Last of the Cold War Spies (9 page)

Depressed and frustrated by his failure to woo Tess, Straight went to Blunt and told him the sorry story of unrequited love. The Trinity don listened and nodded understandingly. There was a time-honored solution to his problem, Blunt told him. Straight asked what that was.

“Have an affair with someone else.”

Straight couldn’t think of anyone who would match Tess or even take his mind off her. Blunt suggested there was one suitable woman.

“Who?” Straight wanted to know.

“Barbara Rothschild.”
⁸

It was well known that Victor and his vivacious, attractive wife Barbara (née Hutchinson, a member of the Bloomsbury literary circle) were not getting on. She was having plenty of affairs (as was he), and their hastily arranged marriage, now just short of two years, was on the rocks. Straight was reluctant. He seemed less than ambivalent toward Victor, whom he once called a “cold, repulsive figure.” Straight wasn’t sure Barbara was someone with whom he could have an affair, despite her spirited nature and sex appeal. Blunt suggested she was a passionate woman in need of a robust liaison.

Blunt then aroused Barbara’s interest by telling her that Straight found her alluring. Barbara wanted a meeting. One night Blunt had a gathering of people for drinks in his elegant rooms in New Court, Trinity’s most beautiful court. Not long into the evening, Barbara suggested that she and Straight go for a walk through darkened cloisters. Straight, still in two minds but caught in the daring and risk of the moment, went with her. Once out of sight, she embraced and kissed him. Barbara wanted an affair to begin immediately. Straight was uncertain, not knowing how Victor would react if he found out. Barbara was persistent. Blunt kept encouraging her and tried to push Straight. He was torn between at least some respect for (and fear of ) Victor, his relationship with Herta at Dartington, his love for Tess, and the natural lust of a late teenager. At first he felt some debt to Blunt for attempting to help him out in his time of emotional need. But Blunt’s motives were far more layered than an altruistic act for a young companion. Apart from wanting Straight obligated to him, Blunt was keen for Rothschild to be more dependent on him too. If Barbara were to have a significant affair, this adulterous relationship could be used to facilitate a divorce. This would put a presumably grateful Rothschild more in his debt.

There was a medium-term aim involved. The Comintern had not recruited the cautious Rothschild, although he was already a subagent, supplying information and help to the cause wherever he could. It wanted Rothschild further enmeshed in its espionage activity. He was the best equipped and -connected communist supporter in the United Kingdom. As a prominent Cambridge scientist he knew the secret developments in everything from atom physics to biological weaponry. Victor would one day be the Third Lord Rothschild and useful as a member of parliament.
He already had connections through his family, one of the most prominent in the United Kingdom, with the country’s great and good, from Winston Churchill to Clement Atlee.

Blunt, with his feline capacities for tying people up emotionally, was just the person to draw him in.
⁹
In Rothschild’s case, Blunt was fond of telling the story of how in 1933 he discovered a painting by Nicolas Poussin—
Eliza and Rebecca at the Well
—and “borrowed” £300 from Victor to buy it.
¹⁰
The money was never repaid (despite the painting being valued at half a million pounds at the time of Blunt’s death in 1983).
¹¹

Although Blunt and Burgess were in part responsible for maneuvering both Rothschild and Straight into the Soviet orbit, both their targets knew what was being done to them. They were both attracted to the thrill and danger of the secret world. Rothschild managed to create the image of being outside the ring. He rarely dealt with the KGB directly and mostly used the manipulative Blunt as the middleman or go between. Straight, on the other hand, was a different character altogether and headed in another direction, albeit for the same cause. His ego and public ambition were collectively far greater than that of Rothschild, who preferred to remain behind the scenes in influencing events in the family tradition. This stretched back to the financing of the British Army at the Battle of Waterloo and the purchase of the Suez Canal for Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

At the time Straight told Cornford that he was disturbed by the intensity of his desire to excel in everything he did. In the main this applied to his communist activities—they dominated his existence. When Straight became a public figure in the 1980s over his espionage activity, he tried to portray himself as the immature victim seduced by the wily Blunt. Yet it was only one part of the equation. Straight was a willing, if unwitting, player in suggestions that Blunt put to him, such as his handling of Rothschild’s disgruntled wife—an “assignment” that was to go on for more than a year. Sexual and emotional weapons were part of the good spy’s large armory of deception. Blunt was fostering their development.

Early in 1936, Straight was nominated for the Apostles, the secret society that had been hijacked by both Marxists and homosexuals in the 1930s. It included Soviet ring spies Blunt and Burgess, Rothschild, and a long
list of fervent communists, including Alister Watson, Julian Bell, and Hugh Sykes Davies. Straight’s nominator was David Champernowne, a member of the family that had sold Dartington to the Elmhirsts. Straight joined on March 8, 1936.

