What do you imagine a super agent to be like? He must be strong, agile and unpretentious; a good marksman and a master of hand-to-hand combat. He's elegant and has a knack for winning women's hearts immediately. The men around him respect him and deep down fear him. 

Super agent Kim Philby had nothing in common with this stereotype: a soft, non-struggling man. Having led saboteurs for half his life, he himself could hardly have planted even the simplest mine. He never conquered women: they themselves came to him - touching and defenseless. He stuttered noticeably, never dominated men and very much liked comfort.

Kim Philby - one of the leaders of the British SIS (MI6) and the most famous KGB agent.

1936, the war in Spain. A young reporter of the British "Times" Kim Philby, accredited to the headquarters of the Francoists, is stopped by plainclothes police officers to check his documents and identity. In Philby's pocket - his sentence - is an instruction manual on how to use a code to communicate with Soviet intelligence. It is written on a tiny piece of rice paper.

Harold Adrian Russell Philby is our hero's full birth name. Suddenly he snatches his wallet from the back pocket of his pants and throws it on the edge of the table - the plainclothes agents instinctively rush to him. That's enough time for Philby to lightning-fast send the ill-fated instruction into his mouth.

Philby was recruited by Soviet intelligence while still at Cambridge, where the young student sympathized with the Labour Party: he liked their arguments about social justice. However, in 1931, Labor suffered a crushing electoral defeat, and Kim Philby turned his gaze to the Soviet Union.

In those years, many people looked towards the Soviet Union in the hope of a better future for their countries. They wanted to believe in propaganda clichés about a state of workers and peasants, where all power belonged to the people, where the bright future of all mankind - communism - was being built.

Philby realized that because of his political views, a career in the British establishment will not work, and after graduation Kim became a journalist.

His first overseas assignment was to Austria, where street battles between workers and the Nazis were already in full swing. There he meets and marries a young activist of the Austrian Communist Party. Together they help Austrian and German communists escape police persecution by smuggling them to other countries.

After some time, Kim returns to London with his wife. By this time, Soviet intelligence already had Philby in its sights. One of Kim's Austrian acquaintances recommends him to get acquainted with a very interesting person. So Kim meets a Soviet intelligence officer for the first time. He was an Austrian-born Arnold Deitsch, an illegal alien working under the name of Stefan Lang.

During the conversation Deitch convinced Kim that he could be more useful not on the barricades and rallies, and becoming an agent of deep penetration. Philby agreed, and since June 1933 in operational correspondence with Moscow, he was listed as "Sonok".

The first task of the center was to stop all contact with Communists and sympathizers. And the former "leftist" and almost communist now openly declared his adherence to the ideas of National Socialism, getting closer to the British Nazis and constantly speaking in an ultra-conservative tone. And a young Times reporter is sent to Spain as a special correspondent for General Franco.

The information about the regime, which he transmitted to Moscow, was very valuable. However, it was not enough for the Center. At another meeting with the Moscow liaison, he is given a new task - to join the British intelligence agency SIS.

During the Spanish War Philby showed himself as a brave and bright journalist, and after the outbreak of World War II, he was appointed chief war correspondent at the headquarters of British troops. However, he was soon called to the War Office - so the secret service itself came to Kim Philby.

Kim Philby quickly became his own in the SIS. He fundamentally did not take part in service intrigues, but studied the service archives with diligence. This was good for his reputation in the eyes of his superiors and also helped Moscow to keep abreast of events.

Philby's main official occupation in those years was the training of saboteurs: Poles, Czechs, and Spaniards. During the war years, it was from Philby that Moscow received invaluable information about attempts at separatist negotiations between the Western Allies and representatives of the Reich.

As an officer of British intelligence, Philby organized many successful sabotage operations against Germany. Bridges were blown up, fuel depots were burned. But the war was ending - the Red Army was liberating Eastern Europe - and the SIS began to prepare for active work against the Soviet Union.

On March 5, 1946, Churchill's speech in Fulton marked the beginning of the Cold War. Much attention was paid to the countries of Eastern Europe: the USSR regarded them as its fiefdom, and the West could not accept it. Saboteurs and spies were sent to Eastern Europe, and Kim Philby contributed a lot to their detection and exposure.

After the war, the SIS began to form the so-called 9th Anti-Communist Section. On the agenda was an important question: "Who in British intelligence will lead the fight against communism"? Philby was one of the likely candidates. In another meeting with his handler from Moscow, Philby asked if he should compete for the section chief's job. Moscow replied in the affirmative, but recommended caution.

In the early 60s, KGB officer Anatoly Golitsin flees abroad. He did not come empty-handed, saying that in the connection Burgess - Maclean was the third - Kim Philby. Moscow decided that the English super Croat must be saved.

The escape was quick and uncomplicated. Kim simply quietly left one of the receptions, and his then-American wife discovered a note in which Kim announced that he had gone on a brief tour of the Middle East.

In the late 80s, he was sitting in his spacious apartment in the center of Moscow, rearranging his chair, hunting for the sun, writing a new book of memoirs. He had a lot to remember.

Once in the Soviet Union, Philby thought he had returned to his homeland, but Kim immediately felt unclaimed: he was treated like a spent nuclear submarine - with attention and apprehension. Kim lectured occasionally, analyzed and drank heavily at first.

But then his friend, George Blake, introduced Kim to Rufina Ivanovna Pukhova. After years of loneliness, Philby had a family and a home that he loved very much.