by Roland Perry
Straight brushed this surprising criticism aside. Keynes was well aware of the mood at Cambridge and that scores of dedicated undergraduates saw Marx as infallible. Perhaps it was an intellectual tease to stimulate minds that had been dulled by blind idolatry. By nature Keynes was an iconoclast whether in dealing with established laissez-faire economists or in his blistering sketches of President Woodrow Wilson, France’s President Georges Clemenceau, and Prime Minister Lloyd George at the Versailles Peace Conference after WWI. They exacted excessive reparations from Germany, which Keynes correctly predicted could not be repaid.
Keynes’s remarks about Marx did not affect his sympathy for communism in the 1930s. Despite being homosexual, he had married the talented and charming Russian ballerina Lydia Lopokova in 1925, which had given him strong links to certain Soviet citizens, as King’s College archival letters, by and to him, testify. These included a brother in Leningrad with whom he corresponded at length and gave his expert analysis on Western economies and leaders—succinct intelligence, which a thousand agents would not have been able to steal or concoct.
When he wasn’t at meetings and lectures being stimulated by Keynes, Straight was preparing for debates in the University Union Society where he and Cornford took up the communist cudgel against its conservative members. They ran together for the union committee and were elected. Straight proved a strong debater. It boosted his self-confidence. He saw himself as a future political leader. He discovered (he wrote several decades later) in the autumn of 1935 that he had the power to lead his generation and to take his place with the leaders of England in debates. He was “someone.”
Straight knew his family history well and always thought that it was his birthright to lead. His great-grandfather, Henry B. Payne, sought the presidency until he was seventy-seven. His grandfather, William Whitney, was once touted as a candidate for the White House but instead was a force in Democratic Party politics. His father Willard, like Payne and Whitney, had the confidence of the presidents of his time. Straight felt political power and influence was in his blood.
His fever to go further and actually be a famous leader, perhaps prime minister, maybe president, was matched by the barely contained excitement of less public developments. Top of the list was his all-encompassing communist activity with the cells and the private chats with Blunt and Burgess. They had been directed by the Kremlin, and their “controls” Deutsch and Maly, to influence recruits with subtle talk about “old societies being replaced by new” and the historical need for revolution. There was no direct conversation about being recruited for Stalin’s purposes. Straight was potentially a willing accessory to the Kremlin’s operations, but the timing had to be right for full recruitment.
Blunt and Burgess spoke of the “The International”—the global communist movement, Stalin’s tightly controlled subversive operation outside the Soviet Union. The utterances of Blunt and Burgess were sweetly digestible for gullible, and not so gullible, youths.
Straight was attracted to the idea of national boundaries being broken down because it lessened, he thought, the conflict between nations. He made out that he and his fellow communists/students fell for this utopian concept that would lead to some unspecified, ill-defined international government. The other factor was the leader of the Comintern, Bulgarian communist Georgi Dimitrov. Cambridge students were always searching for heroes, and this man seemed to be nearly perfect. He had defended against Nazi accusations during the German Reichstag (Parliament) fire trial of 1933. His position made the International movement even more alluring, although Straight was never under any illusion that the Comintern was anything other than an operation controlled by the Kremlin.
Straight took time off in December 1935 to indulge some passions reserved for those who could afford it: flying and racing cars. He joined Whitney, a superb if daring pilot, in a De Havilland Dragon for a flight to South Africa and its first Grand Prix. Whitney won in his Maserati, and Straight came in third in his sports car, built by Reid Railton around a Hudson engine.
Then it was back to Cambridge. Straight had a girlfriend at Dartington named Herta Thiele, a German dancer about his own age who had replaced the more mature Margaret Barr in his affections. But neither of them gripped his romantic interest like Teresa (Tess) Mayor, with whom he became acquainted in his second year. Tess was a stunning young firebrand, who in her first year—1935–1936—gained a reputation as a fanatical communist. Her Cambridge and literary pedigree was long. Her philosopher and educator father Robin had been a fellow of King’s College and a member of the Apostles. Her mother was a playwright. The author F. M. Mayor was an aunt, as was writer Beatrice Webb.
