Read Online Last of the Cold War Spies by Roland Perry - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Roland Perry
Ads: Link
moment.
“I’m not a poet,” Wilfrid responded. “I think you are confusing me with Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, our cousin.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” the host said, ushering them into dinner.
At the table, while other guests chatted, Charles remarked to Blunt: “I thought your brother appeared somewhat young to be the Blunt we were expecting.”
A miffed Wilfrid, aged about 30, overheard the comment and butted in: “Yes, Scawen Blunt would be more than ninety.”
“Oh, and how is he?”
“Dead, actually.”
“I am sorry.”
“I shouldn’t be,” Wilfrid said. “He has been gone since 1922.” 12
The evening at the embassy seemed even more bizarre in retrospect to Wilfrid when he learned that the butler at the embassy was a Soviet agent.
For a short time in Moscow, Blunt moved more easily with other members of the party, including Straight and Young. There were conversations, but Straight and Young claimed they could remember nothing of substance. Blunt was keen to engage Straight. He liked to cultivate the wealthy for his own purposes and those of his true masters. He had already ingratiated himself at Trinity with Victor Rothschild, the rich scion of the banking family, whose generosity was appreciated for both causes.Blunt had benefited from the future lord’s largess in loaning him money for paintings and his willingness to be involved, for the time being, on the fringes of the Comintern’s plans for the United Kingdom. In turn, Blunt had been most supportive when Rothschild was on manslaughter charges (which were later dropped) in 1932 when he killed a cyclist outside Cambridge while speeding in his Bugati.
In Straight’s case, the trip was designed to ease Blunt into a relationship with the teenager, which he did to perfection. Straight was impressed by his cultivated air.
He suggested Blunt was remote and mysterious for most of the tour, which was not Wilfrid’s perspective, for he was with him almost all the time. Nevertheless, according to Yuri Modin, Blunt slipped away alone one night in Moscow to meet Nikolai Bukharin, the Bolshevik and Marxist theoretician and economist. Guy Burgess, a member of the Cambridge Soviet ring of agents, had met him in Moscow a year earlier. 13 Bukharin, 46, was then editor of Izvestia , the official government newspaper, and was busy writing the new Soviet constitution, but his star was in decline following Stalin’s purges. He was a prominent member of the Comintern, and as such advised Burgess and Blunt on tactics. Their discussions covered methods in selecting and managing likely new agents. Burgess had been advised to change his image and pretend to be a fascist supporter in order to infiltrate right-wing circles in England. Blunt, who had not been as militant and vocal as his lover Burgess, was told to continue his work as an art historian and stay at Cambridge as long as possible.
Straight would have loved to have met such a romanticized figure as Bukharin, but no one at the Moscow Center was ready to allow it. Nor was he then a fully fledged Soviet agent. Yet he and Young did manage to break away from the rest of the party, albeit for a less exciting assignment—an attempt to arrange an exchange of theater companies. The Jooss Ballet Company, which was at Dartington, wished to come to Russia. Straight and Young went to see if the Vakhtangov Theatre Company, named after its director, would like to visit England. They saw the director’s widow and a deal, in French, was struck.
Straight tried to impress Vakhtangov’s widow that his stepfather ran an experimental enterprise, with special socialist significance, which was a bit like a Greek city-state. Straight only made Madame Vakhtangov understand that Leonard was a farmer—a Kulak. She was disdainful. Farmers were class enemies of the workers. She inquired about Straight’s mother. “He tried again in French to portray Dorothy in her full artistic milieu at Dartington, but could only make her
“I’m not a poet,” Wilfrid responded. “I think you are confusing me with Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, our cousin.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” the host said, ushering them into dinner.
At the table, while other guests chatted, Charles remarked to Blunt: “I thought your brother appeared somewhat young to be the Blunt we were expecting.”
A miffed Wilfrid, aged about 30, overheard the comment and butted in: “Yes, Scawen Blunt would be more than ninety.”
“Oh, and how is he?”
“Dead, actually.”
“I am sorry.”
“I shouldn’t be,” Wilfrid said. “He has been gone since 1922.” 12
The evening at the embassy seemed even more bizarre in retrospect to Wilfrid when he learned that the butler at the embassy was a Soviet agent.
For a short time in Moscow, Blunt moved more easily with other members of the party, including Straight and Young. There were conversations, but Straight and Young claimed they could remember nothing of substance. Blunt was keen to engage Straight. He liked to cultivate the wealthy for his own purposes and those of his true masters. He had already ingratiated himself at Trinity with Victor Rothschild, the rich scion of the banking family, whose generosity was appreciated for both causes.Blunt had benefited from the future lord’s largess in loaning him money for paintings and his willingness to be involved, for the time being, on the fringes of the Comintern’s plans for the United Kingdom. In turn, Blunt had been most supportive when Rothschild was on manslaughter charges (which were later dropped) in 1932 when he killed a cyclist outside Cambridge while speeding in his Bugati.
In Straight’s case, the trip was designed to ease Blunt into a relationship with the teenager, which he did to perfection. Straight was impressed by his cultivated air.
He suggested Blunt was remote and mysterious for most of the tour, which was not Wilfrid’s perspective, for he was with him almost all the time. Nevertheless, according to Yuri Modin, Blunt slipped away alone one night in Moscow to meet Nikolai Bukharin, the Bolshevik and Marxist theoretician and economist. Guy Burgess, a member of the Cambridge Soviet ring of agents, had met him in Moscow a year earlier. 13 Bukharin, 46, was then editor of Izvestia , the official government newspaper, and was busy writing the new Soviet constitution, but his star was in decline following Stalin’s purges. He was a prominent member of the Comintern, and as such advised Burgess and Blunt on tactics. Their discussions covered methods in selecting and managing likely new agents. Burgess had been advised to change his image and pretend to be a fascist supporter in order to infiltrate right-wing circles in England. Blunt, who had not been as militant and vocal as his lover Burgess, was told to continue his work as an art historian and stay at Cambridge as long as possible.
Straight would have loved to have met such a romanticized figure as Bukharin, but no one at the Moscow Center was ready to allow it. Nor was he then a fully fledged Soviet agent. Yet he and Young did manage to break away from the rest of the party, albeit for a less exciting assignment—an attempt to arrange an exchange of theater companies. The Jooss Ballet Company, which was at Dartington, wished to come to Russia. Straight and Young went to see if the Vakhtangov Theatre Company, named after its director, would like to visit England. They saw the director’s widow and a deal, in French, was struck.
Straight tried to impress Vakhtangov’s widow that his stepfather ran an experimental enterprise, with special socialist significance, which was a bit like a Greek city-state. Straight only made Madame Vakhtangov understand that Leonard was a farmer—a Kulak. She was disdainful. Farmers were class enemies of the workers. She inquired about Straight’s mother. “He tried again in French to portray Dorothy in her full artistic milieu at Dartington, but could only make her
Similar Books
