Harold Adrian Russell "Kim" Philby was born January 1, 1912 and died May 11, 1998. He was a member of the "Cambridge Five" and one of the best spies of the USSR.
Kim Philby was born in Ambalea, India. He grew up in a wealthy family, his father worked in the British government in India. After leaving school, he entered Trinity College, at the University of Cambridge.
In 1933, Philby's life changed dramatically. He met Arnold Deutsch, who, as it turned out, was an agent of the Soviet Union. Deutsch offered Philby a job in Soviet intelligence, Kim accepted without hesitation.
At that time, Kim Philby was often at the epicenter of the world's largest events. He worked for the major newspaper The Times. He was also a special correspondent for The Times at the epicenter of the Spanish Civil War for some time. Philby began to always be in the center of events and had great access to documents of national importance, which was very valuable for Soviet intelligence.
In 1940 Philby became a member of MI6. He quickly moves up the career ladder, and after a few months he finds himself in the chair of the deputy chairman of counterintelligence.
In 1944, Kim Philby took the post of head of the 9th department of the SIS, whose main activity is to investigate and control the activities of the communists in the United Kingdom.
After the end of World War II, Philby is sent east. He becomes the head of the British intelligence headquarters in Istanbul. In the late 1940s, he begins a close collaboration with the United States, the main goal of which is the destruction of communist power.
In 1955, Philby was forced to retire. They began to suspect him of espionage and work for the Soviet government. He is again sent to work in the Middle East, from where he then moves to the USSR.
Best of the day
Since 1963, Kim Philby has roamed the streets of Moscow freely. For services to the USSR, he was awarded several honorary orders. Philby's personality has forever entered the archives of world history. He was recognized as one of the best Soviet spies.
Thanks to the actions of this intelligence officer, many British and American operations against the Soviet regime turned out to be fruitless. Philby was buried at the Old Kuntsevo Cemetery in Moscow.
Thanks to Ian Fleming and Hollywood, Her Majesty's superspy James Bond has become the most famous intelligence officer in the world.
For British intelligence, Bond is a kind of symbol of efficiency and impeccability. Intelligence of Great Britain really carried out many successful operations. However, in the middle of the 20th century, the British were forced to admit defeat in a fight with a more skillful and capable rival, which turned out to be Soviet intelligence.
The secret services of the USSR managed to deploy an intelligence network in the heart of Great Britain, which managed not only to supply information of a strategic nature to Moscow, but also to actually paralyze Britain's retaliatory activities against the countries of the socialist bloc.
Key Soviet agents in England would later be called the "Cambridge Five". Her heart and brain was Kim Philby, a man whose real deeds surpass James Bond and Otto von Stirlitz combined.
"The rich live too damn well for too long"
Harold Adrian Russell Philby, better known as Kim Philby, was born on January 1, 1912 in India, in the family of a British official under the government of the Rajah. His father, St. John Philby, worked for a long time in the British colonial administration in India, then studied oriental studies.
Kim was a representative of one of the oldest families in Britain, and he was destined for a great future. He graduated summa cum laude from Westminster School and in 1929 entered Trinity College, Cambridge University.
In 1988, in the Soviet Union, Kim Philby will give a big interview correspondent of the British "Sunday Times" Philip Knightley, in which he will tell about how his intelligence career began.
“When I was a nineteen-year-old student, I tried to form my views on life. After looking around carefully, I came to a simple conclusion: the rich have been living damn well for too long, and the poor have been damn bad, and it’s time to change all this, ”Philby said. - The English poor at that time were considered actually people of the lowest class. I remember my grandmother telling me: “Don't play with these children. They are dirty and you can pick something up from them.” And it wasn't just the lack of money. The thing is, they didn't have enough food. I am still proud that I did my part to help feed the hunger marchers as they passed through Cambridge. As soon as I came to the conclusion that the world is damned unfair, the question arose before me of how to change the situation. I became interested in the problems of socialism. By this time I was Treasurer of the Socialist Society of the University of Cambridge and spoke in support of Labor during the 1931 election campaign.
“I accepted this offer without hesitation.”
The defeat of Labor in the elections forced Philby to travel around Europe to understand how his associates were doing there.
