The Queen, Her Lover and the Most Notorious Spy in History

by Roland Perry

  Over the next few nights and on the return trip to London, Blunt sorted the most important letters. Then he microfilmed them and prepared to pass it all onto his KGB Control, Ivan Milovsorov.A couple that intrigued him were copied out in longhand. Morshead took all the correspondence to Windsor and began sorting them while Blunt had an audience with the king.

  ‘We are all rather pleased with the success of your mission,’ George VI, said beaming. ‘I might tell you that m-my . . .mother and wife are quite relieved that the correspondence is . . .safe.’

  ‘It was an honour, your majesty,’ Blunt said, genuinely touched by his reaction. In the confused world of the double agent, serving conflicting masters was part of the unwritten job specification. Blunt loathed the ancient concept of the monarchy, which did not fit with Marxist principles, yet he had respect for the people in the institution, especially George VI.

  ‘Would you like to be k-keeper of the king’s pictures? We’d be delighted to have you on board full-time instead of your current honorary role.’

  ‘Again, it would be an honour, majesty, thank you,’ Blunt said without reflection. He was more than pleased and considered this could be his way out of the espionage maze.The KGB had information with which to blackmail him whenever it wished. His homosexuality, if made public, would ruin his career. And he had spied and recruited for the Soviet Union since the early 1930s. This would keep Blunt obligated to and working for the Soviets whenever and for how long they wished. His job as a double agent for MI5 and his ultimate masters in Moscow 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. He considered himself, in spy vernacular,‘a burnt-out case’ even if the Soviets had yet to label him as such. And they were far from doing that. He had few peers in his efficiency as a stealer and pilferer of information and was one of the best half-dozen spies the KGB ever had. It wanted him to stay ‘in place’ inside MI5. Blunt wanted ‘out’ and the less dangerous role as a palace courtier. He would have no direct access to major British government military, political or espionage information. He had contacts and would learn things but it would be second-hand, at a distance from Whitehall.

  Blunt contacted Milovzorov at the Soviet Embassy and they met, as they usually did, in a London East End pub at night. They were an odd couple. Thin and angular Blunt seemed out of place, with his neat suit and tie and upper-class mien. He normally would dine at a St James club near MI5 offices in the West End. Yet he dared not be seen anywhere near that area or clientele, with this short, portly, bull-necked foreigner, whose low brow often sweated. They drank and chatted.The Russian had fallen out from time to time with a few of his agents. Milovsorov tended to be heavy-handed and brusque. He was a slack spymaster whose reputation had been maintained by the quality of information he was receiving from a handful of top spies. Blunt told him of the king’s offer.

  ‘I am leaving MI5,’ he said. The Russian was confused as Blunt added: ‘My work at the palace will be just as useful. I will have the ear of the King of Empire.’

  ‘No, no,’ Milovzorov said, ‘I will obtain a ruling from Moscow before letting you move.’

  ‘You have seen the quality of material I have already supplied [by this connection].This is because of the position at the palace.’

  ‘It is more important for us that you remain inside [MI5].’

  Blunt was not the type to lose his temper. But his expression clouded.

  ‘You could, if you wished,’ he said, looking around and lowering his voice,‘have unparalleled influence over the king with what I have already supplied. Now that I shall be at court, that influence could increase.’

  ‘I still must consult Moscow.’

  The thick-set Control seemed intractable and not that bright. He was cunning and tough, more instinctive than reflective. Blunt felt he would not read the microfilm material, which was in two canisters in a rolled-up copy of The Times that Blunt clutched in his hand. The implications of the material would have to be spelled out to him. Blunt took two pages from his jacket pocket and handed them to him.

  ‘That’s an example of what I have brought you,’ Blunt said. ‘Could you please take a minute to read it.’

  ‘But you have written this!’ Milovzorov frowned.

  ‘Yes, Ivan,’ Blunt said with barely contained contempt,‘I have copied two letters that would greatly embarrass the king and the government.’

