Widow of spy Kim Philby tells her story

A book on the British intelligence officer and Soviet spy, Kim Philby, which includes contributions from his widow with whom he spent the last years of his life, was published in Moscow on Thursday, Russian NTV reported.

The book, entitled "Ya shel svoim putyem" or "I did it my way", includes the spy's autobiography, memoirs, correspondence and a "frank account" by his widow, Rufina Philby, the television said.

Rufina said she wanted to show what kind of a person her husband was and what his life was really like.

"I simply wanted to show Kim, what kind of person he was in real life, in normal life and how he lived, because nobody knew about this," she said, in remarks broadcast by the television.

"They wrote whatever they wanted," she said.

"On the one hand, they wrote that he was well treated and enjoyed unusual comfort, that he had a limousine and chauffeur, that he was taken to Lyubyanka every day where he had his own office; that he was working and living in the lap of luxury.

On the other hand, it was written that he was forgotten and abandoned in total poverty." Rufina said Philby was working towards a fairer society.

"For him, it was like justice.

He was striving toward the creation of a just society," she said.

Philby died in Moscow in 1988.

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