What he saw did not please him. Continental Europe was in the midst of an onslaught of the right, and it wasn't long before the Nazis came to power in Germany. “However, there was a strong left-wing base, the Soviet Union, and I thought I had to do my part to ensure that this base continued to exist at all costs,” Philby said.
An Englishman who decided to join the Communist Party, met in Austria with Austrian Communist Party activist Litzi Friedman. He returned to Britain with her, and in April 1934 Kim and Litzi were married.
“In the spring of 1934, I was contacted and asked if I would like to join the Soviet intelligence service. I accepted this offer without hesitation, ”Kim Philby recalled about the main choice in his life.
The person who offered Philby to work for the intelligence of the USSR was a Soviet illegal immigrant Arnold Deutsch, who supervised the work of the Englishman in the early years.
Kim Philby took this step neither for the sake of money, nor because of blackmail and threats. The representative of the British aristocracy was guided solely by convictions. Ahead was a big fight with Nazism, and Kim saw who was the main opponent Hitler who will have to bear the brunt of the struggle.
Senior for Combating the "Communist Threat"
At that moment, when Kim Philby became an agent of Soviet intelligence, no one could have imagined what a dizzying career he would make in the British intelligence services. Kim worked as a journalist for The Times, during the years of the Spanish Civil War, acting as a special correspondent in that country, and at the same time fulfilling assignments from Moscow.
On the eve of World War II, Philby was noticed by the Secret Intelligence Service, or SIS, Britain's foreign intelligence service. Of course, SIS did not know that Kim was working for Moscow, but they highly appreciated Philby's work in Spain and offered to enter Her Majesty's service.
Of course, Moscow was delighted with such a prospect. Having proven himself from the best side, Kim Philby already in 1941 becomes the deputy chief of counterintelligence.
In fact, thanks to him, Soviet intelligence has accurate information about all the operations of the British. In 1944 he became the head of the 9th department of the SIS, which was engaged in Soviet and communist activities in the UK.
Philby is essentially tasked with fighting himself. It is not surprising that he managed to actually paralyze this line of activity. During the war years alone, Philby handed over to Moscow more than 900 important documents. Receiving information about Soviet defectors, Kim provided an opportunity to withdraw key agents of Soviet intelligence from under attack.
Kim Philby. Photo: Frame youtube.com
Five minutes to the head of British intelligence
In 1949, Kim Philby was assigned to Washington, where he oversaw the joint activities of the British intelligence services, the FBI and the CIA "to combat the communist threat."
This, perhaps, did not even dream of Standartenführer Stirlitz. In order for the movie hero to catch up with the real deeds of Kim Philby, he would have to “sit out” Muller or Schellenberg.
The appointment to Washington testified to the absolute confidence in Philby in London. Moreover, the next post for him was to be the post of ... head of British intelligence. Philby himself, however, believed that he would not have been able to take this position, but the post of deputy was quite real.
However, British counterintelligence and the CIA by this time knew that a “mole” was working inside the British special services. True, it never occurred to them that there were several of these “moles”.
In 1951, two Soviet agents, Donald McLean and Guy Burgess, being under the threat of exposure, flee from the UK. Philby, who worked closely with him, falls under suspicion. Philby himself believed that both MacLean and Burgess could have remained in England, since there was not enough evidence against them.
He himself was recalled from Washington and began to be interrogated. Philby, if we talk about his professional qualities, of course, was a skilled analyst, like Stirlitz, and not a master of "cloak and dagger", like Bond. And this helped him in the struggle for his own justification. He maneuvered, talking about those Soviet agents in England who were already exposed. Philby pointed to his successes in the fight against the "communist threat", and when it became very difficult, he reminded that he made many decisions after consulting with the highest ranks of the CIA. And if he is a Russian agent, then it turns out that the CIA leaders too?
"Dear Kim, what are you apologizing for?"
Philby managed to get out, but due to the fact that there was no previous trust in him, in 1955 he was dismissed.
But in the eyes of many in the UK, the hereditary aristocrat Philby became an innocent victim of the "war of the special services." His friends contributed to the fact that in 1956 he was again in the ranks of British intelligence. True, there was no talk of leadership positions. Under the guise of a correspondent for The Observer newspaper and The Economist magazine, Kim Philby goes to Beirut, where he becomes the head of the local British station.
