COLD WARRIOR

U.K. Double Agent Kim Philby: Easy to Spy Because I Was Posh

Kim Philby briefed East German Stasi.

A 1981 video showing one of Britain’s best-known traitors and spies, Kim Philby, explaining how he betrayed Britain and the U.S. has been discovered by the BBC. Philby was giving a secret lecture to the East German Intelligence Service, the Stasi, and discusses his career throughout the hourlong video. The double agent describes himself as born into “the ruling class of the British Empire,” which made him immune to criticism, and details how he was drawn toward the idea of communism while at Cambridge. The BBC uncovered the footage in the official archives of the Stasi in Berlin, and it had reportedly never before been shared publicly. “I must warn you that I am no public speaker,” Philby says on the tape. “I’ve spent most of my life trying to avoid publicity of any kind.” Philby died in Moscow in 1988.