Dark-haired Tess had a wide mouth, which gave her “a slight look of decadence, especially when she had been drinking.”6 Straight likened her to stunning Irish rebel Maude Gonne, the lover of poet and Irish nationalist politician William Butler Yeats. Straight thought Tess had Maude’s gaunt nobility and some of her cold fire.
The Comintern became interested in her too. She slipped, like Straight, willingly into the web of Cambridge communists. Soon she was close friends with recruiters Blunt and Burgess. Rothschild was more than infatuated with her, as was Brian Simon, who was also struck by her looks and intellect.
Straight made a bid to seduce her, kicking his fellow lodger out of K5, playing Mozart, and pretending to read Yeats’s poems as she arrived for afternoon tea. Perhaps his technique lacked something. He didn’t succeed in his quest.7 The KGB would later prove more dexterous in dealing with her.
Depressed and frustrated by his failure to woo Tess, Straight went to Blunt and told him the sorry story of unrequited love. The Trinity don listened and nodded understandingly. There was a time-honored solution to his problem, Blunt told him. Straight asked what that was.
“Have an affair with someone else.”
Straight couldn’t think of anyone who would match Tess or even take his mind off her. Blunt suggested there was one suitable woman.
“Who?” Straight wanted to know.
“Barbara Rothschild.”8
It was well known that Victor and his vivacious, attractive wife Barbara (née Hutchinson, a member of the Bloomsbury literary circle) were not getting on. She was having plenty of affairs (as was he), and their hastily arranged marriage, now just short of two years, was on the rocks. Straight was reluctant. He seemed less than ambivalent toward Victor, whom he once called a “cold, repulsive figure.” Straight wasn’t sure Barbara was someone with whom he could have an affair, despite her spirited nature and sex appeal. Blunt suggested she was a passionate woman in need of a robust liaison.
Blunt then aroused Barbara’s interest by telling her that Straight found her alluring. Barbara wanted a meeting. One night Blunt had a gathering of people for drinks in his elegant rooms in New Court, Trinity’s most beautiful court. Not long into the evening, Barbara suggested that she and Straight go for a walk through darkened cloisters. Straight, still in two minds but caught in the daring and risk of the moment, went with her. Once out of sight, she embraced and kissed him. Barbara wanted an affair to begin immediately. Straight was uncertain, not knowing how Victor would react if he found out. Barbara was persistent. Blunt kept encouraging her and tried to push Straight. He was torn between at least some respect for (and fear of ) Victor, his relationship with Herta at Dartington, his love for Tess, and the natural lust of a late teenager. At first he felt some debt to Blunt for attempting to help him out in his time of emotional need. But Blunt’s motives were far more layered than an altruistic act for a young companion. Apart from wanting Straight obligated to him, Blunt was keen for Rothschild to be more dependent on him too. If Barbara were to have a significant affair, this adulterous relationship could be used to facilitate a divorce. This would put a presumably grateful Rothschild more in his debt.
There was a medium-term aim involved. The Comintern had not recruited the cautious Rothschild, although he was already a subagent, supplying information and help t
o the cause wherever he could. It wanted Rothschild further enmeshed in its espionage activity. He was the best equipped and -connected communist supporter in the United Kingdom. As a prominent Cambridge scientist he knew the secret developments in everything from atom physics to biological weaponry. Victor would one day be the Third Lord Rothschild and useful as a member of parliament. He already had connections through his family, one of the most prominent in the United Kingdom, with the country’s great and good, from Winston Churchill to Clement Atlee.
