38 Moura Budberg MI5 file, document 16.Y, 1932, translation of original Russian document.
39 Kyril Zinovieff, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add 9429/2B/125.
40 Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, p. 200.
41 Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, pp. 200–201; Troyat, Gorky, p. 165.
42 Quoted in Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, p. 200.
43 Troyat, Gorky, pp. 165–8.
44 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 165.
45 Moura, letter to Wells, 2 May 1928, RBML.
46 Moura, letter to Wells, 10 Feb. 1924, RBML.
47 Moura, letter to Lockhart, 4 Jul. 1928, HIA.
48 Moura, letter to Lockhart, 28 Jul. 1928, HIA.
49 Moura, letter to Lockhart, 1 Nov. 1928, LL.
50 Spence, Trust No One, p. 483; Cook, Ace of Spies, pp. 259–63.
51 Moura, letter to Gorky, 21 Aug. 1928, quoted in Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, p. 211.
52 Scherr, notes on letter from Moura to Gorky, 24 Mar. 1929, GA.
53 Alexander, Estonian Childhood, p. 119.
54 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 140.
55 Nicolson, letter to Vita, 12 Apr. 1929, in The Harold Nicolson Diaries and Letters, p. 69.
56 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 141.
57 Lockhart, diary entry for 9 Apr. 1929, Diaries vol. 1, p. 81.
58 Moura, letter to Lockhart, HIA. Undated: written immediately after reunion in Berlin, 1929.
59 Moura Budberg MI5 file: Boyce, letter to Maj. Spencer, Passport Control Office, London, 10 Jun. 1929. Boyce’s retirement, Jeffery, MI6, p. 191.
Chapter 19: Not Such a Fool
1 When she made her visa application, Moura claimed that she had visited Britain before, in 1911, and had stayed at Claridge’s (Moura Budberg MI5 file, notes by British Passport Control, Paris, 13 Jun. 1928). Nothing is known of the details of this visit, including whether or not it really happened.
2 Lockhart, diary entry for 5 Sep. 1918, Diaries vol. 1, p. 41.
3 Moura, letter to Wells, RBML. Undated: postmarked 1929, probably late Sept.
4 Moura, letter to Wells, 29 Sept. 1929, RBML.
5 Alexander, Estonian Childhood, p. 148.
6 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 143.
7 Moura, letters to Gorky, Mar.–Jul. 1930, GA.
8 Anthony West, ‘My Father’s Unpaid Debts of Love’, Observer Review, 11 Jan. 1976, p. 17.
9 Rupert Hart-Davis, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add 9429/2B/119.
10 Rupert Hart-Davis, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add 9429/2B/119.
11 Lockhart, diary entry for 4 Oct. 1930, Diaries vol. 1, p. 127.
12 Nathalie Brooke (née Benckendorff, daughter of Constantine), interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add. 9429/2B/114 (i). The relationship between Constantine and Djon is uncertain, but they appear to have been fourth cousins, their common ancestor being a Johann Michael Ivanovich von Benckendorff (1720–1775).
13 Benckendorff, Half a Life, p. 150.
14 Nathalie Brooke (née Benckendorff, daughter of Constantine), interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add. 9429/2B/114 (i).
15 Kyril Zinovieff, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add 9429/2B/125.
16 Nathalie Brooke, interview with Deborah McDonald.
17 Quoted by Michael Burn, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add 9429/2B/115 (ii).
18 She found her ‘plump, big boned, forceful, not attractive . . . she repelled me’ (Nathalie Brooke, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add. 9429/2B/114 (i)).
19 Nathalie Brooke, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add. 9429/2B/114 (i).
20 Nathalie Brooke, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add. 9429/2B/114 (i).
21 Nathalie Brooke, interview with Deborah McDonald.
22 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 168.
23 Lockhart, diary entry for 6 Jan. 1931, Diaries vol. 1, p. 145.
24 Lockhart, diary entry for 2–4 Aug. 1924, Diaries vol. 1, p. 59.
25 Moura, letter to Lockhart, 29 Dec. 1931, HIA.
26 Moura, letter to Lockhart, HIA. Undated: probably 1931.
27 Moura, letter to Gorky, 4 Apr. 1931, GA.
28 Kira and Hugh Clegg produced a son, Nicholas. In due course he grew up and married and produced a son, also called Nicholas; he grew up to become a politician, leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister.
