St John Philby Hillary " Harry " St - John Bridger Philby CIE ( 3 April 1885 – 30 September 1960 ) , also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah ( الشيخ عبدالله ) , his Arabic name , was an Arabist , explorer , writer , and British colonial office intelligence officer . He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College , Cambridge , where he studied oriental languages under E . G . Browne , and was a friend and classmate of Jawaharlal Nehru , later prime minister of India . In his travels he also took great interest in birdlife and he gave a scientific name to the Arabian Woodpecker ( " Desertipicus " ( now " Dendrocopos " ) " dorae " ) , as well as a subspecies ( no longer valid ) of an owl ( " Otus scops pamelae " ) . Most of his birds were named after women whom he admired . He contributed numerous specimens to the British Museum . He also contributed to the draft of a book on the birds of Arabia by George Latimer Bates . However , it was never published , but was made use of in a work on the same subject by Richard Meinertzhagen . Philby is remembered in ornithology by the name of Philby ' s Partridge ( " Alectoris philbyi " ) . As he states in his autobiography , he " became something of a fanatic " and " the first Socialist to join the Indian Civil Service " in 1907 , and was posted to Lahore in the Punjab in 1908 . He acquired fluency in Urdu , Punjabi , Baluchi , Persian , and eventually Arabic languages . Philby married Dora Johnston , his first wife , in September 1910 , with his distant cousin Bernard Law Montgomery as best man . He also later married an Arab woman from Saudi Arabia . He had one son , Kim Philby , later a British intelligence agent infamous as a double agent for the Soviet Union , and three daughters . Arab Revolt . In late 1915 Percy Cox , chief political officer of the small British " Mesopotamian Expeditionary Force " , recruited Philby as head of the finance branch of the British administration in Baghdad , a job which included fixing compensation for property and business owners . Their mission was twofold : ( 1 ) organize the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks ; ( 2 ) protect the oilfields near Basra and the Shatt al Arab , which was the only source of oil for the Royal Navy . The revolt was organized with the promise of creating a unified Arab state , or Arab Federation , from Aleppo in Syria to Aden in Yemen . Gertrude Bell of the British Military Intelligence Department was his first controller and taught him the finer arts of espionage . In 1916 he became officiating Revenue Commissioner for Occupied Territories . In November 1917 , Philby was sent to the interior of the Arabian peninsula as head of a mission to Ibn Saud . The Wahabbi chieftain and bitter enemy of Sherif Hussein was sending raids against the Hashemite ruler of the Hejaz , leader of the revolt . For more than 700 years the non - Turkic Hashemite dynasty held title as Sharif of Mecca . Philby secretly began to favour Ibn Saud over Sherif Hussein as " King of the Arabs " , a difference with British policy , which was promising support for the Hashemite dynasty in the post - Ottoman world . On return Philby completed the crossing from Riyadh to Jeddah by the " backdoor " route , thus demonstrating Ibn Saud was in control of the Arabian highlands , whereas Sherif Hussein could not guarantee safe passage . Later he was awarded the Royal Geographical Society Founders Gold Medal for the desert journey . Back in Jeddah he met with an embarrassed Sherif Hussein . On 7 November 1918 , four days before the Armistice , Britain and France issued the Anglo - French Declaration to the Arabs assuring self - determination . Philby felt the betrayal of this assurance , along with the Balfour Declaration , Sykes - Picot Agreement , and other diplomatic manoeuvres broke faith with the promise of a single unified Arab nation in exchange for aligning themselves with the Allies in the war against the Ottoman Turks and Central Powers . Philby argued that Ibn Saud was a " democrat " guiding his affairs " by mutual counsel " as laid out in the Quran ( Sura h 62 : 37 ) , in contrast to Lord Curzon ' s " Hussein policy " . After the Great Iraqi Revolution of 1920 Philby was appointed Minister of Internal Security in the British Mandate of Iraq . He roughed out a democratic constitution complete with elected assembly and republican president . In November 1921 , Philby was named chief head of the Secret Service for the British Mandate of Palestine , or what is now the region of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan ( formerly The Emirate of Transjordan ) and Israel . In this year , king Abdulaziz sent his army ( Ikhwan ) to attact Transjordan and the army commander of Ikhwan was Ogab bin mohaia ( عقاب ضيف الله بن محيا ) . This army coused many issues in Transjordan . Philby worked with T . E . Lawrence for a while , but did not share Lawrence ' s views on the Hashemites . Here he met his American counterpart , Allen Dulles , who was stationed in Constantinople . At the end of 1922 , Philby travelled to London for extensive meetings with all involved in the Palestine question . They were Winston Churchill , King George , the Prince of Wales , Baron Rothschild , Wickham Steed , and Chaim Weizmann , the head of the Zionist movement . Ibn Saud adviser . Philby was of the view that both British and the Saudi family ' s interests would be best served by uniting the Arabian peninsula under one government from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf , with the Saudis supplanting the Hashemites as Islamic " Keepers of the Holy Places " while protecting shipping lanes on the Suez – Aden – Bombay route of the British Empire . Philby was forced to resign his post in 1924 on differences of allowing Jewish immigration to Palestine . He was found to be in unauthorized correspondence with Ibn Saud , which carried with it the connotation of espionage , sending information he gained in his post to Ibn Saud . He had " gone native " . The Secret Service , however , continued to pay Philby for another five years . Shortly after Philby ' s resignation , Ibn Saud began to call for the overthrow of the Hashemite dynasty . Philby was able to advise Ibn Saud on how far Saud could go in occupying all Arabia without incurring the wrath of the British government , then the principal power in the Middle East . By 1925 , in the words of Philby , Ibn Saud brought unprecedented order into Arabia . Philby was put in charge of arranging Ibn Saud ' s coronation as king of the newly created state of Saudi Arabia . Philby settled in Jeddah and became a partner in a trading company . Over the next few years he became famous as an international writer and explorer . Philby personally mapped on camel back what is now the Saudi – Yemeni border on the Rub ' al Khali . In 1932 , while searching for the lost city of Ubar , he was the first Westerner to visit and describe the Wabar craters . In his unique position he became Ibn Saud ' s chief adviser in dealing with the British Empire and Western powers . He converted to Islam in 1930 . In 1931 Philby invited Charles R . Crane to Jeddah to facilitate exploration of the kingdom ' s subsoil oil . Crane was accompanied by noted historian George Antonius , who acted as translator . In May 1932 , Standard Oil of California ( SoCal ) sought out Philby in its quest to obtain an oil concession in Saudi Arabia , ultimately signing Philby as a paid advisor to SoCal . Philby , in turn , recognizing that competition by foreign interests would get a better deal for his friend , the Saudi King , made contact with Dr . George Lees , Chief Geologist of the Anglo - Persian Oil Company , in order to alert him to SoCal ' s interest in gaining oil exploration rights in Saudi Arabia . Anglo Persian was one of five international partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company ( IPC ) , through which it pursued its interest in the Saudi concession . In March 1933 , IPC sent a representative , Stephen Longrigg , to join negotiations with the Saudi government in Jeddah . However , Philby ' s primary loyalty was to the Saudi King and , although he was being paid by SoCal , he kept the arrangement a secret from Longrigg . In May 1933 , IPC instructed Longrigg to withdraw from Jeddah , leaving SoCal free to conclude negotiations with the Saudi Arabia for a 60 - year contract to obtain the exclusive concession for exploration and extraction of oil in the al - Hasa region along the Persian Gulf . Meanwhile , at Cambridge , Philby ' s son , Kim , was being recruited by the OGPU of the Soviet Union . In recent years the theory has been propounded that Kim was recruited in particular to spy on his father , who had such powerful influence over the founder of the Saudi state and its connections with Britain and with American oil interests . By 1934 , in an effort to safeguard the port of Aden , Britain had no fewer than 1 , 400 " peace treaties " with the various tribal rulers of the hinterlands of what became Yemen . Philby undermined British influence in the region , however , by facilitating the entry of United States commercial interests , followed by a political alliance between the United States and the Saud dynasty . In 1936 SoCal and Texaco pooled their assets together " East of Suez " into what later became ARAMCO ( Arabian – American Oil Company ) . The United States State Department describes ARAMCO as the richest commercial prize in the history of the planet . Philby represented Saudi interests . In 1937 when