Whether it’s James Bond or Austin Powers, spy stories are always a thrill to follow. But, unfortunately, the reality of the lives of secret agents isn’t as exciting as what we see in the movies. Every so often, however, there is a real life spy story that seems to have popped out of the mind of the most creative of authors. The tale of Kim Philby, an MI-6 spy that acted as a double agent for the Soviet Union, is one of those stories. Played by Guy Pearce, Philby is the subject of MGM+’s newest thriller, A Spy Among Friends. Based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Ben MacIntyre, the limited series centers around Philby’s relationship with his friend and fellow spy Nicholas Elliott (Damien Lewis) and how their lives are impacted by the revelation of Philby’s involvement with the Soviets.

Arguably one of the most notorious double agents that has ever lived, Philby is reviled in his homeland, but died as a hero in the country that he chose to serve. His story has served as inspiration for renowned authors of the spy genre, such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’s John le Carré. But what is his actual story? What is the truth about Harold Adrian Russell Philby, a.k.a. Kim?

Who Was the Real Kim Philby, MGM+’s ‘Spy Among Friends’?

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Image via MGM+

Born on January 1, 1912, in Ambala, India, into what he himself described as “the ruling class of the British Empire”, Harold Philby gained the nickname of Kim in honor of the Rudyard Kipling novel of the same name about a boy that served as a British spy during the 19th century political standoff between the UK and Russia. Pretty ironic, considering where Mr. Philby’s allegiances actually lied. His long-lived career as a spy began somewhere in the early to mid-1930s, when he was recruited alongside a group of fellow Cambridge students by the Soviet Secret Service, which would later become known as the KGB.

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The exact date of Kim Philby’s first contact with the Soviets is still up to debate. Reputable sources, such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, state that he was recruited by the USSR in 1933, when he was in his last year of university. However, Philby himself disagrees. According to his obituary in the New York Times, Philby always maintained that his recruitment took place in 1934, during a trip to Vienna in which he worked with local activists and married his first wife, Austrian Communist Litzi Kohlman. Played by Morgane Ferru in the MGM+ miniseries, Kohlman divorced Philby four years after their wedding, in 1938. It’s a believable story, but, according to the Times, many Western intelligence officials believed that Philby left for Austria already as a Soviet agent in order to carry out some probationary assignment. In this version of the story, Philby lied about his recruitment to protect colleagues that may have undergone the same process.

This, however, is the least important part of his tale. Whatever version of the story you choose to believe, what truly matters is what came after Philby’s recruitment. And though he would eventually become a master secret agent that would be known as “the spy that betrayed a generation," the start of his career wasn’t all that impressive. In a lecture to members of the Stasi, the East German secret service, recovered by the BBC, Philby stated that his recruitment was “essentially a long range project. No immediate results were expected or could have been expected.”

Still, it was clear from the get-go that Moscow had its eyes set on the British Secret Service, best known simply as the MI6. In order to get recruited as a secret agent in the UK, Philby began working as a journalist, covering conflicts such as the Spanish Civil War. His reports, always favorable to fascist general Francisco Franco, earned him a Red Cross of Military Merit after Franco's forces took over Madrid. Over the course of the next decades, he would use the medal to deflect accusations of being a communist.

Kim Philby Rose Quickly Through the MI6 Ranks

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With the Spanish Civil War now over and World War II on the horizon, Philby started dropping hints that he would like to work for the government in the fight against Hitler. He was invited to join the MI6’s counterespionage Section V in 1941, and charged with feeding false information to the Soviet Union, which was a British ally during the war. This position gave him free access to Soviet intelligence officers.

Philby kept his cover throughout the entire war, and was even awarded the Order of the British Empire for his service. Posing as the perfect British spy, he delivered top secret files to Soviet agents. How did he get his hands on such files? Well, according to his Stasi speech, the MI6 during wartime was a proper mess, and all he had to do was make friends with an archivist by taking him for a drink two or three times a week.

“Every evening I left the office with a big briefcase full of reports that I had written myself, full of files and actual documents from the archive. I used to hand them to my Soviet contact in the evening. The next morning I would get the files back, the contents having been photographed and early the next morning I would put them back in their place. That I did regularly, year in, year out”, Philby explained.

With time, Kim Philby rose in the ranks of the MI6, until he became his section’s number 2 guy. He was then instructed to use bureaucratic intrigue to get rid of his superior, Felix Cowgill, and take his place. According to Philby, he felt bad for Cowgill, whom he claimed to admire, but orders were orders. With Cowgill out of the way, Philby took one further step up in the chain of command, and eventually became the MI6 liaison in Washington.

Kim Philby’s Allegiance to His Fellow Spies Was His Downfall

Guy Pearce as Kim Philby in A Spy Among Friends.

It was during Philby’s time in Washington that two of his Cambridge friends and fellow Soviet spies were discovered, spelling the beginning of the end of his career in the MI6. It was Philby himself that warned Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, played in the show by Thomas Arnold and Daniel Lapaine, respectively, of the secret service's intentions of bringing them in for questioning. Afraid of having their covers blown, Burgess and Maclean fled to Moscow, and the alarm was raised. British officers had only one question in their minds: who was the one that alerted them, the person that would become known as the “third man”?

Suspicion soon fell on Philby, who even held a press conference in his own apartment to deny the accusations. “The last time I spoke to a communist knowing that he was a communist was sometime in 1934”, he told reporters at the time. Questions about him were asked in the House of Commons, but they were quickly shut down by then foreign secretary Harold Macmillan. Still, he was relieved of his duties in 1955.

After spending nearly 30 years at MI6, Philby went back to working as a reporter. Or did he? Some sources claim that he was readmitted to MI6 and that his work as a journalist was merely a cover-up for his actual job as a spy. Either way, Philby relocated to Beirut, where he was tasked with writing stories for the Observer. It was there that his cover was finally blown for good.

In 1963, Philby was confronted by an MI6 colleague, but, once again, denied any accusations about him working for the Soviets. He was left in his apartment under the supervision of another MI6 agent, who eventually left him unattended to go on a ski trip - or, at least, that’s what Philby told the men of the Stasi. Kim Philby then took the opportunity to get in touch with Moscow. Shortly after, he left for the Soviet Union with the KGB’s blessing.

A Villain in the UK, Philby Died as a Hero in the Soviet Union

Philby lived a long and happy life in the USSR, where he was greeted as a hero. In 1965, the Soviets awarded him the Red Banner of Honor for his services to the KGB. Later on, he received privileged granted only to KGB generals. In 1968, he published a memoir titled My Secret War, and, in 1971, he married for the fourth time with Rufina Pukhova, a fellow KGB agent.

Kim Philby passed away on May 11, 1988, at the age of 76. The Soviet government never revealed the cause of his death. However, according to his obituary in the New York Times, in an interview to The Sunday Times of London, Philby confessed that he had been committed to a hospital due to an irregular heartbeat. A very mundane ending for someone with such an unbelievable story.