Charlotte is the granddaughter of Kim Philby, Britain's most famous communist double-agent, the elusive 'third man' in the notorious Cambridge spy ring. 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. 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. Fergus announced to some children with whom he was playing that My Daddy wants to stop all wars. Image: Barney Beech, Kim's graveside, at Kuntsovo Cemetry. 1949Made SIS representative in Washington. Burgess predeceased him by 20 years, carried off by angina, an abused liver and hardening of the arteries. Some could never quite come to terms that he was a traitor. Kim Philby on holiday with his last wife Rufina Pukhova, 1970s. But neither was entirely impervious. When the news broke in Britain that she, too, had defected, the Press rounded on Melinda, turning the pathetic and lonely figure theyd previously portrayed her as into a scheming deceiver. In this article for The Independent Magazine, I returned to Moscow to discover the truth about my grandfather, the infamous Third Man. Perhaps he hadnt always been right. Takes charge of British intelligence in Spain and Portugal. I turn left, according to my map, away from Kims local grocery, where a creature of habit hed collect his daily supply of bread and whatever fruit and vegetables were available. But again, it was justifiable in his mind. I love those images of him as a real person; for me, thats where the clues as to who he really was can be found. 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. 58. Eleanor Philby. Area of responsibility extended to include North African and Italian espionage. 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. 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. By the time she left Russia, Maclean was in his final decline, in and out of hospital with cancer from his lifetime of smoking. He passed over 900 British documents to the KGB. Thanks for this post. Find out where Kim Philby was born, their birthday and details about their professions, education, religion, family and other life details and facts. 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. As I walk towards it, the title of the Anthony Trollope novel jumps out at me: He Knew He Was Right. Melinda returned to Donald, but two years later moved to her own apartment. Your email address will not be published. Philby lives in Bristol with her husband and three children. After all, they won the war.'". That he could carry on a secret life without her being aware, while at the same time working his way up the ranks of the British Foreign Office, seemed perfectly possible. Then they boarded what was described as a small military-type aircraft which flew them to Moscow to be reunited with Donald. She would be his silent witness for all the difficult years ahead. 4.1 out of 5 stars. In 1955, Harold Macmillan, then Foreign Secretary, issued a statement confirming that there was no evidence that Kim Philby was a Soviet agent. Five minutes later, Im watching the shadow of a tall, leafless tree falling against the snow on the path in front of my grandfathers tombstone, wondering who it was whod been here in the past few hours and placed a bunch of brightly coloured flowers at the foot of his grave. His drinking made him paranoid that his wife would abandon him. Best thrillers for July 2021, The Times. She flirted with other men and had affairs. In those days, correspondence had to be sent to a PO Box; and in his reply, Kim would sign off under a special code name, Panina (a combination of Pa and Nina, the alias used for Kims wife). The little blue pill really is magic! n ADAPTED from A Spy Named Orphan by Roland Philipps, to be published by The Bodley Head on April 26 at 20. That summer, friends thought her distracted. 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. To order A Spy Among Friends or Kim Philby, each at 14.99 with free UK p&p, call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardianbookshop.co.uk. However, Pukhova said the fear that she would leave had helped her husband temper his intake in later years. As I step in from the balcony, my eyes settle on a single point. She liked it that he was a man with strong beliefs, and agreed to stand by him. Slowly but surely, he was turning himself into one of the most cunning and treacherous double agents of all time. During our stay, more mourners piled in, their cries and moans ricocheting off the walls. He fell for her the moment he met her among the bohemian set he socialised with in Paris, where he was a British diplomat. The comments below have not been moderated. I remember at the time feeling that something very dark was happening and that I didnt feel safe. Once hed gone, she rode out the public furore, the door-stepping journalists, the MI5 questioning, the abuse and insinuations, the bullying of her sons at school. 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. Here, surrounded by an extensive library, he would sit for hours. 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. The controversial civil rights leader was gunned down in front of his wife and children while making a speech in New York. Maclean and Burgess escape to Russia. 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. Given a heros burial in Moscows Kuntsevo Cemetery. 