Historical person
Kim Philby
1912–1988
Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby was a British intelligence officer who secretly worked for the Soviet Union. Recruited into Soviet intelligence in the 1930s, he later entered MI6 and rose into posts that gave him access to sensitive British and Allied intelligence. His position allowed him to compromise operations and agents while maintaining the appearance of a successful British intelligence career.
Philby joined British intelligence during the Second World War while secretly working for the Soviet Union as part of the Cambridge spy network. He rose to senior positions in MI6 and served in Washington, gaining access to highly sensitive Anglo-American intelligence. Suspicions intensified after the flight of Burgess and Maclean in 1951; Philby was eventually confronted in Beirut and defected to Moscow in 1963.
In Ben Macintyre’s A Spy Among Friends, Kim Philby rises through Britain’s intelligence establishment while secretly working for the Soviet Union. Antonia Senior’s Stalin’s Apostles is Antonia Senior’s history of the Cambridge Five—Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt and John Cairncross—and the intelligence they supplied to the Soviet Union.
Non Fiction
Non Fiction featuring Kim Philby (2 books)
Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.
