A Dangerous Woman

by Susan Ronald

  President Eisenhower’s vice president, and later president, Richard M. Nixon went further. Adlai E. Stevenson, governor of Illinois, was running for president against the beloved incumbent and former leader of the Allies, “Ike,” when Nixon claimed that “Mr. Stevenson has been guilty, probably without being aware that he was doing so, of spreading pro-Communist propaganda as he has attacked with violent fury the economic system of the United States and has praised the Soviet economy.”

  J. Edgar Hoover and other senior FBI officials had their own political agendas that included smearing the Roosevelt and Truman administrations for being soft on “commies.” At the same time, Hoover was doggedly pursuing Florence’s long-dead case and looking to envelop Vogel in the Nixon-alleged “6,000 security risks” cleared under the Truman administration. Hoover put thousands of innocent Americans seeking more liberal expressions in politics under surveillance.21 If Florence or Vogel knew what was going on, either could be forgiven for wondering when and how this would all end.

  28

  A FORTUNE TO GIVE AWAY

  C’est la femme aux bijoux, celle qui rend fou.

  (It’s the bejeweled woman, who will drive you crazy.)

  —1930s song thought to have been inspired by FLORENCE GOULD

  Florence’s endowment of the arts and generous gifts to charities continued unabated, often including vast and expensive parties, and invitations of the notable, great, and good. The first Cannes Film Festival, delayed seven years by the war, finally took place in September 1946, featuring Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend and David Lean’s Brief Encounter. Naturally, Florence was among those treading the red carpet, as she would try to do for every Cannes Film Festival during her lifetime. With each progressive year, Florence’s svelte figure became more rounded and her sunglasses darker. Her fabulous triple string of pearls, once cherished for their magnificence, now served to hide her wrinkled neck. Since she hated the idea of plastic surgery, Florence tried to defeat age instead with more mundane accessories.

  Despite age, she would remain at the heart of all that mattered to her. Her lunches continued to be her crowning glory, with her rejoicing in a table plan that brought together artists from different worlds with an apparent luck-of-the-draw nonchalance, though she had meticulously planned that Maurice Chevalier and Salvador Dali should sit together opposite her—so she could enjoy the sparkle of their mischievous eyes.1 When the conversation somehow drifted away from having her at the center, she always brought it back where it belonged. For example, at her Malakoff lunch on May 20, 1948, while discussing the Cold War and the current diplomatic talks in London, Florence announced in front of Jouhandeau and Léautaud that if the Soviets pushed the Americans too far, “It will be war … you understand, I am again working ‘undercover’ (as I did during the German occupation).… All that I say is absolutely under the seal of secrecy. Do not repeat it to anyone.”2 Perhaps she was tipsy or her old friend William Bullitt, America’s former ambassador to France, had whispered something to her since his return to Paris after the war. Not that Bullitt was in the know any longer. Her assembled guests had the wit to realize that her working undercover for the United States was simply preposterous.

  * * *

  As the years drifted past, another way her loss of personal good looks manifested itself was in seeking beauty in external pleasures. Thanks to Daniel Wildenstein’s return to France after the war, Florence added substantially to her Impressionist art collection. Wildenstein was five years old when Florence first came into his father’s home, and since that time, had admired her beauty, good taste, and generosity. From 1923, when she married Frank, she was a regular visitor to the Wildenstein gallery, then run by Daniel’s grandfather, Nathan, who dubbed Florence “the most beautiful woman on earth.”3 Impressionist art and fine jewels had always been foremost in her many passions, but as the mid-1950s dawned, they would also be her comfort.

  Her jewel collection had become world-famous. In January 1951, her incredible thirty-three-carat emerald was stolen from her strongbox she kept at their hotel at Juan, and a cheap glass imitation was left in its place. She pointed the police to her hotel manager, who had given her the wrong key, swapping it with one for the box of a Paris industrialist. French police traced the emerald to Spain, then back to jewel cutters in Paris, where the stone was refashioned into two smaller pieces that were easier to disguise for resale to an unsuspecting buyer. The four thieves were caught and charged, and Florence was left with the two lesser emeralds as her recompense.4 The outstanding question never asked at the time was if anything else of value was stolen from that box or others to which she had access.

