Last of the Cold War Spies (12 page)

Straight found that not just Keynes’s name helped around Washington. The president’s recommendation went even further. The NRPB’s director, Charles Merriam, was eager to employ him. Straight was thankful
but wished to avoid departments that would not help his secret work. Blunt had told him to get a job at the State Department or even the White House. Innocuous planning boards had little access to information useful to the Kremlin.

Straight used the family magazine,
The New Republic,
to assist in his search. Its Washington correspondent, Jonathan Mitchell, took him on a tour of the New Deal agencies. Straight became imbued with a new sense of power. His family and contacts would give him a running start. The decision to work for the cause in the United States was taking on new dimensions.

On the trip home, Straight wrote a report for Blunt on his trip, which was sent on to Maly. This covered his meetings with the Roosevelts and all the other contacts, along with an assessment of his employment prospects. Straight was upbeat and always keen to impress his new masters. He thought he had a chance of employment at the treasury or the Federal Reserve Board, where “possibilities were great because of the influence of Roosevelt. . . . Treasury has great significance. Its head is Henry Morgenthau, who knows my parents well.”
¹⁸

Straight mentioned his proposal to be Roosevelt’s personal secretary, a position which would have had his new masters salivating, but also told them that the president suggested the NRPB, putting a quaint spin on it: “Roosevelt himself picked out this job for me as the most important among those I could get and where I could be close to him.” Apart from dropping Morgenthau’s name, Straight also let Moscow know that he had access to Harry Hopkins, Roosevelt’s closest aide, and Henry Wallace, the secretary of agriculture, which meant he “could easily find any job.”

Maly’s response through Blunt was to show concern that his American connections might think he was still a communist.

Straight responded that all his American relatives had treated him negatively because they were under the impression that he fought in Spain. The Moscow KGB archive shows that Straight wrote cynically:

Straight, being sure to impress his foreign bosses, let them know his income was $50,000 annually. It would rise to $75,000 inside the next year.

Straight also informed Blunt that he had decided to return to Cambridge to take his exams. Blunt arranged with the Trinity bursar for rooms in New Court close to his, so he could keep an eye on his charge, not for Dorothy’s sake, but rather for his own. Blunt wanted Straight to stick to his commitment concerning his U.S. plans. However, he saw the wisdom in letting him get through his finals, especially as the charade of mental illness had worked so well. A recovery from exams in June would not stretch credulity on or off campus.

When Straight returned, Blunt called him to his rooms for another private discussion, which was designed to keep the pressure on Straight, just in case he was considering reneging on his work for Moscow.

Blunt told him that Stalin had reviewed his case. Straight had to go ahead with the U.S. underground assignment. He had experienced the success of his deception and those heady times at the White House. He now had no choice but to go on with the plan.

Dorothy’s concern for her son was still strong, despite his apparent recovery. She also asked Keynes to look after her son; Keynes obliged. He liked Straight’s mind, looks, and politics. They had become good friends, despite their gap in experience and age (Keynes was 53). He invited Straight to his rooms for discussions about the Apostles. Straight continued to pretend he was depressed, using any reference to Spain, which was on the front page daily, or Cornford, as a stimulus for sudden melancholy. He did manage to discuss the last-minute details for the upcoming elections of Long and Astbury to the Apostles, which Keynes endorsed.

Straight kept the subtle, careful deception over his parents, telling them he was in a mess politically, emotionally, and academically. However, Keynes had taken him under his wing. They were going to the ballet and dining together afterward. Straight began chasing a 16-year-old American girl—Binny Crompton. Keeping the appearance of an honorable courtship, he told the family that he was uncomfortable when she began to respond.
²⁰

Despite his pulling away from Cambridge communist activity in 1937, Straight was still to have residual influence, which he and Tess Mayor regarded as of vital importance for the rest of their lives. Straight had a certain amount of control of the university’s underground activity for a limited time. Tess was put up (knowingly) for membership of the cell in the Cambridge colleges for women: Newnham/Girton. Straight vetoed the proposal.
²¹

This meant that Tess would be free for recruitment for the KGB via Blunt in 1938. Straight would have known about her recruitment, just as he did about all the agents. It was very much his business.
²²

Straight then unwittingly played a more than useful part in facilitating the very effective KGB spying team of Victor Rothschild and Tess Mayor (who married in 1946). First Straight’s (Blunt-directed) dalliance with Barbara Rothschild (without Victor’s connivance) helped cause the breakdown of that unsuccessful alliance with Victor. They divorced at the end of WWII. Tess and Victor became a fully fledged item—both as lovers and as double agents for the KGB—inside MI5 during the war, when she worked as his assistant. Had Tess joined the Cambridge communist movement in 1937, it is doubtful she would ever have been recruited by Soviet intelligence. Seven intelligence agencies (in the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and Russia) claimed that this couple, code named Rosa and Jack, were Soviet agents. They included MI5’s Arthur Martin and Peter Wright (who refused to believe it at first, but later concluded it was correct), Soviet defector Anatoli Golitsyn, and the CIA’s James Angleton. Tess’s KGB agency explained the conundrum posed by Yuri Modin in my book
The Fifth Man
. How could five agents actually be six—“as with the three musketeers, who were four”? The answer is that Victor and Tess from 1939 until Victor’s death in 1990 were considered as a team and therefore as “one.” The fifth man, then, was Victor and Tess.