“I was deeply impressed,” Straight said in a television interview with BBC’s Ludovic Kennedy in 1983. “The Apostles were brilliant, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated.” Being brought in as the only undergraduate was a huge honor for him. “I looked up to them. 130 years of intellectual leadership gave them a legendary status.”

He was fascinated by the enigmatic Burgess:

Straight was more impressed by Blunt: “Blunt on the contrary was elegant, knowledgeable, wise, kind and nonpolitical, certainly when we met in his rooms.”

In the television interview Straight was asked about the homosexuality of Blunt and Burgess. He found Burgess very blatant; Blunt was more discreet. Straight, who was adamant about his heterosexuality, was never propositioned by them, presumably because they realized he was straight. Others, however, fell prey to Blunt’s predatory ways, especially at parties in his rooms. In explaining his relationships with them and other homosexuals at Cambridge, Straight said that they were the “most sensitive and aesthetically knowledgeable people” at the university.

In April 1936, Cornford, his girlfriend Margot Heinemann, and her brother Henry invited themselves to Dartington for a week of sun; sailing; golf; and, fittingly, Russian song and dance provided by members of the Chekhov Studio. They strolled arm-in-arm from the hall courtyard to
the left of the Great Hall down a narrow path that led toward the ancient stone wall (the Sunny Border) and Tiltyard. Cornford in particular was interested in the latter’s history of jousting knights. He was on his best behavior and for once put communist politics aside when in the company of Straight’s parents. Straight had presented him at Dartington as a poet rather than a radical.

In mid-June, as planned, Blunt and Burgess were invited to Dartington. They were in full charm mode for Dorothy and Leonard. Burgess even played cricket in the garden with their seven-year-old son Bill. Burgess drank heavily and only when he was inebriated did he talk politics, which was kept general. He was handling well his double game of supporting the fascists while not sounding antiliberal. Instead of turning ugly when drunk, Burgess staggered off to his room to slumber.

Blunt discussed art for hours with Dorothy over tea and in the gardens, which were still a special sight in late spring. They walked and talked in the woodland where three great oaks met. She was impressed with his cultured manner and deep knowledge of all the major art works at Dartington. He touched on her love of Italian Renaissance paintings. He enthralled her with his comprehension of their religious significance and the influence of the Catholic Church over art and literature. Because of her own spirituality, she was left with an impression of a Christian aesthete. Blunt avoided politics and kept to himself his thoughts about Marxist doctrine being the key to great contemporary art.

The overall impact of these two on Dorothy was anodyne. Burgess, with his cherubic mien, seemed to her to have sensible, middle-of-the-road views. Blunt, whose mother was a second cousin to the Earl of Strathmore (his daughter was Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future queen), appeared to have no political hue at all, which befitted his pedigree. This lulled Dorothy into a false sense of calm following her concern over Straight’s alarming letters about radical communism and unbridled love for his comrades. If people like these two were Michael’s young mentors and friends, there seemed less to worry about.

Later, Straight continued his romance with Herta in Paris. They drove to Spain in July and were there just before a right-wing political figure,
Calvo Sotelo, was murdered with the connivance of the Spanish government security forces. It was the final outrage for the right and the army, who had been opposed to the “Popular Front” government, elected five months earlier in February. The Popular Front was a coalition of left-wing Republicans and socialists who had combined against Spain’s strong fascist elements. All members of the front wanted the state to be a republic, whereas the party’s socialists wanted a purely socialist government. Just as socialists feared Spain’s fascists, the right—the “Nationalists”—saw the Republican government as a prisoner of the revolutionary left. To a degree each side was correct in its judgment of the other.

Sotelo’s assassination sparked an army uprising first in Morocco on July 17, which spread to the garrisons of metropolitan Spain in the following days. General Francisco Franco emerged as the main Nationalist leader, and the fascist powers of Italy and Germany supported him. Britain and France opposed Franco and supported the tenuous yet legitimate Republican government but decided not to intervene. Stalin, however, decided to get involved with substantial arms supplies to the Republicans. His price for support, as ever, was heavy. He wanted control of the government via the small Spanish Communist Party. Stalin sent his commissars to secure power. They ran into a range of communists—particularly Trotskyites—and socialists who were not going to take orders from Stalin’s henchmen. Stalin had a pathological hate and jealousy of Trotsky—Stalin’s former comrade from the Russian revolution of 1917. His response was to send professional hit men, experienced assassins such as the notorious George Mink, to Spain to murder any communist who was not in total support of him and his commissars. This would ensure that Trotsky would have no influence in Spain.