  * * *

  In 1952, Frank, harking back to the happiest days of his life, gifted another $1.5 million to New York University. Halfway through the year, Frank took to his bed, ostensibly never to leave it again. Three years later, NYU’s Chancellor Henry T. Heald came to Juan-les-Pins to confer an honorary doctorate on Frank in person. He was so thrilled that another gift of a million dollars and the home at Ardsley-on-Hudson were conferred on the university.5 Frank’s generosity was undoubtedly from the heart, but it also heralded a personal recognition that his life was drawing to a close. The question that might have lingered in Florence’s mind was whether Frank had changed his will.

  Then, in June 1952, another robbery occurred at their other Juan-les-Pins hotel, Hôtel Alba. The weekly pay of the hotel employees, some $3,000, and $286,000 in bearer bonds were stolen from Magdeleine Homo’s office. Around the same time, Frank’s daughters, Dorothy and Helen, became suspicious that their father was not free to contact whomever he wished to keep him company or to decide his affairs. By 1953, they felt that Magdeleine Homo was preventing them from having contact with their father unjustly, and that he had become a virtual prisoner. Still, it is entirely possible that Frank simply issued an order for peace and quiet, just as it is possible that Florence may have decided that Frank needn’t be bothered by his difficult children. Dorothy even appeared at Frank’s home unannounced shortly before his death, and was turned away by Homo.6

  That same year, Florence’s drinking became a matter of some consternation, too, particularly to Jouhandeau, who received late-night, drunken, nasty phone calls from her. It would take over a year—and unquantified largesse—before she would be forgiven for her vile behavior.7 Others remarked that as her beauty faded with the passage of time, her tyrannical streak grew exponentially and was measured by how much she’d had to drink.

  The inevitable happened at six a.m. on the morning of April 1, 1956. Sometime in March, Frank had slipped into a coma theoretically caused by uremia. While uremia was listed as the cause of death, it was more the final symptom of the health issues that had plagued Frank for nearly fifty years. Given his medical history, the uremia was more than likely caused by gastrointestinal bleeding and decreased kidney function.8

  Frank’s daughters were informed at once, and struck out against Florence. Two days later, Dorothy’s lawyers had all the Juan-les-Pins properties sealed and all her father’s bank accounts frozen. An estimated third of his fortune was said to be domiciled in France in the form of property investments and stocks. The rest remained invested in America.

  Given the family history, it was a wise maneuver. A family war was declared, even as it came to the disposition of Frank’s corpse. His daughters thought he should remain in Antibes; Florence wanted to see him buried in his doctoral robes and placed in the Gould family mausoleum at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. A compromise was made, with the funeral eulogy delivered in Antibes by its mayor Marc Pugnaire, with the pastor Lazare Pellier presiding, before Frank’s coffin was sent to New York.9 Florence, Magdeleine Homo, and Cécile Tellier would accompany the body to its final resting place in the Gould crypt.

  Frank’s assets worldwide were estimated at some $120 million. The only last testament found was dated April 14, 1936, and deposited at the United Trust Company in New York. It was read by Frank’s lawyer, John T.
Cahill, at Juan-les-Pins, and gave Frank’s daughters $100,000 each, plus an equal one-third of the French investment properties. Florence, minus additional gifts of $300,000 to various individuals, would receive her widow’s one-third portion of the French investments in accordance with French law, and the remaining totality of Frank’s American interests. Various small gifts to household staff and others included Dr. Vernes ($15,000) and Isabelle Lacaze ($25,000). Sadly, Isabelle who was suffering from stomach cancer, lived only another few months. Magdeleine Homo was singled out as receiving nothing.10 This spurred Dorothy to believe that Homo was somehow disliked by Frank, when in reality Homo had just begun working for him in 1936.

