by Kitty Kelley
Philip’s trip to Argentina was the first time in thirty years that a member of the royal family had visited that country, but the Queen felt that her imperial luster would rub off on Frondizi.
In Buenos Aires the Argentine President hosted a state dinner for Philip, who used the occasion to lecture General Rosendo Fraga, Argentina’s war secretary.
“Have you been a minister for a long time?” Philip asked.
“For almost one year.”
“Tell me something,” said Philip. “Do you enjoy it?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Another thing. Have you been in a war?”
“No, we haven’t had wars recently in Argentina.”
“Well,” said Philip, wagging his finger in the General’s face, “don’t go and start one now.”
In a speech, Philip referred to the good relations between Argentina and Great Britain: “The really remarkable part is that we are still on such excellent terms after so many years of intimate association. Perhaps it’s a case of getting over the seven-year itch and staying good friends forever.” (Diplomatically, he did not mention the epidemic of hoof-and-mouth disease that had spread to England in cans of Argentine corned beef.)
The next day young communists pelted Philip with eggs and tomatoes. The police arrested the young people, but Philip interceded. He was in Argentina to help lower political tensions, not stir them up. “Let them go,” he said, “but tell them not to do it again. I haven’t got an unlimited supply of suits.”
This was the first (but not the last) time the Queen veered from her constitutional mandate to remain above politics. As monarch, she was forbidden to take part in the internal affairs of another country. So in Argentina she operated through her husband to influence the outcome of the elections. Unfortunately she miscalculated: Frondizi’s opponents won, marched into Buenos Aires with machine guns, and seized control of the country.
Immediately Prince Philip was evacuated from Buenos Aires, and the Macmillan government moved to shield the Queen from responsibility and criticism. The government concealed her participation by sealing all documents pertaining to the trip. They refused to routinely release the 1962 cabinet papers under the thirty-year rule and stipulated secrecy until the year 2057. Most people assumed the secrecy was to cover up a sexual scandal involving Philip, who was forty at that time, and Señora Magdalena Nelson de Blaquier, the beautiful fifty-year-old widow who had been his hostess after the military takeover.
“Look into that story,” advised Peter Evans, a prominent British journalist, “and you’ll probably find a suspicious birth nine months after the Duke’s departure.”
“One of Philip’s three illegitimate children is supposed to be the daughter of an Argentine polo player,” said his biographer Tim Heald, “but I don’t know the details.”
It just so happens that the Duke of Edinburgh was blamed for a love affair he never had and a love child he never fathered.
“I didn’t even know Philip until the Ambassador called and asked me to be his hostess,” said Mrs. de Blaquier, whose vast estate, La Concepcion, is ninety miles from Buenos Aires. “I was called because my estancia is very secure and large enough to contain three polo fields. The government needed to get Philip out of Buenos Aires because there was so much danger. They couldn’t take him any place within the city during that crisis, so he came to my estate in the country.
“He did not speak Spanish and I did not speak good English, so we conversed in French. He speaks the language fluently, like a Frenchman. I had been married thirty years when my husband died in 1960 in an airplane crash. We had nine children. Philip stayed with me and the children at the farm, and the couple who care for us. He was very simpático— very funny, nice, easy. He played cards with the children in the evening, and I organized four polo games for him at the level he could play. He’s not a very good player, but he’s passionate about the game. Passionate. He plays with a ten handicap, which is not very good, at least by Argentine standards, and I did not want him to feel slighted; so I found him players who would play his kind of polo, and he was very happy.
“During that time, he had three private meetings with Frondizi. Philip stayed with us six days and then was taken to the airport and flown to Britain. He did not allow any photographs during his visit, so I don’t have pictures, but he did send me a very beautiful letter thanking me for his stay. I never more see him again for thirty-two years until I go to a polo game in Paris. I sent word to him that I was there with my sons and grandsons. He came over.
“ ‘Are you the person who was my wonderful hostess?’ he asked. I said yes, and he presented me to the Queen. He also introduced me to Prince Charles, who said, ‘What did you do to my father? Whenever South America is mentioned, the only place he loves is Argentina because of the wonderful treatment you gave him at La Concepcion.’
