Last of the Cold War Spies (27 page)

E
ngland’s King George VI called a secret meeting in the library of Windsor Castle in late July 1945. The others present were Sir Owen Morshead, the royal librarian, and Major Anthony Blunt, who apart from his MI5 work acted as an art historian and adviser to the king. George VI wanted the trusted courtiers to travel to Kronberg, where the king’s relatives lived. They had correspondence—“hundreds of letters and photographs”—between the British and German royals dating back to Queen Victoria that the king wanted retrieved.
¹

At least that would be the cover story, should the mission be noticed by anyone. The real assignment was to find letters and memoranda of conversations by the monarch’s brother, the Duke of Windsor, with Hitler and top Nazis. Blunt and Morshead were to search for transcripts of telephone calls made by the Duke of Windsor (the former King Edward VIII) during his visit to Germany in October 1937. Of particular concern was the October 22, 1937, meeting by the duke and his wife (the American Wallis Simpson) with Hitler in his mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden.

They were sensitive communications, the king informed them. Better that they did not end up in American hands, especially the press. Neither courtier asked questions about the contents of the letters and transcripts.

Suffice to know that their monarch wished them to undertake a mission to secure them all. They realized he was most concerned that they succeed.

In early August 1945, the 38-year-old Blunt, who was in charge of the mission; Morshead, in his mid-50s; and four handpicked British soldiers flew to Frankfurt and then drove an army truck to Kronberg. They found the United States occupying forces using the nineteenth-century palace of Kronberg as a GI rest camp. The British party drove past it two miles to the dark tower of Schloss Friedrichshof, which seemed to hang over the wooded slopes of Taunus Mountains. Blunt left the truck and entered the large entrance hall that featured a wooden-beamed, Scottish baronial style roof. The walls were adorned with English royal coats of arms and portraits of English kings and queens. He was greeted by a U.S. captain, Kathleen Nash, of the U.S. Women’s Army Corps.
²
She was in command of the rest camp. Blunt asked where he could find the Hesse family, the king’s German relatives. Captain Nash redirected Blunt to the townhouse, where the family had been shunted in the grounds of the old Kronberg castle.

The Hesse family was a bit taken aback when Blunt produced a letter with the royal seal and signed by George VI. It requested permission to remove the royal letters and “other communications” to England for “safekeeping.”
³
The problem for the Hesses was that they were technically headless. The titular head, Prince Philip, was a Nazi leader. He had fallen from favor with Hitler and was in Dachau concentration camp, Philip’s twin brother, Wolfgang, explained.

“Are you not the head of the family in your brother’s absence?” Blunt asked. “We need permission to take the documents.”

The family asked Blunt to wait while they conferred. They emerged after an hour with a letter from the mother of Wolfgang and Philip, the 72year-old Princess Margaret. It gave her permission for the removal of the papers in question.
⁴
There were about a thousand documents, Wolfgang informed Blunt and Morshead, clearly marked in packing cases. “They’re stored in the attic of Schloss Friedrichshof,” he said.

In the evening, the party drove back up the winding road through the Hesse estate to the Schloss. The six-man party entered and were again greeted by Captain Nash. Blunt accompanied her down a passage to an office. He produced the two letters from George VI and Princess Margaret.

Nash showed Blunt a chair, sat behind her desk and read them, frowning. “What papers are you wanting?”

“They are private correspondence between the Windsors and the Hesse family.”

“Windsors?”

“Yes, the royal family. The British royal family.”

Nash shook her head. “I don’t have the authority to relinquish control over papers.”

Blunt nodded at the letters. “That is all the authority you need,” he said.

“What?”

“The king—the head of the U.K., Commonwealth, and the Dominions—has signed that letter.”

“Major, everything here is now the property of the U.S. army.”

“Not royal correspondence.”

“Everything. I have orders.”

Blunt could see that Nash was intractable.
⁵
“I would appreciate you calling U.S. army headquarters in Frankfurt,” he said, remaining his glacial self.

“Why?”

“So that I can speak to your superior.”

“Look, Major, I’m in charge of this camp. I have my orders.”

There was a stalemate. Blunt stood up, excused himself, and moved to the door. “I must consult my colleague,” he said. He hurried along to the entrance hall where the others were waiting.

“She’s refusing to let us take them,” he told Morshead. He glanced at the stairs. “Take the men to the attic, find the papers, and load them on the truck. I’ll stall her.”

Blunt returned to the office. Nash had lit herself a cigarette.

“You’re wasting your time, Major,” she said.

“I really do think it would be in your interest to phone HQ,” Blunt persisted. “Churchill himself supports our mission.”

