Secret wartime documents passed by a British double agent to his Soviet handlers have been made public for the first time at a Moscow exhibition dedicated to the spy’s career.



Kim Philby was the most notorious of the “Cambridge five”, British communists who spied for Moscow and evaded suspicion for years due to their upper-class credentials.

He worked for the Soviet Union from the 1930s onwards and was unmasked in 1963. During his years working for British intelligence as a double agent, he passed hundreds of sensitive documents to the Russians.

The documents on display in Moscow are mainly from 1944 and concern diplomatic cables intercepted by British intelligence, which Philby then passed on to his Russian handlers. The documents are marked at the top in red: “Top Secret. To be kept under lock and key: never to be removed from the office.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest A decoration awarded by the KGB to Kim Philby for his contribution to the national security of the USSR on display as part of the exhibition. Photograph: Alexander Shalgin/TASS

One, dated 31 July 1944, is a record of a cable from the Japanese ambassador in Venice to the foreign minister in Tokyo, and recounts a meeting the ambassador had with Benito Mussolini, in which the Italian leader spoke of a visit to Germany to meet Adolf Hitler on 20 July, the day an assassination plot against the Nazi leader failed.



Through the circuitous route of the Japanese ambassador reporting Mussolini’s description of the day, intercepted by the Brits and passed by Philby to the Soviets, Moscow received a report of the failed bombing attempt: “The force of the explosion was astonishing, and the Führer sustained minor injuries to his left hand and arm. He also hurt a joint in his right shoulder and some of his hair was burned.”

Spy Kim Philby died disillusioned with communism Read more

Other British reports of Japanese cables on display detail German military plans and relay concerns about potential weak spots in the German army planning. The documents have recently been declassified by Russia’s SVR intelligence service, the successor to the foreign spying arm of the KGB.

After fleeing to Russia in 1963, Philby lived in Moscow until his death in 1988. Some of the spies he helped train after his arrival in Russia attended the opening of the exhibit, as did Sergei Naryshkin, current head of the SVR.



“He spent the last 25 years of his life in Russia working as a consultant for the Soviet foreign intelligence, and today many of our current Russian intelligence operatives proudly call themselves Philby’s students,” says Naryshkin.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kim Philby’s widow, Rufina Pukhova-Philby (left) and Sergei Naryshkin, head of the Russian foreign intelligence service and chairman of the Russian Historical Society, at the opening of the Philby exhibition. Photograph: Alexander Shalgin/TASS

The exhibit provided a report from a training seminar Philby held for young KGB spies in the early 1980s on how best to work in the west. Philby complained that many of his students insisted on arguing forcefully in favour of Soviet policies.



“I have tried to persuade them that their primary object is not necessarily to defend Soviet policy, but to establish close contacts with people, and that in a pluralistic society can only be done by conceding that many views other than the Soviet view can be sincerely and intelligently held,” Philby’s report states.

Although he never learned Russian and surrounded himself with British newspapers and books while living in Moscow, Philby remained a committed communist to the end.

In an address Philby made to his KGB comrades in 1977, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, he heaped praise on Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet secret police. He said that although he had worked in western intelligence services before his flight to Moscow, it was only now he felt at home: “There I felt myself surrounded by wolves; here I know that I am with comrades, colleagues and friends.”