Editing Kim Philby (section)

==Defection to Russia==
In 1961, [[Anatoliy Golitsyn]], a major in the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, defected to the United States from his diplomatic post in [[Helsinki]]. Golitsyn offered the CIA revelations of Soviet agents within American and British intelligence services. Following his debriefing in the US, Golitsyn was sent to SIS for further questioning. The head of MI6, [[Dick White]], only recently transferred from MI5, had suspected Philby as the "third man".<ref name=LRB/> Golitsyn proceeded to confirm White's suspicions about Philby's role.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 432}} [[Nicholas Elliott]], an MI6 officer recently stationed in Beirut who was a friend of Philby's and had previously believed in his innocence, was tasked with attempting to secure his full confession.<ref name=Observer>{{cite news|author=Robert McCrum|title=Kim Philby, the Observer connection and the establishment world of spies|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/28/kim-philby-david-astor-observer|access-date=29 July 2013|newspaper=The Observer|date=28 July 2013}}</ref>

It is unclear whether Philby had been alerted, but Eleanor noted that as 1962 wore on, expressions of tension in his life "became worse and were reflected in bouts of deep depression and drinking".{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 434}} She recalled returning home to Beirut from a sight-seeing trip in Jordan to find Philby "hopelessly drunk and incoherent with grief on the terrace of the flat", mourning the death of a little pet fox that had fallen from the balcony.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 435}} When Elliott met Philby in late 1962, the first time since Golitsyn's defection, he found Philby too drunk to stand and with a bandaged head; he had fallen repeatedly and cracked his skull on a bathroom radiator, requiring stitches.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 436}}

Philby told Elliott that he was "half expecting" to see him. Elliott confronted him, saying, "I once looked up to you, Kim. My God, how I despise you now. I hope you've enough decency left to understand why."{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 437}} Prompted by Elliott's accusations, Philby confirmed the charges of espionage and described his intelligence activities on behalf of the Soviets. However, when Elliott asked him to sign a written statement, he hesitated and requested a delay in the interrogation.<ref name=LRB/> Another meeting was scheduled to take place in the last week of January. It has since been suggested that the whole confrontation with Elliott had been a charade to convince the KGB that Philby had to be brought back to Moscow, where he could serve as a British penetration agent of Moscow Central.<ref name=NYTParanoia/>

On the evening of 23 January 1963, Philby vanished from Beirut, failing to meet his wife for a dinner party at the home of [[Glencairn Balfour Paul]], First Secretary at the British Embassy.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 438}} The ''Dolmatova'', a Soviet freighter bound for [[Odessa]], had left Beirut that morning so abruptly that cargo was left scattered over the docks;<ref name=LRB/> Philby claimed that he left Beirut on board this ship.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 471}} However, others maintain that he escaped through Syria, overland to Soviet Armenia and thence to the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]].{{sfn|Riley|1990}}{{page needed|date=June 2020}}

It was not until 1 July 1963 that Philby's flight to Moscow was officially confirmed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalcoldwarexhibition.org/explore/biography.cfm?name=Philby,%20Kim|title=Biography of Kim Philby|work=National Cold War Exhibition|publisher=[[RAF Museum Cosford]]|access-date=30 June 2011}}</ref> On 30 July, Soviet officials announced that they had granted him political asylum in the Soviet Union, along with Soviet citizenship.{{sfn|Boyle|1979|p= 441}} When the news broke, MI6 came under criticism for failing to anticipate and block Philby's defection, though Elliott was to claim he could not have prevented Philby's flight. Journalist [[Ben Macintyre]], author of several works on espionage, speculated that MI6 might have left open the opportunity for Philby to flee to Moscow to avoid an embarrassing public trial. Philby himself thought this might have been the case.{{sfn|Macintyre|2015|pp=277–278}}

===Moscow===
[[File:The Soviet Union 1990 CPA 6266 stamp (Soviet Intelligence Agents. Kim Philby).jpg|thumb|Philby on a 1990 Soviet stamp]]
Upon his arrival in Moscow in January 1963, Philby discovered that he was not a colonel in the KGB, as he had been led to believe. He was paid 500 [[Soviet rouble|rouble]]s a month (the average Soviet salary in 1960 was Rbls&nbsp;80.60 a month and Rbls&nbsp;122 in 1970)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://istmat.info/node/9304 |title=The national economy of the USSR for 70 years. Wages and incomes of the population. 'in Russian |access-date=23 July 2021 |archive-date=23 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210723074943/https://istmat.info/node/9304 |url-status=dead }}</ref> and his family was not immediately able to join him in exile.{{sfn|Philby|Lyubimov|Peake|1999}}{{page needed|date=September 2022}} Philby was under virtual [[house arrest]] and under guard, with all visitors screened by the KGB. It was ten years before he was given a minor role in the training of KGB recruits.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://westhampsteadlife.com/2016/12/28/the-cambridge-spies-west-hampstead-connection/18498 |title=The Cambridge Spies' West Hampstead connection |date=16 December 2018 |work=West Hampstead Life |access-date=1 January 2021 }}</ref> [[Mikhail Lyubimov]], his closest KGB contact, explained that this was to guard his safety, but later admitted that the real reason was the KGB's fear that Philby would return to London.<ref name="NYTParanoia"/>