Blunt, with his feline capacities for tying people up emotionally, was just the person to draw him in.9 In Rothschild’s case, Blunt was fond of telling the story of how in 1933 he discovered a painting by Nicolas Poussin—Eliza and Rebecca at the Well—and “borrowed” £300 from Victor to buy it.10 The money was never repaid (despite the painting being valued at half a million pounds at the time of Blunt’s death in 1983).11
Although Blunt and Burgess were in part responsible for maneuvering both Rothschild and Straight into the Soviet orbit, both their targets knew what was being done to them. They were both attracted to the thrill and danger of the secret world. Rothschild managed to create the image of being outside the ring. He rarely dealt with the KGB directly and mostly used the manipulative Blunt as the middleman or go between. Straight, on the other hand, was a different character altogether and headed in another direction, albeit for the same cause. His ego and public ambition were collectively far greater than that of Rothschild, who preferred to remain behind the scenes in influencing events in the family tradition. This stretched back to the financing of the British Army at the Battle of Waterloo and the purchase of the Suez Canal for Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.
At the time Straight told Cornford that he was disturbed by the intensity of his desire to excel in everything he did. In the main this applied to his communist activities—they dominated his existence. When Straight became a public figure in the 1980s over his espionage activity, he tried to portray himself as the immature victim seduced by the wily Blunt. Yet it was only one part of the equation. Straight was a willing, if unwitting, player in suggestions that Blunt put to him, such as his handling of Rothschild’s disgruntled wife—an “assignment” that was to go on for more than a year. Sexual and emotional weapons were part of the good spy’s large armory of deception. Blunt was fostering their development.
Early in 1936, Straight was nominated for the Apostles, the secret society that had been hijacked by both Marxists and homosexuals in the 1930s. It included Soviet ring spies Blunt and Burgess, Rothschild, and a long list of fervent communists, including Alister Watson, Julian Bell, and Hugh Sykes Davies. Straight’s nominator was David Champernowne, a member of the family that had sold Dartington to the Elmhirsts. Straight joined on March 8, 1936.
“I was deeply impressed,” Straight said in a television interview with BBC’s Ludovic Kennedy in 1983. “The Apostles were brilliant, cosmopolitan, and sophisticated.” Being brought in as the only undergraduate was a huge honor for him. “I looked up to them. 130 years of intellectual leadership gave them a legendary status.”
He was fascinated by the enigmatic Burgess:
Burgess’s comments were always a little hidden. He would never address himself to open questions. He would dodge and weave, and tell an anecdote rather than respond directly. Burgess was a sort of fallen angel. At first sight you saw his fair, curly hair, bright blue eyes and sensuous mouth. When you looked a little closer you noticed the fallen aspects: nicotinestained fingers; black finger nails; an open fly; unbrushed teeth; a slovenly manner.
Straight was more impressed by Blunt: “Blunt on the contrary was elegant, knowledgeable, wise, kind and nonpolitical, certainly when we met in his rooms.”
In the television interview Straight was asked about the homosexuality of Blunt and Burgess. He found Burgess very blatant; Blunt was more discreet. Straight, who was adamant about his heterosexuality, was never propositioned by them, presumably because they realized he was straight. Others, however, fell prey to Blunt’s predatory ways, especially at parties in his rooms. In explaining his relationships with them and other homosexuals at Cambridge, Straight said that they were the “most sensitive and aesthetically knowledgeable people” at the university.
In April 1936, Cornford, his girlfriend Margot Heinemann, and her brother Henry invited themselves to Dartington for a week of sun; sailing; golf; and, fittingly, Russian song and dance provided by members of the Chekhov Studio. They strolled arm-in-arm from the hall courtyard to the left of the Great Hall down a narrow path that led toward the ancient stone wall (the Sunny Border) and Tiltyard. Cornford in particular was interested in the latter’s history of jousting knights. He was on his best behavior and for once put communist politics aside when in the company of Straight’s parents. Straight had presented him at Dartington as a poet rather than a radical.
In mid-June, as planned, Blunt and Burgess were invited to Dartington. They were in full charm mode for Dorothy and Leonard. Burgess even played cricket in the garden with their seven-year-old son Bill. Burgess drank heavily and only when he was inebriated did he talk politics, which was kept general. He was handling well his double game of supporting the fascists while not sounding antiliberal. Instead of turning ugly when drunk, Burgess staggered off to his room to slumber.
