Last Days of Kim Philby: His Russian Widow's Sad Story

The fourth and last wife of the British master spy Kim Philby has written her memoirs of life with the most famous mole in the history of espionage.

And his life in Russia, at least initially, was grim. Philby's loneliness, depression and heavy drinking after his defection are well documented. His Russian widow, Rufina Philby, has added one startling new detail. According to her book, ''I Went My Own Way,'' which was released today, Philby attempted suicide in the 1960's.

She once felt deep scars on his wrist, and asked him about them. She said that Philby, well on his third whisky, refused to discuss it then or ever. She wrote, ''He answered in high style, unnatural to him: 'We Communists should be patient, strong and not give in to weakness.' ''

Charming and gifted, Kim Philby was the shining star of the so-called Cambridge spies, a group of privileged young Englishmen who were recruited to spy for the Soviet Union in the 1930's, and who over the decades wormed their way into the highest echelons of British intelligence.

The sheer breadth of their betrayal -- of colleagues, class and country -- inspired an entire generation of spy fiction, most notably the novels of John le Carre.

Mrs. Philby, 65, still lives in the comfortable apartment that Philby was assigned after his defection. She sold off many of his papers, books and mementos like a silver cocktail shaker at Sotheby's in 1994 for about $200,000 (her pension today is $82 a month), but the rooms are a well-polished shrine to a hero of the Soviet Union.

His vast collection of Russian classics line the living room shelf. His study is crammed with books by his good friend Graham Greene, detective novels, the spy novels of le Carre, as well as dozens of books about his betrayal.

Long after the Soviet Union they spied for collapsed in 1991, Philby remains a hero in Russia.

When Philby died in Moscow in 1988 at the age of 76, he was buried with full military honors. His face was put on a stamp in 1990.

Kim Philby ran the entire counterespionage service of M.I.6., the British Secret Intelligence Service, and set up the section that spied on the Soviet Union. He was assigned to Washington in 1949, and put in charge of liaison between British intelligence and the C.I.A. and F.B.I.

It was there that Philby learned that two of his fellow spies, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, were under suspicion, and tipped them off. Recalled to London, the two men fled and defected to Moscow in 1951.

Philby was suspected of being ''the third man'' in a ring of spies that eventually widened to five, including Anthony Blunt, the curator of the Queen's art collection, who was publicly unmasked in 1979. Philby managed to dodge the charges until 1963, when he was posted in Beirut. When an old friend from M.I.6 confronted Philby with incontrovertible evidence of his treachery, Philby escaped his surveillance and emerged in Moscow.

Asked by a journalist shortly before his death whether he would do it all again, Philby replied, ''Absolutely.'' But his widow said he privately felt disillusioned and guilty.

He never learned Russian fluently; she would translate other people's Russian into simpler Russian for him. ''He loved Moscow,'' Mrs. Philby said, but noted that he was also homesick, particularly for pubs. K.G.B. operatives in Britain would bring him his favorite brand of Cooper's Oxford coarse-cut marmalade. He passionately followed cricket.