Today is Monday, May 11th, 2020. On this day in 1988, Soviets by Harold Kim Philby died in Moscow at the age of 76.

It was the end of one of the most storied double agent careers in espionage history.

Philby worked his way to the top of British counterintelligence operations, all the while feeding

information to the USSR. Welcome to today in True Crime, a parcast original.

Today we're covering the death of Soviet spy Harold Kim Philby, who's best

known as a member of the notorious Cambridge Five. All high-level British officials who were recruited by the Russians during their university days

and turned traitor on their own homeland.

Let's go back to that early morning in Moscow on May 11th 1988.

The sixth floor apartment was hidden in the lanes behind the city's central to Versca

Street guarded by a series of winding archways and doors.

It was quiet, sheltered from the honking chaos

of Moscow's daily morning grumblings.

Still Rofina Ivanovna Pacova woke up groggy and anxious.

She'd been up late the night before, unable to sleep.

In the end, she'd taken a sleeping pill to get through the night,

turning out the light at 2 a.m.

Probably she'd need another tonight.

These were difficult times.

Kim Philby, her husband, was in the hospital for a heart condition.

Yesterday he'd fallen in the bath and he'd looked particularly weak when she went to visit him.

So weak, she wondered if she should spend the night.

After all, he was 76, not a dashing young man any longer, not even the drink-weathered but strong man

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