  The Control ran his fingers over the lines, mouthing the words and occasionally whispering a sentence. He looked up and said,‘This is from Queen Victoria in 1860!’

  ‘It is. It’s not something the current royals or government would ever wish to see made public.’

  Milovzorov read on, mumbling, ‘I am telling you that your not so chaste mama was not a virgin when she married your papa.’ The Russian tossed the letter on the table, leant back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. Blunt explained its import. The Russian’s mind cranked up a little as he sought to understand how the information could be used.

  ‘In the final analysis, this sort of communication could bring down the monarchy, even the government,’ Blunt said, attempting a bluff. He took the second letter and indicated he should read that too.

  Milovzorov grimaced. Reading, at least in English, was a word by word effort. After a few seconds he looked up again. ‘Ah, this one is to the German Chancellor from the king’s brother . . . ’

  ‘Yes, Herr Hitler.’

  Milovzorov read on: ‘ . . . would be honored to serve your government as prince regent of the United Kingdom . . .’ He stopped and glanced at Blunt. ‘Explain please.’

  ‘King Edward wanted to be Hitler’s royal puppet in the UK.’

  ‘Shrewd and clever of him!’

  ‘More shrewd of Hitler in attempting to tame a conquered and subservient British populous.’

  ‘So Edward VIII was a traitor?!’ the Russian said, raising his voice enough for two drinkers at a table next to them to look around. Blunt glared at Milovzorov, who realized his mistake.The drinkers went back to their vacant conversation and beer sipping.The Russian leant back in his seat once more and guffawed. Blunt remained stony-faced.

  ‘You British,’ he said, ‘so arcane, so primitive!’

  ‘You must understand, Ivan, I am close to the king and queen,’ Blunt said, exaggerating. ‘Royal courtiers learn much about government, the cabinet and the leaders of British society.’ Milovsorov seemed unmoved. Blunt added: ‘I don’t think you understand.The king wants to send me on further important espionage missions. These will have top priority. I must collect much more about the links between Edward VIII and Hitler.’

  ‘That is history now,’ the Russian grumbled.

  ‘Yes, but it gives you more influence to have the information.’

  Blunt was the best ‘middleman’—link between fellow British agents and the KGB—and was often used as a conduit for information, even equipment being passed to the Soviet Embassy for dispatch to Moscow. Milovzorov was anxious to know if Blunt would continue in this role. Blunt knew he had to say ‘yes’, otherwise the Russians might block his move to the palace.

  ‘I would be prepared to carry on this work,’ Blunt added, ‘under certain circumstances.’

  ‘What would they be?’

  ‘Ivan, I shall be terribly busy in the new position.’

  ‘But you would be available in ‘emergencies’?’

  Blunt nodded.

  Milovzorov was disgruntled but satisfied that he had enough to justify to his bosses in Moscow Blunt’s move out of the heart of British Intelligence. He said he would let Blunt know his decision as soon as possible. He got up to leave the pub, taking with him the rolled-up copy of The Times that Blunt had left on the table. They parted. Blunt was relieved that he had initiated the break. But he worried that he might never be free of KGB control and influence. He had been just too brilliant at his work to be given up.

  50

  POSTWAR
WINDS OF CHANGE

  In July 1945 Churchill, to the surprise of England and the world, was dumped as prime minister after having done more than any other individual to defeat Hitler and the Nazis. The electorate’s judgement was that he had been perfect for wartime command but not peacetime rebuilding and reform. The public’s ‘sacking’ of Churchill in favour of Labour’s Clement Atlee demonstrated a fundamental value that had been fought for and won: the democratic right of a nation to change a government. Churchill’s temporary disappearance from power still left continuity at the nation’s apex with the king and queen. Their frugal, mannerly, graceful demeanours, laced with an indefatigable determination, were right for the lean postwar period.

  Queen Mary spent months reading Victoria’s letters to Vicky at Windsor Castle library with the guidance of Morshead, who catalogued and classified them. She expressed a growing fear that Victoria may have told her grandson Willy some things that should never be made public. She also told Elizabeth, who had George VI’s ear, of her concerns.

