 SPOILER: Billy Crudup (qv)s character, Archy Cummings, is partly  based on real life British traitor Kim Philby, who attended  Cambridge University, rose through the ranks of British  Intelligence, and subsequently was discovered to be a Soviet spy. He  later fled to Moscow, where he lived out the rest of his life. The  movie reflects this, having Wilson speaking by phone to Cummings who  is in the Soviet Union.