For almost seven more years, he successfully continued to work for the USSR, but by the beginning of 1963, his exposure and arrest became virtually inevitable. In January 1963, Philby disappeared from Beirut, only to end up in the Soviet Union a few days later. His illegal work, which had lasted for almost three decades, was completed.
“My colleague from Moscow must have noticed that I was too nervous,” Philby recalled. He put his hand on my shoulder and said the words that I still remember: “Kim, your mission is over. There is a rule in our service: as soon as counterintelligence begins to be interested in you, this is the beginning of the end. We know that British counterintelligence took an interest in you in 1951. And now the year is 1963 - 12 years have passed. Dear Kim, what are you apologizing for?”
“The authorities would be surprised at how much they would want to return later”
The topic of Kim Philby for the UK is still extremely painful. A Soviet agent who worked successfully in the depths of the British intelligence services for three decades and almost became their leader is a slap in the face that will never be forgotten.
Therefore, in the UK they are trying in every possible way to cast doubt on many aspects of his activities. They say that the aristocrat was confused by his first communist wife, that he worked for the Nazis, betrayed his comrades from Soviet intelligence, that at the end of his life he became disillusioned with communism and drank himself.
The first assumptions are not supported by facts. As for alcoholism and disappointment in ideals, Philby did not hide the fact that he really drank heavily for some time after moving to the USSR. He also admitted that he did not like everything he saw in the Soviet Union.
In an interview with Philip Knightley, Philby said quite frankly: “Russians love their country very much, but over the years many have emigrated and started a new life abroad, although they lack Russia. By the way, I think that free exit from the Soviet Union should be allowed. It seems to me that the authorities would be surprised at how few Soviet citizens would want to leave the country and how many would want to return later. But this is just my personal opinion... My home is here, and although life here has its difficulties, I would not trade this house for any other. I enjoy the sudden change of seasons and even the search for scarce goods. One of the virtues of the Soviet social system is living for cash. There is no credit here, but there is also no permanent debt. God only knows what will happen to the Western economy if all personal debts suddenly need to be paid.”
As you can see, the intelligence officer, who did not live to see the change in political formation, accurately predicted that after a personal acquaintance with the realities of the West, Soviet citizens would suffer a fairly quick disappointment. All the charms of life with constant getting into debt are now also well known to Russians.
“It’s not for me to supply the enemy with information”
Philby in the USSR more than worthy living conditions were created. But he had little work, and this drove him into depression. The scout was not happy with the security measures created around him. But the Soviet secret services had their own reasons - the figure of Kim Philby caused such irritation in London that no one could guarantee that an assassination or kidnapping attempt would not follow.
Back in 1980, the Voenizdat publishing house published Philby's memoirs My Secret War, which became a sensation not only in the USSR, but throughout the world.
“Anyone who hopes to find information about Soviet intelligence here will be disappointed. Undoubtedly, the intelligence services of the enemy are able to get a general idea of \u200b\u200bmy activities as a Soviet intelligence officer, Philby wrote about the introduction to his book. “However, there is a lot of information that they do not know, and there are also areas where their attempts to get to the bottom of the truth are very doubtful. But it is not for me, a Soviet intelligence officer, to supply the enemy with information or dispel his painful doubts, so I deliberately hardly mention my work with Soviet comrades ... ".
Philip Knightley, who interviewed Philby in Moscow, said that of all his awards, the scout was most proud of the Order of Lenin. “It corresponds to one of the degrees of the Order of the Knights,” Philby explained to a journalist.
Knightley asked him: "Would you do the same if you had to do it all over again?"
“Definitely,” Philby replied.
Englishman Kim Philby - legendary scout who managed to simultaneously work for the governments of two competing countries - England and the USSR. The work of the brilliant spy was so highly appreciated that he became the only owner in the world of two awards - the Order of the British Empire and the Order of the Red Banner. Needless to say, maneuvering between two fires has always been very difficult ...
Kim Philby is considered one of the most successful British intelligence officers, he held a senior position in the SIS intelligence service and his main task was to track down foreign spies. "Hunting" for specialists sent from the USSR, Kim at the same time was recruited by the Soviet special services. Work for the Land of Soviets was due to the fact that Kim ardently supported the ideas of communism and was ready to cooperate with our intelligence, refusing to be rewarded for his work.