“The reason, you see, is because of my polo fields. Philip said you can visit castles in Europe, but you can’t play polo there. For polo—real polo—you must go to Argentina. That’s why he loves our country so much. And Mexico, too.”
In his role as Britain’s goodwill ambassador, Philip took every opportunity to return to Argentina to play polo. He also visited Mexico several times, and again people assumed the magnet was a mistress—the beautiful Merle Oberon, who owned a sumptuous villa in Acapulco, a palace in Cuernavaca, and a huge estate in Mexico City. Married to the multimillionaire industrialist Bruno Pagliai, the former film star was celebrated in magazines as an international hostess who regularly entertained the ex-King of Italy, Greek shipowners, and Saudi Arabian princes. Her favorite royal guest was the Duke of Edinburgh.
“The Queen’s husband was Merle’s boy,” said New York society columnist David Patrick Columbia. “He was her big social ticket. I had dinner with her at her Malibu Beach house in California with Luis Estevez, her favorite couturier, and she had framed pictures of really famous people all around. The pride of place was reserved for the personally inscribed eight-by-ten photograph of Philip, which she had in a large silver frame. She was always talking about ‘when Philip visited us in Mexico,’ and ‘when Philip introduced me to the Queen,’ and ‘Philip this,’ and ‘Philip that.’ I don’t know whether they had an affair or not; I doubt it, only because Luis never thought so, and he would have known. In fact, Luis, who’s homosexual, wondered if Philip wasn’t just a little bit gay underneath that terminal macho facade of his. Luis was in Mexico with Merle several times when Philip visited, and contrary to what has been implied by others, Luis said he never saw anything romantic going on between them.”
Despite Philip’s attractiveness to women, he was also appreciated by men, especially in his younger days. “I think he far prefers the company of men,” said a man who knew him in the navy. “There was the all-male Thursday Club before and after his marriage. The four-month cruise with his male equerry in 1956….” Another man, an internationally acclaimed writer and self-described homosexual, smiled mischievously when Philip’s name was mentioned. The writer told another writer over drinks in the Oak Room Bar of the Plaza Hotel in New York City in 1994 that he remembered Philip well. “Ah, yes,” he said wickedly, “I knew Philip when he was the girl.”
With Merle Oberon, Philip appeared more beguiled by opulence than romance. Impressed by her extravagance, he enjoyed being cosseted in superlative comfort. She provided cashmere blankets, silk sheets, and a French chef who served superb cuisine with vintage wines. Although Philip was married to the world’s richest woman, and accustomed to the highest level of royal service, he did not live sumptuously. His wife was frugal and accustomed to scratchy tweeds and sensible shoes. Her palaces were cold and drafty and required electric space heaters in every corner. Merle Oberon’s estates had heated marble floors, heated towel racks, and gold-leafed beds swagged with silk tassels. Her house parties were rich, relaxed, and sunny, with sweet bougainvillea breezes.
Lord Mountbatten, who adored glamorous movie stars like Merle Obe
ron, had introduced his nephew to the legendary beauty when they’d visited Mexico fifteen years earlier. “I was on that trip,” recalled John Barratt, who was Mountbatten’s private secretary, “and I never saw anything to suggest an affair between the Duke of Edinburgh and Merle Oberon. Her husband was there, and he was our host.”
The editor and writer Michael Korda disagrees. “Oh, c’mon,” he said. “Everyone knows Philip had an affair with Merle. My uncle [film director Alexander Korda] was married to her from 1939 to 1945…. No, I wasn’t around then, and no, I never saw them together, but that’s what I’ve always been told. Besides, if they didn’t have an affair, they should have!”
