Of the five, Philby is believed to have been the most successful in providing secret information to the Soviets. He was recruited by Soviet intelligence in By the end of the Second World War he had become a high-ranking member. In , Philby was appointed first secretary to the British Embassy in Washington and served as chief British liaison with American intelligence agencies.
During his career as an intelligence officer, he passed large amounts of intelligence to the Soviet Union, including the Albanian Subversion , a scheme to overthrow the pro-Soviet government of Communist Albania. Philby was suspected of tipping off two other spies under suspicion of Soviet espionage, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess , both of whom subsequently fled to Moscow in May He resumed his career as both a journalist and a spy for MI6 in Beirut , but was forced to defect to Moscow after finally being unmasked as a Soviet agent in Philby lived in Moscow until his death in Nicknamed "Kim" after the boy-spy in Rudyard Kipling 's novel Kim , [ 5 ] Philby attended Aldro preparatory school , an all-boys school located in Shackleford , Surrey.
In his early teens, he spent some time with the Bedouin in the Arabian desert. He graduated in with a degree in Economics. At Cambridge, Philby exhibited a "leaning towards communism ", in the words of his father, who went on to write: "The only serious question is whether Kim definitely intended to be disloyal to the government while in its service". However, following the Labour Party 's defeat in the general election , he took a more active role in the society and served as its treasurer between and Upon Philby's graduation, Maurice Dobb , a tutor in economics at Trinity, introduced him to the World Federation for the Relief of the Victims of German Fascism, an organization based in Paris , which attempted to aid victims of Nazi Germany and provide education on oppositions to fascism.
Philby admired the strength of her political convictions and later recalled that at their first meeting:. A frank and direct person, Litzi came out and asked me how much money I had. You can give that to the International Organisation for Aid for Revolutionaries. We need it desperately. He also delivered clothes and money to refugees. It is possible that it was a Viennese-born friend of Friedmann's in London , Edith Tudor Hart βherself, at this time, a Soviet agentβwho first approached Philby about the possibility of working for Soviet intelligence.
In June , Deutsch recruited Philby to the Soviet intelligence services. Lizzy came home one evening and told me that she had arranged for me to meet a "man of decisive importance". I questioned her about it but she would give me no details.