Secret files released to the [[National Archives (United Kingdom)|National Archives]] in late 2020 indicated that the British government had intentionally conducted a campaign to keep Philby's spying confidential "to minimise political embarrassment" and prevent the publication of his [[memoirs]], according to a report by ''[[The Guardian]]''. Nonetheless, the information was publicized in 1967 when he granted an interview to Murray Sayle of ''The Times'' in Moscow. Philby confirmed that he had worked for the KGB and that "his purpose in life was to destroy [[imperialism]]".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/30/new-revelations-kim-philby-spy-saga-secret-files-national-archives |title=Kim Philby: new revelations about spy emerge in secret files |date=30 December 2020 |work=The Guardian |access-date=30 December 2020 |quote=UK government launched campaign to block memoirs being published fearing damaging disclosures}}</ref>

In Moscow, Philby occupied himself by writing his memoirs, which were published in Britain in 1968 under the title ''My Silent War''; they were not published in the Soviet Union until 1980.<ref>David Pryce-Jones: October 2004: The New Criterion published by the Foundation for Cultural Review, New York, a nonprofit public foundation as described in Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code,</ref> In the book, Philby says that his loyalties were always with the communists; he considered himself not to have been a double agent but "a straight penetration agent working in the Soviet interest".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/kim-philby/my-silent-war/ |title=My Silent War |date=1 May 1968 |publisher=Kirkus |access-date=30 December 2020 |quote=(he chose sides early on in his life – saw no reason to change)}}</ref> Philby continued to read ''The Times'', which was not generally available in the USSR, listened to the [[BBC World Service]] and was an avid follower of [[cricket]].

Philby's award of the Order of the British Empire was cancelled and annulled in 1965.<ref>London Gazette Issue 43735 published on 10 August 1965. p. 1</ref> Though he claimed publicly in January 1988 that he did not regret his decisions and that he missed nothing about England except some friends, [[Colman's]] mustard and [[Lea & Perrins]] [[Worcestershire sauce]],<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/12/obituaries/kim-philby-double-agent-dies.html|title=Kim Philby, Double Agent, Dies|author=Stephen Erlanger|work=The New York Times|access-date=28 January 2011|date=12 May 1988}}</ref> his wife [[Rufina Ivanovna Pukhova]] later described Philby as "disappointed in many ways" by what he found in Moscow. "He saw people suffering too much", but he consoled himself by arguing that "the ideals were right but the way they were carried out was wrong. The fault lay with the people in charge."<ref name="Borovik">Genrikh Borovik, ''The Philby Files'', 1994, published by Little, Brown & Company Limited, Canada, {{ISBN|978-0-316-91015-6}}. Introduction by Phillip Knightley.</ref> Pukhova said, "he was struck by disappointment, brought to tears. He said, 'Why do old people live so badly here? After all, they won the war.'"<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/mar/31/spy-kim-philby-disillusioned-communism|title=Spy Kim Philby died disillusioned with communism|first1=Tom |last1=Parfitt|first2=Richard |last2=Norton-Taylor |date=30 March 2011|work=The Guardian|access-date=20 February 2014}}</ref> Philby's drinking and depression continued; according to Rufina, he had attempted suicide by slashing his wrists sometime in the 1960s.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/19/world/last-days-of-kim-philby-his-russian-widow-s-sad-story.html|title=Last Days of Kim Philby: His Russian Widow's Sad Story|work=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=5 July 2012|date=19 December 1997|author-link=Alessandra Stanley|first1=Alessandra|last1=Stanley}}</ref>

Philby found work in the early 1970s in the KGB's [[Active measures|Active Measures]] Department churning out fabricated documents. Working from genuine unclassified and public CIA or [[United States Department of State|US State Department]] documents, Philby inserted "sinister" paragraphs regarding US plans. The KGB would stamp the documents "top secret" and begin their circulation. For the Soviets, Philby was an invaluable asset, ensuring the correct use of idiomatic and diplomatic English phrases in their [[disinformation]] efforts.{{sfn|Wallace|Melton|Schlesinger|2009|p= 314}}