Kim Philby Spy's choice 'between suicide and prosecution'

Cambridge spy Kim Philby said his choice was "between suicide and prosecution" in a confession shortly before the high-ranking MI6 double agent fled on a Russian freighter in 1963, according to previously secret documents.

- Caroline Davies

Philby, the "Third Man" in the Cambridge Five ring, was confronted by his friend, the MI6 officer Nicholas Elliott, who had been sent by the British security services to persuade Philby to confess.

In a transcript of their conversation, released in full to the National Archives, Elliott told Philby that he had seen information that convinced him of his friend's treachery.

"I've had this particular moment in mind for 28 years almost, that conclusive proof would come out," said Philby, in the recorded conversation in Beirut where he was working for the Observer.

"The choice actually is between suicide and prosecution. This is not in any sense blackmail, but a statement of the alternatives before me."