29 Moura, letter to Lockhart, 17 Mar. 1932, HIA.
30 Robin Bruce Lockhart, Reilly: The First Man, pp. 12, 115.
31 Reilly, letter to Lockhart, 24 Nov. 1918, quoted in Robin Bruce Lockhart, Reilly: The First Man, p. 115.
32 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 159.
33 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 162.
34 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 163.
35 Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, pp. 287–9.
36 Scheffer, ‘Hungersnot in Russland’, Berliner Tageblatt, 1 Apr. 1933; Gareth Jones, ‘Balance Sheet of the Five-Year Plan’, Financial Times, 13 Apr. 1933. Both available online at www.garethjones.org (retrieved 20 Jun. 2014).
37 Sayers & Kahn, Sabotage, pp. 17–21.
38 Moura, letter to Paul Scheffer, included in Moura Budberg MI5 file, translation by MI5. Undated but probably written in June 1932.
39 Moura, letter to Paul Scheffer, included in Moura Budberg MI5 file, translated by Caroline Schmitz.
40 Moura, letter to Paul Scheffer, included in Moura Budberg MI5 file. Postmarked Österreich, date unclear but copy dated 11 Jun. 1933. Translated by Caroline Schmitz.
41 Lord Willis, letter to Andrew Boyle, 11 Jul. 1980, CUL Add 9429/2B/109.
42 Moura, letter to Lockhart, LL. Undated: probably 1933.
43 Wells, H. G Wells in Love, p. 170.
44 Lockhart, diary entry for 3 Oct. 1931, Diaries vol. 1, p. 189.
45 Berberova, Moura, p. 257.
46 Bagnold, Autobiography, pp. 130–34.
47 Moura, letter to Lockhart, LL. Undated: probably 18 Jun. 1932.
48 Lockhart, diary entry for 5 Feb. 1932, Diaries vol. 1, p. 202.
49 Moura, letter to Lockhart, LL. Undated: probably 1933.
Chapter 20: A Cheat and a Liar
1 Smith, H. G. Wells, pp. 316–22.
2 Matheson, letter to Vita Sackville-West, quoted in Carney, Stoker, p. 45.
3 Wells, letter to von Arnim, no. 1,971, 22 Jan. 1934, in The Correspondence of H. G. Wells vol. 3, pp. 513–14.
4 This letter, dated 28 July but with no year, has been inserted into Wells’ published letters as 1930 but this does not fit with the facts. In letter no. 1,941 dated 2 August 1933 Wells comments to a friend about a proposed holiday to Portmeirion. Moura did not specify where she wrote her letter from but did say that she had had the pregnancy confirmed by a doctor whom she had known in Russia. In 1930 Gorky did not go to Russia, Moura was in Berlin in August and wrote to H. G. saying she was missing him and her trips to Britain were very infrequent.
5 The original of this letter is in the RBML archive. On this original it is clear that it is the three children she is referring to: Kira, Tania and Paul. In the published letters, no. 1,735, it is ‘Victor, Tania and Paul’, obviously a mistranscription. From this time on Pavel, her son, was known as Paul.
6 In 1936 Liuba married Sir Lionel Fletcher, a retired engineer and shipping magnate, with whom she moved to Tanzania.
7 Berberova, Moura, p. 257.
8 Bagnold, Autobiography, p. 134.
9 Wells, letter to Christabel Aberconway, 20 May 1934, quoted in Lynn, Shadow Lovers, pp. 199–200.
10 Moura, letters to Gorky, Jan.–Dec. 1934, GA.
11 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 174.
12 Quoted in Robin Bruce Lockhart, Reilly: The First Man, pp. 57–8.
13 The dacha was in the small town of Gorki, not to be confused with the town of Gorki where Lenin spent his final months, or Gorky’s birthplace, which was renamed Gorki in honour of him. ‘Gorki’ is a common name for towns in Russia; the one where Gorky had his dacha was known as
Gorki-10 and the other was renamed Gorki-Leninskie. Possibly the location was chosen for him because of the coincidence of names.