  Had later wills, as Dorothy and Helen suggested, been destroyed or even stolen in the previous two robberies that took place in their father’s final years? Florence denied any such wrongdoing. Dorothy was determined to challenge the will in France and New York. Helen blanched at the thought. A mere ten days after her father’s death, she made a statement under oath to her Paris lawyer, Russell Porter, who forwarded it on to the U.S. embassy in Paris. On May 17, a translation was sent to J. Edgar Hoover at the FBI, who disseminated it widely to other government departments. It contained new information in the “Gould Treason” case, namely:

  In early 1944, Fl. GOULD listed as ‘sympathetic’ to the Gestapo, was “recruited” in Paris by JOHANNES EUGENE CHARLES … who had been given a mission by the Reichsbank Section of the Ministry of Economics.… Fl. GOULD lent herself to this operation knowingly. Its purpose was to “attempt to maintain abroad a financial institution to maintain the interests of Germany.” In theory, the bank was to receive funds later from German industrialists, one of whom was BERNHARD BERGHAUSS [sic] of Berlin (18 Million).

  During her visits to Monaco, Fl. GOULD, through CHARLES, was put in contact with the German colony of the Principality, and principally with KAGENECHT [sic], former Gestapo Chief, and HELLENTHAL, German Consul General.

  … HANS GROM, Swiss Citizen, Gestapo Chief at Annecy … declared that “he had been contacted in July 1943 by one Franz GOERING,* SS Untersturmfuhrer … who had proposed installing him on the Riviera or at Chamonix with a view to the execution of a plan of the German services for the installation in France of German hotelkeepers destined to work for them after the war.”†

  … in October 1943, he was put in contact with one BIRKNER, SS Hauptsturmfuhrer of the S.D. in Paris, who sent him to WARZINSKI.… The latter told him that he had at his disposal hotels belonging to Mrs. Fl. GOULD, a Nazi sympathizer, and offered to set him up in one of these establishments on the coast.

  Mrs. Fl. GOULD was reportedly also in contact in Paris with one VON MERODE, who claimed to be the illegitimate son of LEOPOLD of Belgium and who was Economic Counselor of the Reich, having relations with HERMANN GOERING.11

  A number of interesting points appear in this new information. Dorothy’s version of events gives an alternative and suggestive scenario as to the seriousness of Florence’s collaboration, and specifically how she was favorably viewed by the Germans. Grom’s testimony, given to American military officials after his arrest, further demonstrates that the idea of resurrecting a Fourth Reich from the ashes of the Third Reich was not mere scaremongering by the British and Americans, but an actual plan. Even more illuminating is that Franz Goering, who was the assistant to Chief of Counter-Espionage Walter Schellenberg by 1944, was intimately involved in using hoteliers as the affable face of sleeper cells for the Fourth Reich. The Goulds’ hotels and casinos were firmly in Franz Goering’s sites. Perhaps this gave rise to the postwar adage in the hotel sector: There are no German hoteliers, only Swiss ones.12 Even more revealing is that Schellenberg was intimately involved in the bizarre tale of Coco Chanel’s attempt to declare a truce with the Third Reich by approaching Bendor and Churchill on Schellenberg’s behalf. Finally, Hoover made no comment whatsoever on the file, other than to pass it on to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

  New York attorney William L. Matheson of 10 Gracie Square, Manhattan, was also hired to represent Dorothy. Again, Cahill triumphed. It was agreed that Florence would relinquish the entire French fortune in favor of the American one less its $300,000 in various gifts, on the proviso that Dorothy, who resided in Mexico City, agree to drop her claims. Given that Dorothy had no real proof of any wrongdoing, she was urged to accept by Matheson. The matter was resolved out of court.

  Yet the saga continued. Frank had the outstanding issue of nonpayment of federal taxes going back decades. With Florence taking on the U.S. fortune, representing around two-thirds of Frank’s wealth. As she was still Frank’s legal wife, there was no inheritance tax to pay. Sadly, Frank also had an issue with his French taxes. Since his daughters were liable for inheritance tax, the settlement became quite a costly matter.

  On March 6, 1958, L. Harold Moss, an IRS representative in Paris, notified the U.S. legate that he was investigating Florence Gould to determine if her French assets might become liable for U.S. taxes.13 The list of Gould assets provided by Donald L. Daughters in 1945 was handed over to the IRS. This letter is proof that resolving the matter of Frank’s taxes dragged on for at least two years after his death, and more than likely, some while thereafter. Nonetheless, Florence settled the matter to the satisfaction of both the United States and French tax authorities, since it was no longer referred to in her copious RG 65 file thereafter.