Philby did a lot to help the Soviet Union during the war years, sabotage groups on the Georgian-Turkish border were intercepted by his efforts, the information received from him helped prevent the American landing in Albania. Kim also provided assistance to Soviet intelligence officers, members of the Cambridge Five, who were on the verge of exposure in foggy Albion.
Despite the numerous suspicions put forward by Kim Philby, the British secret services did not succeed in obtaining a confession of cooperation with the USSR from their intelligence officer. Kim spent several years of his life in Beirut, officially he worked as a journalist, but his main task, of course, was to collect information for British intelligence.
In 1963, a special commission from Britain arrived in Beirut, which nevertheless managed to establish Kim's proximity to the Soviet Union. It is very interesting that the only irrefutable evidence turned out to be a bas-relief presented to the intelligence officer ... by Stalin. It was made of noble woods and inlaid with precious metals and stones. Mount Ararat was depicted on the bas-relief, which made it possible for Philby to come up with a legend that this curiosity was allegedly acquired in Istanbul. The British managed to guess that the point from which the majestic mountain was captured could only be located on the territory of the USSR.
After the exposure, Philby disappeared. It was not possible to find him for a long time, but then it became known that Khrushchev had granted him political asylum. Until his death in 1988, Kim Philby lived in Moscow. The fascination with the Soviet Union passed when the intelligence officer settled in the capital, much remained incomprehensible to him. For example, Philby genuinely wondered how the heroes who won the war could lead such a modest existence.
Another legendary Soviet intelligence officer who made a lot of efforts to defeat fascism is.
Wikipedia: Kim Philby (eng. Kim Philby, full name Harold Adrian Russell Philby, eng. Harold Adrian Russell Philby; January 1, 1912, Ambala, India - May 11, 1988, Moscow) - one of the leaders of British intelligence, a communist, an agent of Soviet intelligence with 1933.
Born in India, in the family of a British official under the government of the Raja. His father, St. John Philby, worked for a long time in the British colonial administration in India, then studied Oriental studies, was a famous English Arabist: “Being an original person, he converted to the Muslim religion, took a Saudi girl from among the slaves as his second wife, lived for a long time among the Bedouin tribes, was an adviser to King Ibn Saud. Kim Philby was the successor of one of the oldest families in England - at the end of the 19th century, his paternal grandfather, Monty Philby, owned a coffee plantation in Ceylon, and his wife Quinty Duncan, Kim's grandmother, came from a well-known family of hereditary military men in England, one of whose representatives was Marshal Montgomery. Nickname Kim gave him parents in honor of the hero of the novel of the same name by Rudyard Kipling. He was raised by his grandmother in England. Graduated with honors from Westminster School. In 1929 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he was a member of the socialist society. In 1933, with the aim of the anti-fascist struggle, through the Committee for Assistance to Refugees from Fascism, operating in Paris, he came to Vienna, the capital of Austria, where he participated in the work of the Vienna organization MOPR. Anticipating the imminent seizure of power in Austria by the Nazis, he returned to England together with an activist of the Austrian Communist Party, Litzi Friedman, whom he married in April 1934. In early June 1934, he was recruited by an illegal Soviet intelligence officer, Arnold Deutsch.
Then he worked for The Times, was a special correspondent for this newspaper during the Spanish Civil War, while simultaneously performing tasks for Soviet intelligence. The last time he went to Spain in May 1937, in early August 1939 he returned to London.
Thanks to the occasion and the help of Guy Burgess, in 1940 he entered the service of the SIS, and a year later he held the post of deputy chief of counterintelligence there. In 1944 he became the head of the 9th department of the SIS, which was engaged in Soviet and communist activities in the UK. During the war alone, he handed over 914 documents to Moscow. From 1947 to 1949 he headed the residency in Istanbul, from 1949 to 1951 - the liaison mission in Washington, where he establishes contacts with the leaders of the CIA and the FBI and coordinates the joint actions of the United States and Great Britain to combat the communist threat.
In 1951, the first two members of the Cambridge Five were exposed: Donald McLean and Guy Burgess. Their old friend Philby warns them of the danger, but he himself falls under suspicion: in November 1952 he is interrogated by the British counterintelligence MI5, but released due to lack of evidence. Philby remains in limbo until 1955, when he retires.
However, already in 1956 he was again accepted into Her Majesty's secret service, this time in MI6. Under the guise of a correspondent for The Observer and The Economist, he travels to Beirut.
