On a snowy night, Peter stepped out of the British Legation car at the Bromma airfield and walked through the gates to the tarmac where a BOAC de Havilland Mosquito, a converted bomber, was loading passengers for the night flight to RAF Leuchars in Scotland. Peter put his bag on a rack on the tarmac and started to climb the stairs.
At the top of the ramp, he looked around at the airfield, with its Deutsche Luft Hansa Ju52s, ABA DC3s, BOAC Lockheed 14s and a Curtis CW-20 parked on the tarmac with snow accumulating on their fuselages. Peter was taking what was commonly known as the ‘ball-bearing run’ from Sweden to Scotland. The Mosquito was a fast, civilian-registered aircraft with all its armaments and guns removed - a legal requirement to fly to neutral countries. The Swedish ABA airline had already lost two DC-3s on flights going to Britain, shot down over the North Sea. From Leuchars, Peter would fly south in a military plane to RAF Northolt near London.
London
There was an odour of dust and decay in the air as Peter descended from a taxi at MI6 Headquarters at 54 Broadway, near the St. James’s Park underground station. London stood in stark contrast to immaculate Stockholm. Many of the buildings on Broadway off Victoria Street were bombed-out shells.
Peter met with his old friend, Major Keith Linwood, in a small anonymous office on the third floor.
“I’m sorry it has taken so long to have this meeting, Peter.”
“That’s all right, Keith. Who’s coming?”
“Hollis and Liddell aren’t available, I’m afraid,” Linwood said. “You’ll be meeting with Anthony Blunt, the senior MI5 liaison officer, who is in charge of the file.”
“Blunt? Is he meeting me here?”
“No. He’s waiting for you at his club, the Reform Club on Pall Mall. I know it is a bit unusual, but with all the renovations going on in the building, I think you will be better off over there.”
Peter raised an eyebrow.
“Isn’t this against regulations, Keith? MI5 conducting business from a private club.”
“Well, Blunt does have quite the pedigree. Takes his tea with the Queen Mother in Mayfair. So be careful with the man.”
“Well, I’d better get over there. Pleasure seeing you again.”
Major Linwood stood up and gave Peter a parting hug.
“Say hello to Ethel and that lovely daughter of yours,” Peter said in the doorway.
“I will. Good luck with Blunt. Nice to see you again, Peter.”
The Reform Club on Pall Mall had somehow escaped the ravages of the bombing and the silence within was a welcome refuge from the din of nonstop repair work going on outside. Peter admired the club’s vast atrium with its marble columns and portraits of political leaders as he was led down a hall to a quiet club room for his meeting. Major Anthony Blunt stood up as Peter arrived. He was a tall, aristocratic man with an upper-class accent. Peter had been initially prepared to dislike him, but Blunt was both charming and obviously intelligent with deep laugh lines and a boyish shock of blond hair going to grey.
“Sorry to run you around town, Peter,” Blunt said apologetically, “but since Liddell and Hollis were not available, I thought we might be more comfortable talking here.”
Peter was about to reply when a door opened, and a man came in bearing a coffee tray. Blunt saw Peter’s hesitation.
“It’s all right, Peter,” he said with a wry smile, “he’s one of ours.”
The man placed the coffee tray on the table beside a stack of files and withdrew. Peter glanced at the files on the table and wondered just how senior Blunt was. Very few people had the authority to remove files from headquarters.
“We have been over the secret memorandum that you obtained from Dr Kramer’s home,” Blunt said, “and while you believe it is an original document about the Quebec conference, we think it may be a German forgery.”
“With all due respect, sir. It looked very authentic to me.”
“You said so in your dispatches. Well, our people took a look at it and found some of Roosevelt’s comments rather Germanic in their formulation. As you know, that’s sometimes indicative of forgeries.”
Peter could barely believe his ears and struggled to keep his tone civil. He stared at Blunt for a moment.
“Did you notice Roosevelt’s obscene remarks about the letters from Stalin?”
“Yes, of course,” Blunt said.
“American presidents are like that, sir. They use profanity constantly to make a point. Roosevelt talks like that.”
Blunt looked skeptical.
“In my previous posting, I was a witness to the 1941 Newfoundland conference in Placentia Bay,” Peter said. “Our diplomatic staff were shocked by Roosevelt’s language. I don’t see how this could be a forgery, sir. This is the way American presidents carry on.”
Peter remembered President Roosevelt’s scornful words about that ‘commie son-of-a-bitch Stalin and his lapdog Molotov’. The meeting between Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill was held on August 14 in a stateroom on board the HMS Prince of Wales, which had recently been repaired after action against the Bismarck in the Denmark Strait. Peter stood next to Harry Hopkins, the presidential advisor, and a stenographer in a small soundproof room off the stateroom where Roosevelt and Churchill had been working for hours on the text of the Atlantic Charter with their diplomatic personnel. The final version was due to be printed at the end of the day and telegraphed to London and Washington. The aim of the conference was to show American solidarity with the British government at war with Germany.