Straight claimed Simon and Blunt were lovers in 1937, and that Simon and Tess were lovers in 1939. He also gave nothing away by making the unsurprising admission to MI5 (during its interrogation of him in 1967) that Simon knew all about the KGB roles of Blunt and Burgess, despite telling Blunt’s biographer Miranda Carter otherwise. Straight also gave nothing away by telling MI5 that Simon had happily taken on his job of assistant (KGB) talent spotter. He also gave a broad hint that Tess was
under KGB control when acting as secretary to Lord Philip Noel-Baker, a Labor Government Minister, but when challenged by MI5 for a more direct statement, backed off as if he were just putting up a proposition. This was a direct contradiction to the ramifications of him telling MI5 that he vetoed Tess joining the Cambridge underground communist women’s college cell. Straight couldn’t resist attempts at misinformation.
²³

Straight staged enough of a recovery from his fake nervous breakdown in May 1937 to lobby left-wing support in the union for Haile Selassie, Ethiopia’s emperor-in-exile, who had been pushed out of power by Mussolini’s fascists. Selassie was invited to the Cambridge Union at the end of the month, causing a split in the union, for it signified communist ascendancy. Selassie’s visit was marked by a student who climbed the tall spire of King’s College and fixed an Ethiopian flag to it. Straight put aside his depression, stood at the oak dispatch box in the customary union officer’s white tie and tails, scanned the rows of undergraduates jammed into the Victorian debating chamber’s leather benches, and then delivered a speech of welcome. It had been translated into impeccable French by Blunt.

The diminutive, bearded Selassie, befitting his imperial status, deigned not to respond beyond a few words in his reedy voice. Instead, he presented the union with a gold-framed photograph of himself. Then with a regal grin, he signed the minute book and bowed. He straightened to see glowing red rockets’ flickering light through the chamber’s Gothic windows.

The fireworks came from Rothschild’s home, Merton Hall, on the other side of the Cam River. Barbara was throwing a lavish party for Straight and his fellow union officers. Straight and others jumped in his sports car and roared over Magdalene bridge to the party. It was a warm spring night and a vodka and caviar supper was being served on the terrace. A Hungarian band was in the floodlit garden. Rothschild was there, cool as ever, smoking his favorite Balkan Soubranie cigarettes and playing duets with jazz pianist Cab Calloway. Straight was greeted with a sensual kiss from the radiant Barbara, who had been informed by Blunt that Straight was still infatuated with her.

They had had a few assignations during the past year. One had been by the Cam on a balmy spring night. They were passionate under a blanket
after a dizzying champagne picnic. Barbara returned home, got into bed, and by candlelight started reading passionate poems by the sixteenth-century English poet John Donne, which Straight had given her. Rothschild came home and flew into a jealous rage. The scam had been set up by Blunt, who was still trying to help Rothschild facilitate a separation. Barbara later told Straight about her husband’s behavior and Straight did his best to avoid both of them. However, he was curious to find that Rothschild’s demeanor toward him remained the same. Blunt wondered why Straight had stopped seeing her and urged him to meet again because she may have been suicidal.
²⁴

Straight agreed to meet her again, but in London. He feared a confrontation with Rothschild.

Now, at her party for him, Barbara and Straight were near each other once more; it was unnerving for him. Barbara met Straight on a secluded garden seat. After an hour, Straight became concerned that her husband would stop his jazz playing and come looking for them. He departed before any speeches in his honor were made. Barbara was left to explain that Straight was exhausted after the union meeting and that he must study for his finals. Blunt was not so squeamish; he got drunk. During the evening he was discovered by Charles Fletcher-Cooke (who had been on the 1935 boat trip to Russia) in the garden in passionate embrace, first with a male undergraduate, then later with the wife of a don from Jesus College.
²⁵

Next morning, the hung over union members met for a photograph with Selassie, which Straight would treasure for the rest of his life. Many of the students in it were fellow communists, including Leo Long; Gerald Croasdell; Hugh Gordon; Leslie Humphrey; Peter Astbury; Jakes Ewer; Pieter Keuneman, who became leader of the opposition communist party of Ceylon; and S. M. Kumaramangalam, who was sent to prison as a communist in India. John Simonds and Maurice Dobb also featured, as did Abba Eban, later deputy prime minister but then foreign minister of Israel; Fletcher-Cooke; and Philip Noel-Baker, who would start the World Disarmament Campaign.