Nash stared at him. She didn’t know if he were bluffing. She had seen some of the imprisoned Nazi paratrooper commandos at close quarters. She had met the toughest of the American leaders, including George Patton. But this languid, ice-cool British officer with the long face and cutaway mouth was a different animal altogether. He was polite yet remote. He behaved as if he had real, if obscure, authority. She remained firm, yet inside she was a fraction insecure. What if Churchill was behind it? Would she be reprimanded by her commanding officer? The argument continued. Nash relented and phoned Frankfurt, asking Blunt to leave the office. He hastened to the entrance just as Morshead and the soldiers came down the stairs with two packing cases. The party hurried to the truck, loaded it, and climbed in.

Nash could not get through to her commanding officer in Frankfurt. She stepped out of the office and walked to the Schloss’s front door to see the truck disappearing down the winding road and into the night.
⁶

Two days later, the Hesse family entertained Blunt and Morshead at a small castle at nearby Wolfsgarten. The twenty present dined in style with a sumptuous six-course meal served by liveried footmen behind every chair. A different wine accompanied every course.
⁷
Just before midnight, Blunt retired to a room in the castle’s guest quarters. He had placed the cases of documents and letters in the room with a guard outside, on the off chance that the Americans should dare to steal them back. Blunt (according to two of his KGB controls) removed the lids and began to sift through the letters, most of which were unsealed.
⁸
He was thrilled to find one from Karl Marx, who had been called upon by a German court official in 1847.
⁹
The correspondence that interested him most concerned messages between Edward (when prince); his youngest brother, the Duke of Kent; and their German cousins, Philip of Hesse and Karl Eduard, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The letters showed that Edward and the Duke of Kent were keen to ingratiate themselves with Hitler when he became German chancellor and with the Nazi regime. Philip had been the link with Edward before, during and after he was king (1936–1937). More damning was strong evidence that Edward had passed secret information to the Nazis during the war.

In effect, the documents and letters demonstrated that the former king of England and Wallis Simpson had passed information secretly to Hitler from at least 1934 to 1943. This meant, whether they perceived their intentions as good or not, they were technically traitors to England from 1939 to 1943.
¹⁰

Blunt now fully realized King George’s anxiety about the material. The KGB double agent was astonished at the extent of Edward’s links. There was clear evidence that he was preparing to be placed back on the throne as prince regent once the Nazis took power as a pay-off for his support. It
would be a reward from Hitler for heading the so-called international peace movement on behalf of the Nazis, which assisted Hitler’s plan for taking Europe, piece by piece.
¹¹

Blunt surmised that if these letters were revealed publicly, it would mean the end of the House of Windsor. The British, not to mention the Commonwealth and Dominions, had just been through a horrific war against fascism, which had taken an enormous toll on people and lives. If the king’s tens of millions of subjects were now informed that his brother—the former king—and his wife had been Nazi collaborators, it would never be tolerated.

Over the next few nights and on the return trip to London, Blunt sorted the most important letters. Then he microfilmed them.
¹²

The king was delighted and relieved at the success of the mission. It meant that Blunt would maintain his job as Keeper of the King’s Pictures, if he wished, as long as the king was alive. Blunt had spent the war at MI5, since Rothschild recommended him to Liddell in 1940. His job as a double agent for MI5 and his ultimate masters at the KGB had exhausted him. He had worked long hours, keeping up the deception without faltering. But now with the Nazis defeated, he wanted to leave MI5.
¹³
He considered himself a burnt out case even if the Russians had yet to label him as such. He consulted his KGB control, Ivan Milovzorov, at the Soviet embassy in London. Blunt had been a loyal agent since 1934, recruiting some of the best prospects for the cause, such as Straight, Leo Long, and Alister Watson. He had taken risks daily for his Soviet masters and had proved to be one of the best half-dozen or so British agents the KGB ever had. Now he wanted out. The job at the palace was a ticket to a quieter life, if the KGB agreed to it. Blunt told himself, they had to agree, didn’t they?

He and Milovzorov met at an East End pub at night. They were an odd couple. Tall, uniformed Major Blunt seemed out of place. His upper-class mien was better suited to the St. James clubs near MI5’s offices. Yet he dared not be seen anywhere near the area with this portly foreigner, whose brow often sweated.

They drank and chatted. Milovzorov tended to be heavy-handed and brusque. He had fallen out from time to time with a few of his agents. Blunt told him he was leaving MI5 and going to work at the palace. Milovzorov was confused. He was a slack spy-master whose reputation had been maintained by the quality agents such as Blunt who fed him valuable information.