Jody Jacobs, formerly a reporter for Women’s Wear Daily and society editor of the Los Angeles Times, attended one of Merle Oberon’s dinner parties in honor of Prince Philip. “It was during the [1968] Summer Olympics in Mexico City, and Merle, who was a stickler for royal protocol, insisted that everyone arrive before the Duke of Edinburgh and that the women wear long dresses. She invited Princess Lalla Nezha of Morocco and jet-setters like Cristina Ford, who was married to Henry Ford at the time, although he was not with her that evening; one or two Hollywood stars; and a few Mexican socialites whom Merle considered rich or aristocratic enough to be included. After dinner, when most of the other guests had left, I was part of a little group standing with the Prince near some French doors leading to the terrace and pool. There were two other women, including Cristina Ford, who was tan and tawny. This was the same Cristina Ford whose mad dancing at a White House dinner for Princess Margaret had made international news: Cristina, who was doing the twist, twisted herself right out of her white strapless gown. The top of her dress literally fell down. Now she was flirting madly with Prince Philip. They had danced a few times that evening. Suddenly she looked up at him and said, ‘Why don’t we go to the pool and go swimming? We (meaning the women) could leave our bras and little panties on.’
“Prince Philip blanched. ‘Uh, uh,’ he said. ‘I think it’s time for me to leave.’ He smiled at Cristina and the rest of us. He was quickly surrounded by his group, which appeared from nowhere; he said good-bye to Merle and took off. I think in that setting, with a reporter listening in, he was being very discreet. Or maybe he just wasn’t attracted to Cristina.”
The Duke of Edinburgh was far too discreet to indulge in anything beyond harmless flirting in public. “Arrangements were made privately,” said Regine Traulsen, a Moroccan woman now married and living with her husband in New York. “I was living in London in the late ’60s and going to parties with a painter, Felix Topolski, who had done a portrait of Prince Philip and become good friends with him. I told Felix I thought Philip was quite handsome and I’d like to meet him.
“A few weeks later, Felix said, ‘I made a date for you to meet Philip. The Queen will be busy with the regatta. He has a flat on top of the hill and you’ll meet him there at 10:30 in the evening.’
“ ‘I’m not a one-night stand, Felix,’ I told him.
“ ‘But you said you fancied him.’
“ ‘Oh, I do but not to sleep with….’ Felix was taken aback and the date with the Duke of Edinburgh was canceled. I’m sure I wasn’t the only woman propositioned in this way.”
Philip was always careful and, according to one recollection, frequently colorful. “Many years ago,” said Elke Gzndlowski in 1997, “I worked in a country house between Isha and Oxford where the Duke of Edinburgh visited with his private secretary, Sir Rupert Nevill…. I was serving the table when Prince Philip was talking. He said he used red condoms for happy sex and black condoms for required sex.”
Philip certainly was not going to court criticism that might embarrass the Crown. The Profumo affair had already subjected the country to enough embarrassment. At the height of the Cold War, Britain’s War Minister, John Profumo, shared a prostitute, Christine Keeler, with Soviet naval attaché Eugene Ivanov, and the scandal nearly toppled the government. The War Minister was forced to resign after he lied in a personal statement to the House of Commons. Years later the Queen honored him with a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire). At the time, the sex scandal made the British the butt of international jokes, and the disgrace lasted for years, tarnishing the country’s prestige.
Even before the scandal, the country seemed to be stumbling under the burden passed down from two world wars. “Britain still has shameful slums, obsolete housing, derelict dockyards,” wrote John Gunther in Look magazine. “The rank and file of citizens seem apathetic about the future, despondent or confused.”
Some citizens were angry. “Damn you, England,” wrote John Osborne, the young playwright who transformed British theater with his blistering social drama. “In sincere and utter hatred… you’re rotting now, and quite soon you’ll disappear… untouchable, unteachable, impregnable.”
Former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson saw a country stripped of glory and floundering with no direction. “Great Britain has lost an empire,” he said, “and has not yet found a role.”
Even the weather aggravated the country’s misery. The winters in England during the early sixties were so severe that power failed and people shivered. Then the impossible happened: the Queen was booed. She and her husband were attending a theatrical performance with King Paul and Queen Frederika of Greece when a group of Greek protesters in London yelled and hissed at her for associating with fascists.
Queen Elizabeth appeared not to notice. Having never encountered such criticism, she did not comprehend that the screaming was directed at her. She was equally unconcerned by the death threats she received when the Palace announced her plans to tour Canada in 1964.
“The Queen must not come,” warned the Toronto Telegram.
“An innocent life is at stake,” said the Times of London.
