7 of the Greatest Spies Who Ever Lived: List of Famous Spies of All Time

5. Kim Philby

Started working as a spy in 1933

Kim Philby was a spy for the British intelligence service, or at least, that’s what the British thought. The reality was different, he was actually a Socialist by personal choice, and under the control of the Soviet KGB. He was probably the most famous double agent in the cold war era. Philby’s career, has taken him all over the world, from Spain, to Africa, the United States, Istanbul and Moscow, and he got a reputation as one of the best British spies, but what they didn’t know, is that he was actually sending secret information to the Soviet Embassy in Paris all the time. At the end of 40s, he was a mediator between the American and British secret services in Washington, and used that meeting to gather information regarding the American weapons and stocks of nuclear missiles. It is the report from this meeting that influenced Stalin’s political decisions, which resulted with the Korean War. British intelligence suspected that they had a mole in their ranks, but they could not prove anything, until Philby defected to the Soviet Union in 1963, where he continued to work as a spy for the Soviet secret service, until his death in 1988. After his death, the Russian government has  awarded  him with posthumous medals.