, though the Russians failed to believe it, there was nothing to dig up. It's Mr (coffee) Bean! Two years later, a Sunday Times correspondent was in Moscow and about to pack his bags after an unsuccessful attempt to interview the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, when, out of the blue, he was invited to a room in his hotel. Edith and Kim: The brilliant new historical spy novel based on the true story of the woman behind the Cambridge spies in Cold War espionage. Laying flowers at my grandfather's grave. The view from one of the windows is notably different, too. She put the two boys into the International School in Geneva and finally explained to them what had happened to their father, reporting to her sister that their worst fear seems to be that I might vanish too. In the programme for his play Single Spies, the writer Alan Bennett printed a claim that my dad had turned up late to his own fathers funeral, straight from the airport, and stood swaying behind a gravestone clutching bags of booze. Kims library, which he had shipped over soon after he emerged in the Soviet Union, is testimony to his complexities and to his contradictions: across four walls of bookshelves, Russian classics and key Communist texts stand side by side with Raymond Chandler and PG Wodehouse novels; there are 19 volumes of Cambridge Modern History and a Sherlock Holmes scrapbook. The basic facts, after all, are well-documented. Without a word, he steps out in his long dark trench coat and buffed-leather shoes, opening the back door for me to follow. 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 lives in Bristol with her husband and three children. Did you feel that as you uncovered her story?I feel a huge amount of sympathy for her situation, and admiration, really. In a secluded area next to the domed restaurant (one of Kims favourites), the dimly lit bar is serviced by grey-skinned waiters; faux-marble columns run between clusters of heavy red and gold chairs, frequented by groups of men in out-dated suits, briefcases and thick-rimmed glasses, knocking back glasses of vodka, under a thick circle of cigarette smoke. I remember Kims words: I have followed exactly the same line the whole of my adult life. But the two men, for so long ideological comrades, fell out. P&P free on orders over 15. But they were quasi-spy novels so I ended up talking about them in relation to his story anyway. There have been endless attempts to understand how this gregarious, public-school educated English chap and his fellow Cambridge spies could have been persuaded to betray their country, and dupe their family and their friends. Was he wrong to have continued on the Communist path once so many others had stepped off? 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. For some, details like this have fuelled the question of whether arriving for the first time ever in the country for which hed sacrificed everything, which was supposed to represent everything hed fought for, and where he would live out the rest of his days in exile he became disillusioned and embittered, and longed instead for the land hed betrayed. Charlotte Philby. They're at it again! 1946Moves to Turkey, working as head of SIS there. 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. Hardcover. He passed over 900 British documents to the KGB. That summer, friends thought her distracted. Indeed, when the leading Russian writer Genrikh Borovik was given access to Kims unseen KGB file in 1994 six years after his death the extent to which the Russians mistrusted him became clear. Personal life. Chicago-born Melinda, whom he married in France in 1940, knew all along that Donald was a spy. References. He always knew what he was risking his family, his friends, his reputation and he made his choices accordingly. The gramophone, in front of which Kim would take a seat to listen to the World Service at 7pm every evening with a cup of coffee, makes a tremendous groan as it comes to life, but its still very much in working nick. n ADAPTED from A Spy Named Orphan by Roland Philipps, to be published by The Bodley Head on April 26 at 20. What are you currently reading?Im trying to reconnect with what made me fall in love with books and the process of writing so Im going back to reread some of the books that feel seminal for me: The Beach, The Child in Time, White Teeth, Disgrace, The Poisonwood Bible and The Peoples Act of Love. The boys told a child they met on a beach that the photos he had taken could not be forwarded to them as we are going away and we dont know where we are going. He would say we and our when speaking of the Soviet Union and defended his adopted countrys brutal crushing of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956 an event that disgusted many Left-wing supporters back in the UK. 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. She is also the granddaughter of, MI5missed early chance to expose Soviet agent Kim Philby, files reveal, Love and Deception: Philby in Beirut by James Hanning review the spy who loved, maybe, ASplinter of Ice review Graham Greene and Kim Philby clink glasses, Graham Greenes showdown with Soviet spy Kim Philby: A Splinter of Ice review, KimPhilby: new revelations about spy emerge in secret files, George Blake exemplified the desolation, waste and treachery of the cold war, Moscow names square after British double agent Kim Philby, Athriller of spies and betrayal: by Kim Philbys granddaughter. Kim Philby, the most successful of the Cambridge spies, tried to drink himself to death in Moscow because he was disillusioned with communism and tortured by his own failings, his last wife has said in an interview. Kim Philby was born on January 1, 1912 in Ambala, Punjab, British India [now Haryana, India]. Philby had defected to the Soviet Union from Beirut in 1963, and was treated with respect, but felt isolated. Inside, the atrium leading to the main sorting office and collection point is now dotted with stalls selling electronic goods, pricey mobile-phone accessories and flowers at 3 a stem. Its my third day in Russia. Shes always cast as a bit player if shes mentioned at all, but she was a remarkable woman. 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. Joins Cambridge University Socialist Society. Just beyond the crossroads which dominates Pushkin Square the spot where its said dissidents would meet, acknowledging each other by removing their hats is the former site of the Hotel Minsk (like much of the city, now under a lengthy reconstruction process), where Kim first met the journalist Murray Sayle in 1967. His ashes were brought back to England, as he had requested, and buried in his parents grave after dark and by torchlight so that the press would not get wind of it. 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. When they had not returned on the Sunday night, her mother was frantic. His cover story was that he was a political migr, a trade union leader persecuted in England for his political views. 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. There are so many ways that Kims choices have continued to occupy my mind since my dad died in 2009, but I do feel that this book draws a line under it. It was a mystery. But though his love affair with the cause never wavered, his love affair with Melinda did. Philby was recruited, it reveals, because it was mistakenly believed that his father, St John, was a British intelligence officer. "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. A plaque in his honour was unveiled by the head of the foreign intelligence service at its headquarters in Moscow in December. Online calculator reveals how inflation-busting 14.4% hike will Do not sell or share my personal information. The only change I can note is a computer on his desk where an old type-writer once stood. 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". "I said something to the escort and he just stayed silent, sitting, leafing through his magazine. Burgess predeceased him by 20 years, carried off by angina, an abused liver and hardening of the arteries. In his lifetime, Kim married four times, and had five children by his second wife Aileen Furse. Doubtless Jeremiah faced similar problems.. 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. 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