Blunt discussed art for hours with Dorothy over tea and in the gardens, which were still a special sight in late spring. They walked and talked in the woodland where three great oaks met. She was impressed with his cultured manner and deep knowledge of all the major art works at Dartington. He touched on her love of Italian Renaissance paintings. He enthralled her with his comprehension of their religious significance and the influence of the Catholic Church over art and literature. Because of her own spirituality, she was left with an impression of a Christian aesthete. Blunt avoided politics and kept to himself his thoughts about Marxist doctrine being the key to great contemporary art.
The overall impact of these two on Dorothy was anodyne. Burgess, with his cherubic mien, seemed to her to have sensible, middle-of-the-road views. Blunt, whose mother was a second cousin to the Earl of Strathmore (his daughter was Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the future queen), appeared to have no political hue at all, which befitted his pedigree. This lulled Dorothy into a false sense of calm following her concern over Straight’s alarming letters about radical communism and unbridled love for his comrades. If people like these two were Michael’s young mentors and friends, there seemed less to worry about.
Later, Straight continued his romance with Herta in Paris. They drove to Spain in July and were there just before a right-wing political figure, Calvo Sotelo, was murdered with the connivance of the Spanish government security forces. It was the final outrage for the right and the army, who had been opposed to the “Popular Front” government, elected five months earlier in February. The Popular Front was a coalition of left-wing Republicans and socialists who had combined against Spain’s strong fascist elements. All members of the front wanted the state to be a republic, whereas the party’s socialists wanted a purely socialist government. Just as socialists feared Spain’s fascists, the right—the “Nationalists”—saw the Republican government as a prisoner of the revolutionary left. To a degree each side was correct in its judgment of the other.
Sotelo’s assassination sparked an army uprising first in Morocco on July 17, which spread to the garrisons of metropolitan Spain in the following days. General Francisco Franco emerged as the main Nationalist leader, and the fascist powers of Italy and Germany supported him. Britain and France opposed Franco and supported the tenuous yet legitimate Republican government but decided not to intervene. Stalin, however, decided to get involved with substantial arms supplies to the Republicans. His price for support, as ever, was heavy. He wanted control of the government via the small Spanish Communist Party. Stalin sent his commissars to secure power. They ran into a range of communists—particularly Trotskyites—and socialists who were not goin
g to take orders from Stalin’s henchmen. Stalin had a pathological hate and jealousy of Trotsky—Stalin’s former comrade from the Russian revolution of 1917. His response was to send professional hit men, experienced assassins such as the notorious George Mink, to Spain to murder any communist who was not in total support of him and his commissars. This would ensure that Trotsky would have no influence in Spain.
Cornford was an early volunteer to fight the fascists. Although a hard-line Stalinist, he was for a short time in Catalonia in the Republican workers’ militia fighting alongside mainly Trotskyites. This may have proved dangerous in view of Stalin’s attitude, but he was struck with a stomach disorder and forced to return to England for three weeks’ recuperation. After this convalescence, he prepared to go back to Spain. Straight took the train with him to London to see Harry Pollitt and to recruit volunteers for a British contingent of communists. Straight saw off the assembled group, which included writers and poets, who were unused to knapsacks containing revolvers. He was touched by Cornford’s commitment. This time he was headed not for the Republican-held Catalonia but rather for the Nationalist stronghold of food-producing regions and towns, such as Cordoba. It would be a more dangerous mission—Franco’s forces had gained strength in the weeks Cornford had been away.
In September, Straight had his first taste of political campaigning with the Totnes Divisional Labor Party and thrived on the atmosphere. He befriended a working-class couple—the Ramsdens—and together they breathed life into party operations. Despite being just 20 years old, Straight yearned to run against the Conservative candidate but realized that would be impossible unless he renounced his U.S. citizenship, as Whitney had done. He was ambivalent about doing this. Also, there was always the chance that his communist activities at Cambridge would have been drawn to the attention of MI5. Straight was likely to have been considered a security risk. If so, he might be blocked from becoming a British subject.