  ‘They represent amazing history,’ Mary said to Elizabeth over dinner at Buckingham Palace early in 1947. ‘But I do wonder what Victoria wrote to Willy.’

  ‘Oh, he is well dead, dear.’

  ‘Yes, and how many letters did she write to him and where are they?’

  ‘Preserved in his Dutch home, I should imagine.’

  ‘They should be collected too, for safety and posterity.’

  ‘Are you really concerned?’

  ‘Oh, very. We must be thorough in retrieving as much of the correspondence as possible.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ Elizabeth said then signalled to a courtier to bring them brandy.

  ‘There were a few letters in the cache from Willy to his mother that somehow were put in the wrong file,’ Mary said squinting into the distance. ‘I believe that Vicky aroused Willy’s commercial instincts and interest. He was always under the wrong impression that we in England had more than the German family.’

  ‘If only it were true,’ Elizabeth smiled. She raised her brandy glass in salute. She sipped her drink reflectively and added. ‘It means another wee mission for Anthony.’

  In August 1947, Morshead and Blunt were sent on one final trip to the Haus Doorn Holland home of the king’s uncle, where he had died six years earlier.

  The sizeable manor house was modest compared to Willy’s earlier habitation in luxurious palaces. It had been seized by the Dutch government in 1947 and preserved under instructions from the Dutch royal family, who had family ties to the former kaiser through Queen Wilhelmina.

  This was a less stressful project for Blunt and Morshead. At the king’s behest the British government had been in touch with the Dutch, who agreed to let them take back correspondence but no other items. While examining the several hundred letters discovered, Blunt was tempted to ‘souvenir’ some of the artefacts, including paintings by German courtiers, porcelains and silver. He spent time lingering over snuffboxes and watches that belonged to Frederick the Great. Marquetry commodes and tapestries also caught his attention.

  This was an espionage ‘clean-up’ operation to find anything that linked the kaiser and the Duke of Windsor to the Nazis. It was discovered that the kaiser’s son, Frederick William, and his wife, Cecile, had both been emissaries for Hitler in his dealings with the duke and Wallis Simpson.A second objective was to search for old letters from the prolific Victoria, just in case, as Mary feared,Victoria had mentioned her affair with Elphinstone or anything else of a private nature concerning other relationships with Albert, Brown and Karim. In the end, only a handful of innocuous copies of Victoria’s correspondence were found. More intriguing were six letters written by Willy, which had somehow found their way back to him.They showed he had more than a passing interest in Victoria’s affair with Elphinstone. Again, when alone, Blunt microfilmed every piece of correspondence that he thought might be of interest to Moscow.

  Blunt and Morshead delivered the letters to George VI, who was once more grateful to both of them, particularly Blunt who was the experienced spy in the mission. The king’s attitude to him caused Blunt to believe that he had an insurance policy of sorts should his traitorous activity for the Soviet Union before, during and well into the Cold-War period be discovered. These king’s missions added up to immunity from prosecution for double agent Blunt.The king (and any future monarch) could not afford to see the art curator quizzed about his ‘special projects’ and what he discovered. Both the Windsor–Nazi connection and any letters that revealed Victoria’s secret affairs could threaten the monarchy in the first decade after the war. Blunt believed he had protected himself, first, by carrying out this mission to Holland and the others he had embarked on for George VI; and, second, by him passing on everything to his ultimate KGB masters.

