The Spy Who Went Into the Cold

"The Spy Who Went Into the Cold" from 2013 is the true story of the notorious Kim Philby, a Brit who spied for the Russians and eventually defected.

There have been many books written about Philby, and one of the people interviewed is Phillip Knightley, who worked with Philby on The Master Spy: The Story of Kim Philby. Also interviewed were his daughter, his widow, Rufina, and people who knew him.

What emerges is the portrait of a man made of Teflon, an alcoholic, and a liar. He was one of the Cambridge Five double agents and is believed to have been most successful in providing secret information to the Soviet Union.

The British apparently knew he was a spy but couldn't admit it to themselves; finally, in 1963, he was told that if he would confess and say he had never spied on the United States after 1949, the government would hush up the matter and exonerate him. Another meeting was set, but Philby defected to Russia, where he was given political asylum. Many think the British left that opportunity open, hoping he'd do it.

He lived out the rest of his life in Russia, dying in 1988. The Russians didn't have much use for him and didn't allow him into the KGB building for many years, so he wasn't exactly treated as a hero until he died. They did consult with him on different matters.

What happened to Philby once he arrived in Russia was that he saw the effects of the philosophy he had embraced so passionately - and realized it didn't work, that people were in poverty. The philosophy was a good one, but it wasn't carried out in the right way. Sure - everything sounds great on paper but once you get people involved, it doesn't work.

"The Spy Who Went Into the Cold" is an interesting look at a complicated man, denial, the good old boy network, and Philby's reality check. In the end, he got away with everything but paid a price in disillusionment, depression, and drink.

Philby was a Russian spy who worked for MI5, passing secrets to Moscow for thirty years. Very interesting interviews with so many colleagues and friends who knew him.

Kim Philby was working for USSR from a university student age. He then started working in journalism and traveled to Spain where Stalin told him to kill Franco. Later KGB decided to let Franco live. Philby used his connections from Cambridge to get into the MI5/MI6 network. It was only possible if you had connections as it was a group of friends not a company you could apply to. 5 socialist Cambridge student friends all worked for USSR plus some more Cambridge students Philby didn't even know about. They all got fancy government jobs by using each other. Philby hid his socialist background and rose through the ranks. Finally getting to Washington working with CIA and FBI getting crucial secret info for Stalin. He initially worked with starting a democratic revolution in communist Albania. But of course he gave all the names to Stalin. So as soon as the revolutionaries crossed the border they were all hunted down and killed. This happened again and again in Georgia and Ukraine too. Before that he leaked Catholic anti-fascist/anti-fascist leaders' names to Stalin. They were supposed to lead Germany after Hitler. But Stalin sent hitmen to Germany and had them all executed. He also had double-agents killed before they could leak crucial info to the West about Philby and other spies. Hundreds of people got killed by Stalin because of Philby. But he never regretted any of it. When he escaped to Moscow he wrote that all these people deserved what was coming as they were trying to destroy his regime, USSR. Keep in mind Philby was fully British and only met KGB agents when they were giving him work to do. He was just a Western socialist and wanted to fight Nazi Germany, Franco, and Western non-communist powers. Philby used connections and tricks to become the lead manager of USSR spying activities for Britain. And back then spies drank heavily together and talked loosely about all their info. Philby basically could get info about anything he wanted even outside his job by holding parties. Secret information was given out left and right and killed hundreds. Even after he was fired for being assumed to be a spy his old friends from MI-6 delivered him info as before and he kept spying for USSR.

The point of all of this is that this is Philby's story. That's not what the documentary presents at all. Most of this is not even mentioned. The documentary is about some of his time as a journalist for the Observer after FBI and a few British people strongly assumed he was a USSR spy and he was fired from MI-6. It's about how he lived as an alcoholic in Beirut and how MI-6 informed him a new witness had come out revealing he was a spy in the 1930's. If Philby just gave them names Britain wouldn't prosecute him. British intelligence service did not want Philby to be known to media again. It would hurt their image. They decided to tell Philby that he quit spying in 1949. Right before he went to USA. Meaning that Americans would not want to interrogate him making sure no info would be revealed about the horrible stupidity of British intelligence services. His best friend told him about their new findings then traveled back to Britain without even bugging his phone after Philby admitted to being a spy for KGB to him. Philby was basically told: run away to USSR and leave us alone, we don't want you making us look bad. So Philby did just that even though he wouldn't be prosecuted in the West.

This doc is largely about interviews from people who met Philby back when he was a journalist and later an unemployed alcoholic in Moscow. USSR didn't want to use Philby for anything. They actually didn't even use most of his Western documents as they didn't trust most of the info he gave them. They disliked Westerners overall. Now he was just an irritation in Russia and tried to kill himself even. Whatever utopia communism he thought he spied for didn't exist. But 99% of his story is before all of this stuff the documentary focuses on which is a huge shame. It's not a great documentary about Philby. You don't learn anything about his MI-6 time. It's just a bunch of interviews and lazy recordings of places Philby had been at. All from after he was done working for MI-6.