A struggling KGB widow made a small fortune at London's top auction house on Tuesday, trading on the notoriety of her late husband, Britain's most famous spy, Kim Philby.


A sale of papers and books belonging to Philby, the British counterintelligence chief and double agent who rocked the Western spying establishment by defecting to Moscow in 1963, fetched ?152, 628 (about $230,000) at an auction at Sotheby's.


The sale was arranged by Philby's Russian widow, Rufina, who said she could not make ends meet on a KGB pension. She made the trip to London to watch her late husband's effects go under the hammer, visiting the country to which Kim Philby could never return.


The most valued piece in the sale was a package of 11 letters between Philby and his friend Graham Greene, the famous novelist. They were bought for ?26,450, Sotheby's spokeswoman Jenna Burlingham said by telephone.


Greene, who was recruited by Philby into the British secret service, remained a good friend and correspondent of Philby's despite his defection to Moscow. The two kept in touch until Philby's death, exchanging news about mutual English friends and current politics. In a final letter of condolence to Rufina Philby, Greene writes: "It was always the high point of our visits to Moscow when we saw you and Kim together. To me he was a good and loyal friend."


Three-quarters of the 117 lots sold in a sale which attracted huge interest from the public and exceeded Sotheby's estimates, Burlingham said.


Other items sold included a manuscript of Philby's unfinished autobiography, describing his conversion to communism, which has not been fully published; a text of his first speech to the KGB; books, papers and photographs of Philby with friends including the East German spymaster Markus Wolf.


Another item that attracted particular interest was a 75th birthday present to Philby from the KGB -- a model of a globe being circled by a satellite.


The sale has marked a kind of partial and poignant homecoming for Philby to England 31 years after he disappeared to Moscow in one of the most sensational defections of the Cold War. The spy died in 1988 just as the state he had spied for was beginning to abandon communism.


The famous "third man" and one of the top figures in British counterintelligence, he had managed to evade detection for 12 years after his fellow spies Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean had fled to Moscow.