17 Carnations: The Windsors, The Nazis and The Cover-Up

by Andrew Morton

  The duke’s emissary said: “Tell Mr. Roosevelt that if he will make an offer of intervention for peace, that before anyone in England can oppose it, the Duke of Windsor will instantly issue a statement supporting it and that will start a revolution in England and force peace.” He asked him not to print anything immediately, otherwise “the lid would be blown off the British Empire.” Oursler promised silence and agreed to speak with the president.

  As Oursler’s son Fulton Jr. remarked: “By sending his plea to the president he had already stepped beyond the bounds of diplomacy and trespassed on treason. Nothing less than revolution was on his mind.”

  Oursler, who dictated a seventeen-page memo describing this extraordinary affair, took the precaution of telling his publisher, one-time bodybuilder Bernarr Macfadden, the gist of the interview when he arrived back in Miami. Feeling himself in an isolated and dangerous predicament, he also took fellow Liberty contributor Walter Karig into his confidence, just in case anything untoward happened to him. Indeed, he never published the full story in his lifetime, Fulton Jr. saying that he feared for his life should he do so.

  He duly arranged the appointment with the president for the morning of December 23—though no official records exist of that meeting. The president, with only his Scottie dog present, asked Oursler about his daughter April and her school. As the two men got down to business, Roosevelt interrupted the journalist as he began his story.

  “Fulton,” he said, “nothing can surprise me these days. Nothing will seem too fantastic. Why, do you know that I am amazed to find some of the greatest people in the British Empire, men of the so-called upper classes, men of the highest rank, secretly want to appease Hitler and stop the war? I call these people ignorant, uneducated”—a clear reference to Halifax, Lloyd George, and other appeasers.

  Oursler sensed that the president was already aware of what was on the duke’s mind, information probably conveyed to him by the FBI. When he recited the duke’s remarks he noticed that the president became greatly agitated. “His hands trembled. His whole body shook. It was an unparalleled exhibition.”

  The president exploded: “When little Windsor says he doesn’t think there should be a revolution in Germany, I tell you, Fulton, I would rather have April’s opinion on that than his.” Then he proceeded to dictate a gnomic letter to Captain Drury, whom he described as a “bad boy.” It read:

  Dear Captain Drury,

  On my way home from Florida, I stopped off in Washington and had a talk with my friend. His answer to my conversation was that in Washington today everything is on a twenty-four-hour basis and no man has the gift of being able to read the future. If you have anything else in mind, let me know.

  In short he was giving the duke the presidential brush-off. Then he gave Oursler the presidential perspective on the duke’s behaviour and character, touching on many concerns expressed by Britain’s ruling classes, notably the contents of red boxes left open at Fort Belvedere, Mrs. Simpson’s dalliance with the von Ribbentrop set if not von Ribbentrop himself, the duke’s association with his German friends after the abdication, and his dubious approach to soldiering when he was liaison officer in France, loitering in Paris for days after discussing top secret plans with field officers.

  This was his most damning observation, stating: “I have nothing to prove what I am going to say, but I do know that there were nine shortwave wireless sets in Paris constantly sending information to the German troops, and no one has ever been able to decide how such accurate information could be sent over these wireless stations.” He was clearly implying that the duke was involved in this betrayal of Allied secrets.

  Beneath this extraordinary, almost surreal, royal encounter are many of the familiar contours of the duke’s political journey. Like other European princes—including his brother the Duke of Kent, cousins Prince Philipp and Prince Max von Hohenlohe—and well-connected businessmen such as his friend Wenner-Gren, he saw himself as an honest broker in an ongoing European peace process. The difference was that their actions took place either before the war or with the consent of their governments. With the war well into its second year, freelance peace overtures were unwelcome, dangerous, and possibly treasonous. Much as he detested the folly of war and desired peace, his noble motives could also be construed as the activity of a man, bored and isolated, who wanted to be at the centre of events once more.

