Harold Adrian Russell 'Kim' Philby (1912 - May 11, 1988)
was an employee of British intelligence and a Soviet spy.
He was member of the spy ring known as the Cambridge
Five, along with Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony
Blunt and John Cairncross. Philby was nicknamed Kim after
a fictional spy.
Born in Ambala, India the son of the British diplomat, explorer, author, Arabist and converted Muslim Harry St. John Philby, at one time an adviser to King Ibn Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia.
After leaving Westminster School in 1928, Philby went on
to Trinity College, Cambridge. While a student there
Philby was introduced to, and came to admire, the ideals
of Communism. He was not exactly 'recruited' as a spy -
he volunteered. He asked one of his tutors, Maurice Dobb,
how he could serve the Communist movement. Dobb passed
him on (possibly not knowing what it would lead to) to a
Communist front organisation, which passed him on to the
Comintern underground in Vienna. He was recruited by the
Soviet intelligence service itself (at that time known as
the OGPU) on the strength of his work for the Comintern.