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. He drank to excess, hit her, and often disappeared. But though his love affair with the cause never wavered, his love affair with Melinda did. He got drunk and roamed Kuybyshev looking for action, on one occasion having his teeth knocked out in a brawl. H. A. R. (Kim) Philby, the double agent whose betrayal of his country and his social class indelibly marked British politics, has died in Moscow, officials in London said yesterday. The first reports that Russia ranks 143rd in a list of the worlds freest economies, just one spot higher than countries with repressed economies like Vietnam, Ecuador, Belarus and Ukraine, while the next tells how oligarch Roman Abramovich, whose wealth is valued at 7 billion, has just snapped up 35 notable artworks to decorate his 560ft private yacht. But I dont think my grandfather ever questioned a single decision he made. So, perhaps, by the time he died, a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall and knowing what he must have known by then he did feel disappointed. It was seeing those photos as a six-year-old child which helped first alert me to the fact that there was something a bit different about grandpa Kimsky. There, he volunteered for the refugee committee, fundraising, secretly writing and disseminating propaganda, raising funds and distributing clothes and money to those whod escaped Fascist Germany. Donald refused to become part of the twilight brigade community of defectors, down-at-heel, disillusioned and wondering how they had got there. The two-drink tradition remained but in time there was no longer a need to hide the bottle, she added. Heads to Vienna to serve the movement there. But, after a silence of nearly five years, here was the first actual sighting and confirmation that the runaways were alive. Back in England, begins to cover up his past, joining the Anglo-German Fellowship, editing its pro-Hitler magazine. that Philby, with his Communist views in Vienna and his Austrian Communist wife, had been recruited for SIS and had sailed through its vetting procedures?. And perhaps he felt that he certainly resented having to be escorted pretty much wherever he went for his first years in Moscow, as Rufa attests. In Philbys own eyes he was working for the shape of things to come from which his country would benefit., Kim went to great efforts upon his return to England to cover the traces of his Communist background joining the Anglo-German fellowship in 1934, and editing its pro-Hitler magazine. 1965Awarded the Order of the Red Banner, one of the Soviet Unions highest military honours. Melinda put the bravest of faces on her situation when she wrote to her still grief-stricken mother that she understood the suffering she had caused. Which author do you most admire?I dont have favourites, but I love Helen Dunmore. Agent Stanley, as he was known, was ruthless without doubt. "His story does not really go away, because there is. Kim even duped his own children, and left them behind when he fled to Moscow. One can hardly overlook the irony of a man who so resolutely betrayed his country, surrounding himself in his Soviet apartment with British condiments, newspapers and light-hearted English classics. "I said something to the escort and he just stayed silent, sitting, leafing through his magazine. Despite the number of times we visited Kim in Moscow, no one in the family was ever allowed to have his address. 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. The two men in the front seat my guards of honour peer out in silence, squinting their eyes against the sunlight as it pours in through the canopy of trees above. The only change I can note is a computer on his desk where an old type-writer once stood. He became more optimistic once the family was deemed fully rehabilitated and they moved to Moscow in 1955. It was a mystery. "But he never got aggressive, and just went to bed. Those are the facts but there are plenty of question marks too. Kim Philby drank while Guy Burgess, who was gay, missed his friends in London, including Anthony Blunt whose spying activities, though known to the government, were kept under wraps until they. He had friends, a wife; he indulged himself in a culture he loved the concerts, the ballet, the galleries; he travelled to Cuba, East Berlin, around the Soviet Union, and spent weekends at his beloved dacha. November 16, 2017. Im reminded of a brief phone conversation I had earlier this morning with one of Kims old KGB comrades, whom Id been in contact with during the course of my research for this article, who told me that a gang of five or six of Kims former colleagues still meet up every month and raise a toast in his honour. After Donald Maclean fled to Moscow to escape arrest in Britain as the spy who, for 15 years, had passed state secrets to the Soviet Union, friends of his wife, Melinda, found it easy to believe that she knew nothing of her husbands treachery. 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. To order a copy for 15, visit mailshop.co.uk/ books or call 0844 571 0640. But more generally womens roles in espionage have been sidelined, and I wonder if thats because a lot of this history has been recorded by men. It was bad enough with Kim and the Cambridge spies showing up the British establishment, but the idea that this foreign Jewish woman might run rings around men in positions of authority, perhaps that was embarrassing for them. Who is going to check 55 volumes for the odd sentence? Whatever you believe, Kim felt history would prove him right: Ill be remembered as a good man, he told my mum just two years before his death. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Later she became a journalist at the Independent. When I asked my dad, shortly before he died late last year, how hed felt about his own fathers betrayal, he told me exactly what Kim had told Sayle during that interview in 1963: To betray, you must first belong. And as Kim said himself: I never belonged. My dad always had great respect for my grandfather; he told me that even when he was a child, he always knew he was up to something he just didnt know what. Lese Part of the Family gratis von Charlotte Philby Verfgbar als Hrbuch Jetzt 14 Tage gratis testen. When author Charlotte Philby's partner ended their relationship, her world fell apart. But out of a smaller window, in front of the door, the view of Moscow is interrupted by a throbbing neon Samsung advert. What are you writing next?After publishing four novels in four years, Im taking more time to write the next one. birth date: 1912-01-01. birth place: Ambala. 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