  This is perhaps the most benign interpretation, the duke’s curious interview taking on more sinister, conspiratorial overtones when set in context with the pronouncements of leading American industrialists, for the most part pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic, who wanted to continue doing business with Nazi Germany at any price.

  The duke was the poster boy for many American capitalists for whom “negotiated peace” amounted to the chance to continue business with Nazi Germany. Many of the companies he was due to visit on the ill-fated Charles Bedaux tour of the United States in 1937 were those whose owners and directors had considerable financial interests in Nazi Germany.

  As a pin-up for America’s isolationist wing, the duke attracted the favourable attention of right-wing radio star Boake Carter, the Rush Limbaugh of his day. English-born but a naturalized American, the radio commentator had an intense loathing of the country of his birth, railing constantly against America’s decision to send economic aid to the beleaguered nation.

  Believed by Messersmith to be in the pay of the Germans and the Japanese, he frequently singled out the Duke of Windsor for praise, contrasting his man-of-the-people approach with the prejudice and snobbery of the British ruling classes. It was noticeable that he lauded the duke’s Christmas radio broadcast that December, telling his listeners: “Of all the messages delivered by world leaders on Christmas Day, the only one which showed any glimmer of understanding as to where the real battle lies was Edward, Duke of Windsor.”

  A misguided foot soldier for peace, a naïve dupe of American business, a man eager to reclaim his crown, or a disloyal, possibly treasonous servant of the Crown; in the first few months of his tenure in the Bahamas the duke could be accused of all those charges.

  In spite of his minor position in the British colonial service, his undoubted charisma and magnetic appeal ringed the world. After Lord Lothian’s death, his name was one of the first thrown into the ring by several excitable commentators as the replacement British ambassador in Washington. When the president received a cable mentioning the duke’s name, he scrawled on the document: “There isn’t a chance.”

  The same could be said of the peace manoeuvres he was involved with.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tropic of Rancour

  During Prohibition, shady businessmen in the Bahamas made a fortune smuggling rum, gin, and other spirits to Florida and other places on America’s East Coast. The duke, who liked several stiff drinks every evening, clearly caught the bug, bringing in hundreds of bottles of spirits under the guise of “diplomatic packages” and having them stored at the British embassy in Washington before shipping them on. In this way the dodgy duke avoided paying US Customs duties.

  The new ambassador, Lord Halifax, studiously ignored this shady behaviour, just as he and British intelligence turned a blind eye to the duke’s illegal currency dealings through pro-Nazi connections. As with the saga of the Nile-green swimsuit and the Duchess’s fine linens, the personal comfort and ease of the duke and duchess were always their primary concern.

  His judgement, or rather lack thereof, came to the attention of the prime minister, who wrote to the duke warning him about the cabal of wealthy cosmopolitan businessmen who formed his circle of friends. In particular, in his cable of mid-March 1941—his first communication since the royal couple had left Lisbon in August—Churchill took it upon himself to warn the duke that his Swedish friend Wenner-Gren was a “pro-German International Financier with strong leanings towards appeasement and suspected of being in communication with the enemy.” The Swede had recently set up a bank in Mexico which was suspected o
f funneling money to aid the Nazi war machine.

  The prime minister’s warning came shortly after Sumner Welles, under-secretary of state, wrote to his State Department colleague Fletcher Warren reporting that the Duke of Windsor and Axel Wenner-Gren were seeing a great deal of prominent and influential businessmen from the Midwest, where a “strictly commercial point of view would prevail in business circles with regard to relations between the United States and Germany.”

  In his memo of January 25, 1941, he went on to describe, as had George Messersmith and other diplomats, how the two men were “stressing the need for a negotiated peace at this time on account of the advantages which this would present to American business interests.”