  Hoover, however, rekindled his interest in her. William L. Matheson, Dorothy’s New York lawyer, was deposed by the IRS on August 28, 1958. He made some damaging accusations against Florence, Magdeleine Homo, and Cécile Tellier. He “indicated that the 1936 will was preserved through the combined efforts of FLORENCE GOULD and her secretary, MAGDELEINE HOMO, and by keeping FRANK GOULD in virtual confinement in his latter years. MATHESON who described HOMO as a lesbian and Communist alleged that HOMO had become FLORENCE GOULD’S protege [sic] because of the fact that they were both sexual deviates.” Matheson reiterated all the earlier charges of collaboration against Florence, and claimed that Homo had given money to the Communist Party. Matheson also stated that Homo and Tellier would be visiting the United States again soon aboard the U.S.S. Constitution. So Hoover ordered that all ports in and out of New York be watched.14

  Matheson may have been embittered by his earlier defeat at the hands of Cahill and was passing off his feelings as fact in his deposition. He knew full well that such allegations would be of interest to the FBI, and was playing to his eventual reading audience—J. Edgar Hoover and the IRS. By 1958, all war criminals and collaborators who would be punished had been adjudged for their crimes—save those who remained in hiding like Adolf Eichmann. Hoover’s determination to find something—perhaps anything—that would stick to Florence at the height of the Cold War was both unfair and a fantasy.

  * * *

  In the year of Frank’s death, 1956, Ludwig Vogel applied for U.S. citizenship. Hoover remorselessly reopened the file replete with its statements and innuendo, evidently in the hope that something might turn up now that the war dust had settled. Nuremberg and the horrors of the Holocaust were already fading as everyone strove for a return to some kind of normalcy. The pan-German dream harbored by Germany since the days of the Kaiser was erased with the rise of the European Economic Community’s six core nations: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Italy. Economic closeness was the way that France and Germany expressed their own cries of “Never again!” These echoed, too, in the newly founded state of Israel. Still, political mistakes continued to be made. Suez, Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam, to name names.

  Since no affidavit had been forthcoming from Vogel’s former employer in France in the 1948 investigation, Focke-Wulf, Hoover ordered that contact be made with the company. Special Agent James T. McCue came up with the goods.

  Christian Neyer, the personnel manager at Focke-Wulf in Bremen, was interviewed in November 1955. Neyer confirmed Vogel’s employment for the
company from 1937 until the liberation of Paris in August 1945. Vogel, according to Neyer, terminated his employment with the firm “on the day of the surrender of Paris, France and is not eligible for rehire for the following reasons[,] Arrangements had been made to evacuate Focke-Wulf employees to Germany upon the surrender of Paris, however SUBJECT failed to do so and disappeared. SUBJECT had access to the Focke-Wulf bank account at the Aero Bank, Paris, France, in the amount of 250,000 Reichsmarks (the equivalent of 500,000 Francs) and since SUBJECT’S disappearance the bank account has never been located.” Vogel’s former secretary, Irmela de Haas, whose married name was Cunningham after the war, confirmed Neyer’s statement. She also confirmed that Vogel was the only person working at the company who could have absconded with the funds.15

  This time, everyone was contacted. It was Hoover’s last chance to stop Vogel. Even Vogel’s former wife was contacted in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, but all she could tell them was that Vogel had come to see her and their daughter in the beginning of 1949 in the hope of getting back together. The former Mrs. Elfriede Vogel, by then remarried as Mrs. Gasser, clearly stated to investigators that Florence Gould was the cause of the breakup of their marriage and their subsequent divorce in 1947. Vogel was meant to support both his ex-wife and daughter, but nothing had been paid before she remarried, primarily because she sought no payment. Gasser said that Vogel was a good man and she hoped he would succeed.16

  With the benefit of eleven years of hindsight, the attorney general’s office felt that Vogel’s actions could well be interpreted as a means of slowing down the further production of airplanes, and showed his commitment to the Allied cause. Furthermore, nothing in his time in America pointed to his being anything other than a model citizen and businessman. It ordered that Ludwig Carl Vogel should be granted his American citizenship. The FBI file on Vogel was ordered closed, finally. Florence’s treason file would be closed only in 1959.