Kim Philby the U.S.S.R.’s Most Successful Double Agent
Kim Philby was the most successful double agent of the Cold War. Not only did he provide his Russian handlers with valuable information but he also lived out his life without either side killing him. He was a member of what was called the Cambridge Five, men from Cambridge who were willing to betray the British to the Russians.
Kim recruited by double agent Guy Burgess to join MI-6 in 1940. Kim was good at his job and with the support of other high ranking double agents he was able to quickly rise through the ranks of MI-6. By the end of World War II he was made head of counterespionage operations for MI-6. His job was to stop Russian subversion in western Europe although he himself was responsible for a great deal of it. With his new position he betrayed a number of agents to the Russians which cost them their lives.
In 1949 he took yet another promotion as Chief liaison for information between the British and U.S. services. He moved to Washington and learned of a plot by the Americans to send anticommunist bands into Albania in 1950. This would have spelled defeat for the Albanians but Kim Philby warned the Russians of the plot and all of the incoming forces were captured. The failed mission cost 300 lives.
When Guy Burgess and Donald MacLean (another Russian double agent) came under suspicion, Kim Philby was able to warn them. They defected to Moscow before being taken in by MI-6. After Burgess and MacLean defected, the suspicion for a double agent fell on Kim Philby. He was removed from MI-6 in 1955 and eventually settled in Moscow in 1963. He spent most of his time in Moscow under house arrest as the Soviets feared that he might leave and betray them to the British. He died at the age of 1988 to a hero’s funeral in Moscow and several medals were awarded to him posthumously.