Tired and pale from his recent meeting with Stalin in Moscow, Hopkins had hit it off with young Peter, who was mesmerized by this affable Midwesterner and his stories about the American president. Roosevelt had put Hopkins in charge of the Lend-Lease program to provide arms to Britain and other American allies, including the Soviets, in their war against Germany. As they were about to take a break, Roosevelt started to tell Churchill a joke. In the soundproof room, the strait-laced British stenographer wore headphones as she typed furiously on a Stenograph Reporter machine.
“Stalin wanted a special postage stamp issued with his picture on it,” Roosevelt said. “The stamp was duly produced but within a few days, Stalin began hearing complaints that the stamp wasn’t sticking properly and he became furious. He called Beria, the NKVD chief, and ordered him to investigate the matter. Beria reported back that there was nothing wrong with the quality of the stamp. The problem was that Soviet citizens were spitting on the wrong side of the stamp.”
The room burst into laughter, and even the prim stenographer broke into a nervous titter. Peter smiled as Hopkins winked at him.
“Strike that last bit, Miss,” Hopkins said to the stenographer.
“Yes, sir,” she said, clearly disapproving of any kind of joke in her official transcriptions.
“Aren’t they supposed to be discussing the Soviet aid package today?” Peter asked.
“FDR likes to tell a joke from time to time, Mr Faye,” Hopkins said. “He gets bored with long meetings. There’s going to be a meeting in Moscow in September with Stalin.”
“I’ve heard that Stalin was totally unprepared for the invasion.”
“Stalin won’t admit it, but I think he was caught with his pants down. The Red Army has rallied and now seems quite confident to stop the advance of the Wehrmacht.”
The meeting broke up, and an aide arrived to help the president with his wheelchair.
“OK, everyone. Take twenty minutes,” Hopkins ordered.
“Well, he does seem to have a shocking lack of respect for the Soviet leader,” Blunt said.
“Yes, he does,” Peter replied, “but from what I’ve heard, Churchill finds him amusing.”
“Churchill would, of course. His mother, Lady Randolph, was American.”
Peter was surprised by Blunt’s anti-American feeling and reminded himself to step carefully. He stood up for a moment to look out the window onto Pall Mall while Blunt busied himself pouring the coffee. He could see the ruins of several bombed-out buildings opposite St. James Square. When he turned back, he saw Blunt watching him.
“Do you want something stronger, perhaps a sherry or a whisky? You must be quite tired from your flight.”
“I’m fine, thank you, sir,” Peter said stiffly.
He was indeed exhausted, but he was angry with himself for letting Blunt see it. He’d arrived in the early morning and would have to fly back to Stockholm that night.
Peter sat down again and looked at Blunt.
“Sir, clearly someone with access to the original drafts is passing them along to the Germans, obviously an agent working at the highest possible level with access to Cabinet documents and War Office minutes.”
“We’re working on it. We’ll have results eventually,” said Blunt with assurance.
“What’s your take on the cabinet document I bought from the Estonian? The one regarding American proposals for the post-war trusteeship of ‘dependent peoples’.”
“Yes, we think it is credible,” Blunt said.
“It has the American State Department stamp on it and I’m sure you noticed the snide comment in the margin from the Foreign Office about the American Secretary of State being a ‘vindictive old woman’. No foreign intelligence officer can fake that kind of personal touch.”
“Yes, I agree.”
“As you know, there is an absolute glut of secret intelligence in Stockholm, and I think most of it is coming from Moscow. The source of the memorandum may be Soviet.”
“Yes, you said so in your report.”
“And what about the Josefine dispatches, Kramer’s source?”
“We’ve stopped the Josefine leak. The man was a Swedish air attaché who was reporting back to his masters in Stockholm. We’ve sent him packing.”
“Very good, sir,” Peter said. “You know that the Swedes are worried about a Soviet invasion, now that the Germans are starting to retreat on all fronts. There is a feeling at the Legation that the Soviets will soon be a serious threat.”
“I doubt that the Soviets would ever attack Sweden. They have enough on their hands,” Blunt said dismissively as he stood up and went to the bar to pour himself a whisky.
“If the memorandum is coming from a Soviet source,” Peter pursued, “then Stalin is reading the minutes of the Roosevelt/Churchill talks. This could compromise future talks with the man.”
“About the Quebec conference, I can categorically assure you there is no cross-knowledge. The Soviets know nothing about this. They are only interested in the timing of the second front.”
Peter thought about Blunt’s assertion. Since the disaster at Dieppe, the Soviets had been pushing the Western Allies to open a second front on mainland Europe.
“Our chaps at HQ must be shitting bricks over this leak.”
There was a long silence in the room.
“Of course, we’re worried, Peter, but we’re not purposely leaking documents to the Soviets. We’ll get to the bottom of it. I promise you.”