14 Wells, Experiment in Autobiography vol. II, p. 809.
15 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 175.
16 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, pp. 175–6.
17 The essay on Moura in Shadow Lovers (pp. 161–200) was written in June and August 1935, amended slightly in 1936, but not published until decades after his death.
18 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 164.
19 During the show trials of 1938 Yagoda and Kriuchkov were accused of Max’s murder. The quick funeral was given as proof of their guilt. Yagoda was having an affair with Max’s wife, Timosha.
20 Moura, letter to Gorky, 1934, quoted in Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, p. 316.
21 Baron Robert Boothby, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add 9429/2B/113.
22 Moura, second letter to Gorky, 1934, quoted in Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, p. 316.
23 Moura, letter to Lockhart, HIA. Undated: probably mid-1934.
Chapter 21: The Mysterious Death of Maxim Gorky
1 West, H. G. Wells, pp. 140–41. West is vague about when this conversation took place; he implies that it occurred immediately she was confronted with the evidence in Estonia. More likely it was some time after summer 1935 (based on the nature of Wells’ own account written at that time).
2 West, H. G. Wells, p. 141.
3 West, H. G. Wells, p. 141.
4 Alexander, Estonian Childhood, p. 154. West’s book was published in 1984, and Tania’s in 1987.
5 See Chapter 2 in this book and Hill, Go Spy the Land, pp. 87–8.
6 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 196.
7 Quoted by Lord Vaizey in letter to Andrew Boyle, 15 Oct. 1980, CUL Add 9429/2B/100.
8 Lord Ritchie Calder, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add 9429/2B/124 (i).
9 Moura, letter to Lockhart, 26 Dec. 1934, LL.
10 The book, entitled Return to Malaya, was published in 1936.
11 Moura, letter to Gorky, Aug. 1934, quoted in Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, p. 352.
12 Foros was a popular resort for senior Soviet politicians, and many had dachas there. Mikhail Gorbachev was held under house arrest at his Foros dacha during the 1991 coup.
13 Shkapa, quoted in Shentalinsky, The KGB’s Literary Archive, p. 267.
14 The NKVD, or People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, had existed since the Revolution, and competed with the Cheka. Successive reorganisations produced the GPU, the OGPU and eventually the newly reformed NKVD in 1934, which took full responsibility for intelligence and security. In 1954 the NKVD was split and reformed again, and espionage and political policing became the responsibility of the newly formed KGB, while criminal policing was handled by a separate organisation.
15 Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, p. 354.
16 Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, pp. 342–3.
17 Wells, letter to Constance Coolidge, no, 2073, 14 Mar. 1935, in Wells, Correspondence of H. G. Wells vol. 4, p. 15.
18 Lockhart, diary entry for 27 May 1935, Diaries vol. 1, p. 321.
19 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 208.
20 Moura, letter to Gorky, Apr. 1936, quoted in Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, pp. 364–5.
21 This theory was developed and published by Arkady Vaksberg in his book The Murder of Maxim Gorky.
22 Weidenfeld, George Weidenfeld, pp. 132–3. Weidenfeld knew Moura much later, and heard this story apparently from a third party.
23 Diary entries quoted in Alexander, Estonian Childhood, pp. 127–8.
24 Witness accounts compiled by Shentalinsky, The KGB’s Literary Archive, p. 272.
25 Told by Moura to Lockhart, Lockhart diary entry for 28 Nov.1936, Diaries vol. 1, p. 358.
26 Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, p. 386. Vaksberg claims the existence of several documents in the Russian state archives proving this, but does not identify them. Due to his failure to make proper citations, Vaksberg’s theory about the circumstances of Gorky’s death is controversial. However, the existence of the will is confirmed by Korney Chukovsky, who was told the story by Yekaterina herself (Chukovsky, diary entry for 30 Apr. 1962, Diary, p. 464).
27 Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, pp. 402–3.