The Daily Mirror raised the specter of “a second Dallas” if the Queen ventured into Canada, where the French minority in Quebec railed against the English majority in Ottawa.
But she refused to cancel her trip. Canada was part of her realm and the largest member of the Commonwealth. “I am not worried about the visit,” the Queen said, “and we are quite relaxed.”
She had spent weeks preparing for the tour, including days of wardrobe fittings with her favorite dressmaker, Hardy Amies. For this trip she had allowed her hatmaker, Frederick Fox, to make a dress. “Freddie was thrilled,” recalled a friend. “He spends months designing the gown, makes it, and goes to the Palace for a fitting. Blue sort of sheath with silver bugle beads on the long sleeves. The Queen loves it. He does the fitting; she looks great. Then she presses a button. An old crone comes crawling in, hauling a box the size of Madagascar. The Queen opens it and removes an amethyst brooch as big as a plate. She lugs out diamonds the size of soup bowls and plops them all on her bosom. The style and creation of the dress is lost under the gargantuan crown jewels. Freddie rips everything off: the bows, the bugle beads, the whole lot. The Queen senses his distress. She says, ‘But that’s what they want to see.’ ” Someone later asked her an abstract question: “What do you think of taste?” The Queen said, “I don’t think it helps.”
On that trip to Canada, Her Majesty traveled to Quebec with her husband and grudgingly accepted the protection of bulletproof limousines and riot-control policemen. Philip chafed at so much security and, as always, spoke out. The Foreign Office patiently explained the political tensions building among French Canadians and noted that violence had become a terrible reality since the Kennedy assassination a few months before.
“Kennedy wouldn’t have been shot,” snapped Philip, “if it hadn’t been for all the bloody security surrounding him.”
Throughout Canada the Queen was trailed by armed guards and squad cars. She attended functions that required invitations and made her two speeches from secure television studios. Sailing up the St. Lawrence River aboard her royal yacht, frogmen checked the hull for explosives at every stop.
“Fancy having to put up with this sort
of thing,” said her dresser, BoBo MacDonald.
“Don’t worry about me,” said the Queen. “Nobody’s going to hurt me. I’m as safe as houses.”
She spoke English in Ottawa and French in Quebec, urging fraternity on both feuding factions. She praised Canada as “one of the older and most stable nations of the world.” Still, she was hissed and booed, but despite the insults and screams, she never flinched.
After she left, Canadian television presented an hour-long show about her visit. “The question remains,” concluded the commentator, “was it worth it? For all that was accomplished—the opening of a building here and making a speech there—was it worth the strife, the harsh words, oppressive security measures? We believe it was not. Good night.”
In the past, the magnificent voice of Winston Churchill would have trumpeted the virtues of the British monarchy and drowned out such criticism. But that voice was gone. The Queen’s first and favorite* Prime Minister had fallen into a coma in January 1965 and died nine days later. His death marked the end of an era for England and left the monarchy without its staunchest defender.
“The grandeur of Great Britain died tonight,” the BBC reported on January 24, 1965. “The power and glory are gone.”
The Queen wept privately. Then she composed herself and gave her revered mentor the grandest royal funeral ever accorded a commoner. Years before, Churchill had issued instructions for his burial: “I want lots of soldiers and bands.” His sovereign gave him all of that and more.
Attuned to Churchill’s sense of history and theater, she instructed the Earl Marshal, who is also the Duke of Norfolk and in charge of royal pageants, to spare no expense. England was saying good-bye to its savior, and the Queen knew that the world would be watching this historic farewell on television. She wanted the spectacle to be as magnificent as the man himself.
She ordered that his body lie in state for three days and nights in Westminster Hall so that the million men, women, and children who had lined the streets to keep a vigil for him during his coma could pay their final respects. The floor of the great hall was lined in felt to muffle the sound of footsteps. Four guardsmen stood by the casket with four candles, providing the only light in the darkness. The Queen and her husband joined the long line of mourners filing past the catafalque, and for the first time in her reign, Her Majesty was not the center of attention. She was simply part of a tide of people. As Time magazine observed, “Before the casket of Winston Churchill, all mourners were equal.”
