I Led Three Lives

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I Led Three Lives is a US television show which was syndicated by Ziv Television Programs from 1953-56. It was loosely based on the life of Herbert Philbrick, a Boston advertising executive who infiltrated the US Communist Party on behalf of the FBI in the 1940s and wrote a bestselling book on the topic, I Led Three Lives: Citizen, 'Communist', Counterspy (1952). Philbrick narrated each episode and served as a technical consultant and all scripts were approved by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Despite this, the episodes often had very little to do with the actual events of Philbrick's life and gradually became more and more outlandish, with Philbrick journeying to Europe and South America and featuring such Communist plots as an attempt to convert vacuum cleaners into bomb launchers.

Philbrick was played by Richard Carlson. I Led Three Lives lasted 117 episodes. Interestingly, the show was a favorite of presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald when he was a teenager. [1]