On January 23, 1963, Philby was smuggled into the USSR, where he lived in Moscow for the rest of his life on a personal pension. Rarely consulted. He married Rufina Pukhova, an employee of the Research Institute.
He was buried at the Old Kuntsevo Cemetery.
He was awarded the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Patriotic War of the 1st degree, the Friendship of Peoples and medals, as well as the badge "Honorary State Security Officer".
Kim Philby is a famous person. Very famous. No joke, an illegal Soviet agent who worked at the very heart of British intelligence for about thirty years, and when he was on the verge of failure, simply left for the Soviet Union. He left, of course, very “not easy”, but the main thing is the result. And the result was 100%. In the USSR, Philby is considered one of the greatest intelligence officers of the era. In Great Britain - one of the greatest traitors who caused great damage to the interests of the British crown. But, despite such fame, the story of his life, as befits the life story of an intelligence officer of this magnitude, is still shrouded in a light haze of understatement and gives rise to more questions than it answers.
Boy from a good family
In fact, the Englishman Harold Adrian Russell Philby was born in India. Business as usual in the British Empire. It was 1912. The family was, as they say, from the elite. "Blue blood". His father, Harry St. John Bridger Philby, was a British official in the government office of the local raja, that is, he worked, in fact, in the British colonial administration. He also studied oriental studies and was a very famous Arabist. Moreover, Kim (this nickname was given to the future Soviet intelligence officer in childhood in honor of the hero of Kipling's most popular novel) is a worthy successor to the old English family. His paternal grandfather owned a coffee plantation in Ceylon. And this grandfather's wife, so Philby's grandmother, was Quinty Duncan. This very grandmother came from a family of hereditary military men. As they would say now - dynasties. And one of the representatives of this dynasty is none other than Field Marshal Montgomery.
On the high society road
What do we see next in the biographies of Kim Philby? Next, we see the usual path of the offspring of an old family. He was not raised in India. In England. This was the job of my grandmother. Apparently, she brought up well - the boy graduated from Westminster School with honors. Well, in 1929, as befits a future representative of the English elite, he began studying at Trinity College, Cambridge University. And then something unimaginable begins.
Socialist? Can not be!
And then the biographers of Kim Philby tell us that he was already a socialist in Cambridge. Yes, a young man from a good family. Old English kind and all that. Socialist. Moreover, four years later he finds himself in Austria, where he takes an active part in the work of ... the International Organization for Assistance to the Fighters of the Revolution. This, so you better understand, is not just an organization of sympathetic slackers. No. This is the communist equivalent of the Red Cross. And it was created by decision of the Comintern.
"Where does the guy get Spanish sadness"
By the way, yes. Where? Where did all this cool revolutionary communist mess come from, which eventually led Philby to Civil War Spain, and then to the Soviet Union? We read his biography again and find that one of those who wrote about Harold Adrian Russell Philby reports the most curious news. It turns out that Philby's dad, the one that Harry St. John Bridger, was not just an official of the colonial administration. He was an adviser to Winston Churchill, he was the Minister of the Interior in Mesopotamia, he was an adviser and, as they say, a powerful adviser to King Ibn Saud. He converted to Islam with the name Hajj Abdallah, he took a Saudi slave girl as his second wife, he was an English spy, and at the same time he ... treated his class with great contempt, considered the British bureaucracy stupid and did not accept the official policy of Britain in the Middle East. Here, they say, hence Philby Jr.'s dislike for the British ruling class and socialist sentiments. But, it turns out, this is not at all surprising, because the majority of the English intellectuals of that time had an overwhelming rejection of the British establishment. Being a communist was an honor, and Marx was an icon. Like this.
Big discrepancies are raised by the question of when, in fact, Philby began working for Soviet intelligence. Everyone, however, agrees that it was the Soviet illegal spy Arnold Deutsch who attracted Kim to work for the intelligence of the USSR.
