2. Harold “Kim” Philby began spying for the Soviets in 1934
Kim Philby’s career as a traitor to his country began when he entered the Soviet intelligence service during a meeting in London’s Regent Park in 1934. Originally he worked as a journalist, traveling to Austria, Berlin, Paris, and Spain during the latter’s Civil War. He communicated with his Soviet handler in Paris by writing letters to a fictitious girlfriend, containing information in code. His first handler in Paris, a Latvian operative for the Soviets, traveled to Moscow to be shot during Stalin’s Great Purge, in 1937. In 1939 his successor received the same reward for his efforts with the NKVD. The Soviets did not entirely trust the information received from Philby, nor any of the Cambridge spies at that time.
With the war between Britain and Germany looming in the summer of 1939, Philby returned to London. Upon the recommendation of his former classmate, Guy Burgess, he joined MI6 in 1940. Burgess and Philby were tasked with operating a training section preparing saboteurs to attack behind enemy lines. That summer Burgess, a notorious drunkard, was arrested in a drunken-driving incident. Though the charges were subsequently dismissed, Burgess found himself unemployed as a result of his indiscretion. Philby transferred to the Special Operations Executive (SOE) school for training operatives in clandestine missions. By then he had already passed information to the Soviets, often regarding SOE activities in the Soviet Union and Southeast Asia. The KGB considered him at the time unreliable, and Soviet authorities questioned his true loyalties and ambitions.