  In March 1948, on a bitterly cold day he delivered the microfilm to a new Russian Control,Yuri Ivanovitch Modin, who was far more to the liking of all the double agents’ than the heavy-handed Milovzorov. Instead of the grumpy-faced, ignorant Milovzorov, Blunt met the tall, intelligent-looking 24 year-old Modin, who was the new man running Blunt and other contacts from Cambridge University days, including Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby,Victor Rothschild and John Cairncross. Modin was more fastidious than his predecessor and went to some trouble to make their first meeting untraceable. He preferred circuitous routes to obscure parks and commons well clear of London’s central area. There would be no more lazy meetings in Hammersmith or East End pubs that sluggish, overweight Milovzorov liked, although it was agreed that in emergencies they might have to risk a rendezvous or two somewhere closer to the capital’s centre. This time the Blunt-Modin meeting took place at Wandsworth Common after several tube rides for both of them. Blunt was impressed by the new Control’s thoroughness. Losing people who might follow you—‘shadows’ or ‘tails’—was a Blunt specialty. He wrote the handbook on the subject for MI5, which, like everything else, was passed to the KGB.

  Blunt arrived at the common at dusk and found Modin—wearing hat, overcoat and tartan scarf—standing near a bench on the path through the common.They sat next to each other on the bench, Blunt placing his rolled-up copy of The Times between them. At first Blunt was put off by Modin’s youth. The British spy had been recruited at Cambridge in 1933 by someone twice his age. It was a quaint reminder that he had to wriggle away from the espionage world. He was too old for it. Nevertheless, Blunt was pleasantly surprised to learn that Modin had read much of the royal correspondence that he had snared for the Moscow Centre.The new man was also able to discuss its contents.

  ‘I found it all very intriguing,’ Modin said. ‘Some wonderful work by you to obtain it.’

  Blunt had not heard that sort of praise before in twelve years dealing with four Soviet spymasters. He did not respond at first.

  ‘I mean what I say,’ Modin said, filling the gap.‘You furnish us with amazing amounts of good material.’

  ‘It’s not all from me,’ Blunt said, wishing to give credit to others.

  ‘I know, I know. Mr Burgess and the Rothschilds supply much of it. But so do you.We are most grateful.’

  ‘Really?’ he said,‘You found it all useful? The royal correspondence too?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Modin grinned, ‘very, very useful.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘My general education,’ Modin replied. ‘I want to know, the, how you say, ‘machinery’ of how your system works.’

  As the conversation continued Blunt realised that young Modin, so polite and full of praise, was genuinely effusive about the Ring. He had unbounded respect for all of them. This was such a contrast to the past where cajolery or praise or even flattery were not part of the KGB Controls’ ways. Encouragement was rare, especially with Modin’s immediate predecessor.

  After a harmonious meeting in which the attitude of the cool, sceptical Blunt thawed somewhat, Modin picked up The Times with its microfilm canisters and asked: ‘What have you for us today?’

&nb
sp; ‘More royal correspondence from my latest trip for the king.’

  ‘Anything I should find interesting?’

  ‘You’ve read the other letters. This new batch shows the kaiser’s interest in the considerable property in the crown estates,’ Blunt paused, his eyes flicking to the Russian for a split second. ‘I see the kaiser’s family is also upset by your property acquisitions in Germany recently.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Modin chuckled, ‘we did “acquire” much property formerly owned by the kaiser and his family. I look forward very much to reading this new material.’

  They shook hands. Modin said warmly: ‘I’ll be in touch, when we may need your assistance.’

  It was not what Blunt wished to hear yet Modin’s manner had made the thought of doing more espionage work for the KGB somehow less forbidding. Modin wrote in his memoirs that he used Blunt as a key middleman, through whom other agents, particularly Burgess and Victor Rothschild, would continue to pass espionage material as they always had, especially in the war years. Now, in the Cold War, experienced British agents were just as important to the Russians, with Stalin the most appreciative recipient of all in Moscow. According to Modin, the Soviet dictator knew the code names of all his key British spies. Before he was assigned to the Soviet Embassy in London, Modin would take their material personally to Stalin at the Kremlin. All this had built an enormous respect and awe for the British agents. Modin met Blunt, Burgess, Mclean and Cairncross regularly from then on, while rarely catching up with Philby and Rothschild. These two would give their espionage information to Blunt for passing on, although Rothschild, being the ubiquitous lord, would occasionally accept official invitations to Soviet Embassy functions. His cover was his importance at the centre of the British establishment.