  The duke’s folly was compounded when he agreed, at the urging of “Mr. Bahamas,” Harold Christie, to receive a man of “boundless corruption,” Maximino Camacho, brother of the pro-Fascist president of Mexico, a country that had just broken off diplomatic relations with Britain and appropriated all its oil interests. Camacho, who owned twenty houses, dozens of cars, and a stable of Arabian horses, had a huge portrait of Mussolini dominating his bedroom in Puebla. Describing the Italian leader as “one of the great men of our age,” Camacho was an enthusiastic supporter of the Axis.

  In that critical month of March 1941, when Roosevelt, much to Churchill’s relief, had managed to have the Lend-Lease Act signed into law by Congress, thus ending America’s pretence of neutrality, the duke managed to rock the boat.

  Just as Churchill began to think the tide was now turning in Britain’s favour, the duke and his pessimistic talk hove into view in the shape of the good ship Liberty magazine article. The prime minister felt that the tone of the article was unpatriotic and defeatist, the duke seeing no hope of a British victory or a change of policy in Germany. Answering a series of rhetorical questions, he said: “You cannot kill eighty million Germans and since they want Hitler, how can you force them into a revolution they don’t want?” He went on to argue that only America could impose a peace settlement, once again the New World sorting out the Old.

  Oursler kept his side of the bargain and never mentioned the duke’s plan to endorse Roosevelt should he decide to mediate in any peace talks.

  As it was, given the duke’s standing among American isolationists, his statements clearly gave ammunition to their cause. Even Goebbels was nonplussed, noting in his diary of March 1941 that the duke “frankly disclaims all chance of an English victory.” He instructed the media not to use his remarks to avoid discrediting the duke.

  As for Churchill, he may well have sympathized with a respectable old doctor who, somewhat the worse for drink, went up to the duke at a reception at Government House in Nassau, shook him, and shouted: “Why don’t you try and grow up and behave?” Opinion was divided between shock and approval.

  The article marked yet another low point in the father-and-son relationship between the prime minister and the duke. Retribution was not long coming. During the duke’s visit to meet with Roosevelt, the president had invited him to return to America to see the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which he had set up in 1933 to alleviate unemployment.

  Shortly after the article appeared, the duke duly requested permission to visit the CCC in the United States. While the new British ambassador, Lord Halifax, who was no admirer of the duke, felt on balance the visit should go ahead, Churchill had other ideas. In a telegram of March 18, 1941, hard on the heels of his note about Wenner-Gren, he wrote that “after much consideration and enquiry, I have reached the conclusion that Your Royal Highness’ proposed visit to the United States would not be in the public interest or your own at the present time.” The reason became clear at the end of the message, where he took “exception” to the recent interview, which “will be interpreted as defeatist and pro-Nazi and approving of the isolationist aim to keep America out of the war. . . . I must say it seems to me that the views attributed to Your Royal Highness have been unfortunately expressed by the journalist. . . . I could wish indeed that Your Royal Highness would seek advice before making public statements of this kind. I should always be ready to help as I used to in the past.”

  There followed an increasingly splenetic exchange of telegrams. Given the true nature of the interview, the duke was being disingenuous when he claimed that most of what he said had been put into his mouth. Impulsive as ever, he threatened to resign if Churchill felt he was a detriment rather than an asset to Britain. If Churchill had been aware of what was really discussed, he would have been within his rights to accuse him of behaving like a Fifth Columnist.

  The prime minister refused to let the issue rest, pointing out that the article was not repudiated by the duke and could “indeed only bear the interpretation of contemplating a negotiated peace with Hitler.” In a pointed rebuke, he continued: “This is not the policy of His Majesty’s Government; nor is it the policy of the Government and vast majority of the United States, where there is a very fierce and passionate feeling rising. . . . Later on when the atmosphere is less electric, when the issues are more clear cut and when perhaps Your Royal Highness’s public utterances . . . are more in harmony with the dominant tides of British and American feeling, I think that an agreeable visit for you both might be arranged. Meanwhile in this sad time of sacrifice and suffering it is not I think much to ask that deference be shown to the advice and wishes of His Majesty’s Government and of Your Royal Highness’s friends, among whom I have always tried to play my part.”