the Spanish Civil War broke out , Philby arranged for his son , Kim Philby , to become a war correspondent for " The Times " . Later Philby began secret negotiations with Germany and Spain , concerning Saudi Arabia ' s role in the event of a general European war . These discussions would allow neutral Saudi Arabia to sell oil to neutral Spain , which then would be transported to Germany . John Loftus , who worked in the United States Department of Justice Office of Special Investigations Nazi - hunting unit , claims Adolf Eichmann , while on a mission to the Middle East , met with Philby " during the mid - 1930s " . Philby Plan . St John Philby ran for election to the House of Commons for the British People ' s Party declaring , " no cause whatever is worth the spilling of human blood " and " protection of the small man against big business " . He lost and soon thereafter the war began . Because of his activities , when he travelled to Bombay he was arrested on 3 August 1940 under Defence Regulation 18B , deported to England and there briefly imprisoned . Shortly thereafter Jack Philby recommended his son , released from custody , to Valentine Vivian , MI6 deputy chief , who recruited him into the British secret service . When Harold Hoskins of the U . S State Department visited Ibn Saud in August 1943 , he asked if the king would be willing to have an intermediary meet with Chaim Weizmann . In anger Ibn Saud responded he was insulted by the suggestion that he could be bribed for £20 million to accept resettlement of Arabs from Palestine . Hoskins reports the king said Weizmann told him the promise of payment would be " guaranteed by President Roosevelt " . A month later Weizmann , in a letter to Sumner Welles wrote : " It is conceived on big lines , large enough to satisfy the legitimate aspirations of both Arabs and Jews , and the strategic and economic interests of the United States ; . . . properly managed , Mr . Philby ' s scheme offers an approach which should not be abandoned " . Suez Crisis . After Ibn Saud ' s death in 1953 Philby openly criticized the successor King Saud , saying the royal family ' s morals were being picked up " in the gutters of the West " . He was exiled to Lebanon in 1955 . In exile he wrote : " . . . the true basis of Arab hostility to Jewish immigration into Palestine is xenophobia , and instinctive perception that the vast majority of central and eastern Europe an Jews , seeking admission . . . are not Semites at all . . . . Whatever political repercussions of their settlement may be , their advent is regarded as a menace to the Semitic culture of Arabia . . . the European Jew of today , with his secular outlook . . . is regarded as an unwelcome intruder within the gates of Arabia " . While in Beirut he reconciled with Kim , and the two lived together for a time . The son was reemployed by MI6 as an outside informer on retainer , with the assignment to spy on his father . Jack Philby helped further his son ' s career by introducing him to his extensive network of contacts in the Middle East . Jack introduced him to President Camille Chamoun of Lebanon . Both were sympathetic to Nasser during the Suez Crisis of August 1956 . Between Jack ' s access to ARAMCO and Kim ' s access to British intelligence there was little they did not know about Operation Musketeer , the French and British plan to capture the Suez Canal . The Soviet Union exposed the entire plan in the United Nations and threatened Britain and France with " long - range guided missiles equipped with atomic warheads " . In 1955 Jack Philby returned to live in Riyadh . In 1960 , on a visit to Kim in Beirut , while in bed , his son at his side , he reportedly exclaimed " " God , I ' m bored " " , and died . He is buried in the Muslim cemetery in the Basta district of Beirut . Legacy . Some authors have summarized Philby as a British traitor and an anti - Semite . They suggest Philby never forgave the British government for ending his civil service career ( due to sexual misconduct ) . Once recruited by MI6 , according to these authors , Philby used his intelligence assignment to take revenge on the British government . With the extensive contacts he acquired as a British agent , Philby continued to betray British policy and resist all efforts at creating a Jewish homeland throughout his life . Philby disclosed classified British intelligence to Ibn Saud ( King of Saudi Arabia ) during wartime ; he secretly helped secure American oil concessions in Saudi Arabia , double - crossing British competitors ; he created economic partnerships , allied against British interests and in favor of Nazi Germany , with the help of Allen Dulles ( later CIA Director ) ; and Philby worked with Nazi intelligence to sabotage efforts at creating a Jewish homeland .