In spite of Britain being at war with Nazi Germany, the membership of the British Union of Fascists actually grew during the first few months of 1940. Many of these new recruits were men and women who wanted Britain to join the Fascist bloc rather than fight against it. ‘No war was being conducted by Germany against this country,’ argued Captain Ramsay, leader of the Right Club.1 Like many others on the Right, he was emboldened by the lack of any major German offensive against Britain and he continued to call for peace. Yet the reports coming in to M suggested that Ramsay and his ilk were after much more than an end to hostilities.
M knew that Mosley had recently been heard to say in private that ‘our time is approaching’ and ‘reward and victory were in sight’.2 Senior Fascists had been instructed to be near their telephones when the ‘showdown’ began. M had been told as well about an extremist Fascist cell within the Fellowship of the Services, a group for active servicemen, which was centred on Charles Geary, a former member of the British Fascists and one of M’s old comrades from K.3 Another ex-BF man, John Hirst, reported ‘that Geary was trying to recruit from among the members of the Fellowship of the Services extremists who would be prepared under certain circumstances to resort to violence in the event of a political upheaval in this country’.4
In a purely democratic sense the homegrown Fascist movement was irrelevant, as it had been for several years, yet it was increasingly clear that some members of this radical fringe were either willing to help the enemy or had begun to do so already. Anna Wolkoff and her clique in the Right Club, meanwhile, were trying to carry out espionage. But M did not have enough evidence for a prosecution. If he could show that they all belonged to the same undercover network, however, that would change.
M was also aware that Wolkoff was spending time with a ‘young man employed in the United States Embassy’.5 Mrs Mackie had told her spymaster that this was not a romantic relationship, and ‘that this man is definitely pro-German’.6 This was curious. M needed to find out the name of Anna Wolkoff’s new American friend and the nature of their non-romantic relationship. Of course, the easiest way to do this was to ask Wolkoff herself.
On the afternoon of 19 March, 1940, M sat down in a room in the War Office with Vernon Kell and Anna Wolkoff. Her brother, Alexander, had been told by a friend – presumably one with an MI5 connection – that Anna should tone down her anti-war activities. At around the same time, Alexander Wolkoff’s application for British citizenship had been denied. Anna thought that he was being punished for her activities. She had written a furious note to Kell demanding an explanation. His response was to call her in for an interview, where she met both the Director of MI5 and a ‘Captain King’, one of M’s favourite aliases.
‘It was a real pleasure to cross swords with someone of Miss Wolkoff’s calibre,’ wrote M afterwards.7 ‘She is an extremely clever woman with a considerable amount of superficial charm. She is also a first-class liar.’
Wolkoff began by trying to overwhelm Kell and M ‘with thanks for having granted her an interview’, before following up with a customary blast of name dropping.8 She told the two MI5 officers about the drinks party she had attended the night before with Prince Schubatow and advice she had received from Admiral Hall. She then admitted to being a ‘stickyback performer’, meaning she put up anti-war posters at night. But this was not a contrite confession, as far as M could tell, merely ‘a smoke screen’. Her real purpose, he surmised, was ‘to obtain information as to the intention of the authorities’ regarding her and her associates.
The MI5 men gave away nothing. Wolkoff went on the offensive, trying to pressure them into revealing what they knew about her. ‘I hope I am right in saying she did not get any change out of the interview,’ wrote M, ‘and I trust in due course that I shall receive some reports as to exactly what version she puts round among her friends.’9
Before that could happen, Wolkoff wrote to M directly.
‘Dear Captain King,’ she began, ‘thinking over my interview this afternoon on my way back, I remembered that I said to my brother: “If this sort of nonsense goes on, I shall simply write to … … (you know whom I mean).”10 I mention this for your information as it may be of use to you.’
This information was of no use to M. The letter was a threat. She wanted him and MI5 to back off. The person she planned to contact if MI5 continued its investigation into her was probably Admiral Hall, a man with powerful connections within British intelligence, but this is not clear. Like many others on the Right, Wolkoff believed that MI5 should be on her side. The fact that she was friendly with the likes of Vernon Kell, Reginald Hall and Mark Pepys, all of whom were either working for or connected to MI5, only emboldened her. Wolkoff believed that she was above investigation by them because she belonged to their social milieu. Later that year a different Fascist appealed against her detention by producing an account of her genealogy, or, as she put it, her ‘pedigree’.11 Nobody from ‘good respectable stock’, she insisted, could pose a threat to national security. ‘There are rogues in every class of society,’ she was told, and her appeal was turned down.
Barely twenty-four hours after M had received Wolkoff’s menacing note, he read Hélène de Munck’s account of a long conversation with the same woman. ‘She had some idea that I could teach her to see the future,’ began de Munck.12 ‘The early part of the interview was devoted by Anna to staring at a piece of silver in a glass of water with this in view.’ Once they had finished trying to predict the future, Wolkoff told de Munck that there were Right Club agents hidden throughout Whitehall, all of whom were ready ‘to work against the Jews’. She also mentioned a document she wanted to smuggle into the country from Belgium.
At this point Anna Wolkoff asked the Belgian nanny if she would bring this item into the country during her next trip to Brussels. Just as Olga Gray had played coy when asked to be a Comintern courier, de Munck was admirably vague in her reply. She told Wolkoff that she would think about it.
This was promising. It took M one step closer to being able to put together a case against Wolkoff and the Right Club. He had also begun to learn more about the American embassy official who was spending time with Wolkoff. Mrs Mackie had reported that this man was now in a position to provide details of the inner workings of MI5, and towards the end of March 1940 she reported that he was called ‘John Kent’.13
This was not his real name, but it was close enough. M would soon have a sense of what Kent had in his possession that made him of such interest to Anna Wolkoff and the Right Club.