  The duke was firmly on probation until he came to heel. As a parting salvo he complained that, in an interview with the American Time magazine, the queen had referred to his wife as “that woman,” a deliberate insult and one that must have been approved by the British censor. The spat with Churchill did not seem to have altered his views; he told New York stockbroker Frazier Jelke that spring that he firmly opposed the entry of the United States into the war. In echoes of his conversation with Oursler, he stated: “It is too late for America to save democracy in Europe. She had better save it in America for herself.”

  Not only was he now on probation, he was under formal surveillance, Roosevelt ordering the FBI to monitor his movements when he and the duchess were given permission to pay a brief and strictly private five-day visit in April to see his financial advisor Sir Edward Peacock in Florida. Particular emphasis was placed on recording whom they met, the authorities aware that the duke was possibly being used or manipulated by a cabal of wealthy industrialists who were, in the words of American ambassador to Germany William E. Dodd, “hell bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government.”

  When they arrived in Miami on the regular passenger ship, the SS Berkshire, among the two thousand curious onlookers was FBI agent Percy Wyly, detailed with tracking their every move and reporting every visitor. Not only did he have to evade detection by the duke and his entourage, he also had to avoid being spotted by the American secret service detail assigned to protect the royal couple. In Hoover’s estimation, Wyly, a graduate of Vanderbilt University, didn’t do a very good job, the director sending a scathing memorandum complaining about the “grossly unsatisfactory” report that he submitted. Hoover complained that he failed to annotate the identity of everyone with whom the ducal couple came into contact and the subject of their conversations. Even though all telephone calls to the Everglades Club in Palm Beach, where the Windsors stayed from April 18 to 23, were logged and the identity of the callers established, including local taxi companies to men’s stores, Hoover still was not satisfied.

  If his own men were not up to the job—Wyly was later involved in the Roswell mystery—Hoover enjoyed support from a willing platoon of informants. A lady from Cincinnati, Ohio, relayed a third-hand story of the Duchess of Windsor going to London’s East End to pick up supplies of dope. She was equally convinced that while having lunch at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York she observed Adolf Hitler at the next table. His customary black moustache was dyed blonde. A somewhat more co
nvincing report came from one of the duke’s acquaintances, New York property owner and socialite William Rhinelander Stewart, who visited him in Nassau from time to time. He repeated the familiar story about Hitler installing the duke as king once he had defeated England—though he was rather more sceptical about the veracity of this information than others among Hoover’s correspondents, and probably Hoover himself.

  It was clear to Stewart that the duke was acutely aware of being spied on, during one social event joining in the singing of “There’ll Always Be an England” and then adding “and a Scotland Yard.” Hoover encouraged Stewart to report on his impressions of the duke and duchess when he visited them again. From a hodgepodge of hearsay and unsubstantiated allegations, including information from Captain Alastair “Ali” Mackintosh, a friend of the duchess and a playboy who “spun through the Palm Beach social scene like a whirling top,” in April the FBI chief sent a potentially sensational report to Roosevelt via the presidential secretary Major General “Pa” Watson.

  First Hoover informed him that former ambassador to Britain Joseph Kennedy and Wall Street operator Ben Smith, who were both pro-Nazi, had met with Hermann Göring in Vichy, France, and donated a “considerable” amount of money to the Nazi cause.

  He then turned his attention to the Duke of Windsor:

  This same source of information advised that the Duke of Windsor entered into an agreement which in substance was to the effect that if Germany was victorious in the war, Hermann Goering through his control of the Army would overthrow Hitler and thereafter install the Duke of Windsor as the King of England.

  Hoover was not the only one questioning the duke’s patriotism: Roosevelt’s great friend Harry Hopkins sent him a copy of a letter he had received from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Herbert Bayard Swope about “your friends the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.”