28 Vaksberg, The Murder of Maxim Gorky, pp. 397–8.
Chapter 22: A Very Dangerous Woman
1 Hundreds of writers were present at this dinner, and many of them left behind accounts of it in their memoirs. The general details given here are drawn variously from a selection of these. The details of Moura’s involvement come from Berberova, Moura, p. 256.
2 Moura Budberg MI5 file, letter from Collier to Boyle, 6 Oct. 1936.
3 Wells, letter to Keeble, no. 2,016, 13 Oct. 1934, in Wells, Correspondence of H. G. Wells vol. 3, p. 541.
4 Moura Budberg MI5 file, note to Maj. V. Vivien, 14 Oct. 1936.
5 Moura Budberg MI5 file, note by ‘L.F.’, 15 Nov. 1936.
6 The Times, 4 Apr. 1936, p. 17.
7 Moura Budberg MI5 file, Special Branch report, 24 Apr. 1944.
8 Moura Budberg MI5 file, document 16.Y, 1932, translation of original Russian document; Kyril Zinovieff, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add 9429/2B/125.
9 Moura Budberg MI5 file, note on Lochner letter to Hanfstaengl, 29 Dec. 1937, cross ref from Hanfstaengl file, 25 Sep. 1939. (Lochner, despite being a pacifist, took a keen interest in the war when it started. He got himself embedded with the Germany army in 1939 and reported on the invasion of Poland.)
10 Moura Budberg MI5 file, note on Lochner, letter to Hanfstaengl, 6 Dec. 1938, cross ref with Hanfstaengl file, 25 Sep. 1939.
11 Hanfstaengl, The Unknown Hitler, p. 312.
12 Altoona Tribune, 27 Jul. 1937, p. 4. Hanfstaengl did eventually publish a memoir in 1957, Hitler: The Missing Years.
13 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, pp. 217, 219.
14 Lockhart, diary entry for 12 Mar. 1937, Diaries vol. 1, pp. 368–9.
15 Lockhart, diary entry for 22 Nov. 1937, Diaries vol. 1, p. 382.
16 Quoted in Shentalinsky, The KGB’s Literary Archive, p. 254.
17 The Times, 21 Feb. 1940, p. 11.
18 Alexander, Estonian Childhood, p. 105.
19 Tania Alexander obituary, The Times, 9 Dec. 2004, p. 74.
20 Alexander, Estonian Childhood, p. 105.
21 Wells, letter to Moura, no. 2,360, 22 Dec. 1938, Correspondence of H. G. Wells vol. 4, p. 213.
22 Wells, letter to Moura, no. 2,366, 18 Jan. 1939, Correspondence of H. G. Wells vol. 4, p. 219.
23 Alexander, Estonian Childhood, p. 161.
Chapter 23: ‘Secretly for the Russians’
1 Wells, H. G. Wells in Love, p. 224.
2 Alexander, Estonian Childhood, p. 129; Moura Budberg MI5 file, report on inhabitants of 11 Ennismore Gardens, 21 Jun. 1940; report by Cassandra Coke, a cousin of Mrs Cliff, 5 Mar. 1942.
3 Carney, Stoker, p. 117.
4 Carney, Stoker, p. 119.
5 Ustinov, Klop and the Ustinov Family, p.
6 Chukovsky, diary entry for 4 Sep. 1919, Diary, p. 53.
7 Dorril, MI6, pp. 407–8; Liddell, Diaries.
8 Kathleen Tynan, in an interview with Moura Budberg (Vogue, 1 Oct. 1970), mentioned that the actor Peter Ustinov, who was Klop’s son and a close friend of Moura, had known her since childhood (he was born in 1921). If Moura and Klop didn’t know each other in Petrograd, perhaps Moura’s connections to Paul Scheffer and later Ernst Hanfstaengl had caused them to cross paths in the 1930s.
9 Quoted in Dorril, MI6, p. 408.
10 Moura Budberg MI5 file, report by agent U35, 8 Mar. 1940.
11 Moura Budberg MI5 file, note 106, minute sheet, 26 Jun. 1940. A police registration certificate is still required by foreign nationals from certain countries residing in Britain. Russia is still on the list of countries.
A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia's Most Seductive Spy Page 47