But where and, most importantly, when? Some say it happened when Philby was a special correspondent for The Times in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Someone says that he began working for Soviet intelligence back in England in 1934. Still others also talk about Philby's Spanish period, but insist that he was then working not for Soviet intelligence in its purest form, but for the intelligence of the Comintern. Although, in principle, this is to a large extent the same thing, and besides, there is still a big question, what is it - "intelligence of the Comintern"? Interestingly, some authors cite an opinion that supposedly belongs to British government circles. It seems that they believe that Kim began to work for the intelligence of the USSR already during the Second World War. And this means, rather, not the Second World War, but precisely our Great Patriotic War, that is, the period from 1941. But this is understandable: the British may simply not want to admit that they hired a Soviet intelligence officer to work in the famous MI6 (SIS). And so it seems, according to their version, that at first he became a British intelligence officer, and then he was already recruited by the Soviets.
Two Intelligence Awards
What is most interesting in the history of Kim Philby is that in MI6, where he got in 1940 thanks to Guy Burgess, who also worked for the USSR, he was made head of the counterintelligence department. That is, he could actually freely have contacts with people suspected of being Soviet spies. It really was a wonderful cover. And it became even more remarkable in 1944, when Philby was put in charge of a department that dealt with countering Soviet and communist activities in Britain. Kim was generally considered a rising star in British intelligence. He was one of its leaders, while working for the Soviet Union not out of fear, but out of conscience. As a result, Philby was awarded by the British government and the Soviet government. Moreover, the Soviet awards were very significant: the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner and the Patriotic War of the 1st degree.
The most significant achievements
The achievements of the Soviet intelligence officer Kim Philby are more than enough. After all, he performed very serious and sensitive tasks for MI6, which means that he had an excellent opportunity to transmit important information for the Soviet Union. According to some sources, during the Second World War Philby handed over more than nine hundred documents to Moscow.
But, according to his fourth (and last) wife, Rufina Pukhova, whom he married when he finally moved to the USSR, he himself considered his main merit the information that he transmitted to the center before the famous battle of Kursk, on the outcome of which he largely depended actually the outcome of the war itself.
Kim not only announced that the Germans would rely on their heavy tanks, but pointed out the village of Prokhorovka as the place of the main attack. They believed this information, carried out the necessary preparations and ... the result is known. But Rufina Pukhova herself focused on another extremely important piece of information passed on by Philby to Moscow.
This is information that Churchill allegedly put pressure on Truman to force him to ... drop a nuclear bomb on Moscow.
Perhaps this refers to Operation Unthinkable, which was developed in defensive and offensive versions on the instructions of Churchill already in 1945.
True, they rarely talk about the stake on the atomic bomb in this operation. The overwhelming majority of experts agree that this was an operation in which it was supposed to use conventional weapons. And it was rejected by the military, who considered that the combined British-American forces would not achieve a quick victory over the USSR, and this would lead to an all-out war, in fact, to the Third World War, in which the chances of victory would become very doubtful.
Failure without failure
To say that Philby "failed" is impossible. In general, during his career, he rescued those Soviet agents who were on the verge of failure several times.
And in 1951, while working in Washington, including with the CIA and the FBI, he learns that the Soviet agents Donald McLean and Guy Burgess were under suspicion. Philby, at great risk to himself, warns them and ... he himself is under suspicion. In fact, on the verge of failure.
McLean and Burgess, along with Philby and Anthony Blunt, are considered members of the so-called "Cambridge Five", which allegedly represented the core of the Soviet spy ring in Britain.
Why "Cambridge"? Because they were all allegedly recruited while studying at Cambridge. Why "five"? Because there is an opinion that initially it was a cell of the Comintern, and such cells consisted of fives. Philby himself scoffed at this. He said that he and others were not recruited at all in Cambridge, that each had his own destiny, and they began to work together only later. He also claimed that there was no cell of the Comintern in Cambridge, and therefore the fifth member of the "five" was not identified, who was tirelessly searched for, but never found.
By the way, of the four agents discovered, three, Philby, McLean and Burgess, were successfully transferred to the Soviet Union.
Against the war
Yes, after all, why did Philby become a Soviet agent? After all, it is one thing to be a communist, and quite another to work against your own country.
Rufina Pukhova answers this question simply: Kim was essentially an anti-fascist. He worked not so much for the Soviet Union as against fascism. And then? After all, despite the fact that since 1951 Philby was under the hood of MI6 and MI5, he lasted until 1956. Perhaps, after the victory, he worked against a new war, believing that only the USSR was capable of stopping it.
At least he did not know for sure that books and films would be written about him.
