A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia's Most Seductive Spy (78 page)

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Authors: Deborah McDonald,Jeremy Dronfield

Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical

BOOK: A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia's Most Seductive Spy
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26
   
Lord Ritchie Calder, interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add 9429/2B/124 (i).
27
   
Moura Budberg MI5 file, note on minute sheet by K. G. Younger, 8 Apr. 1942.
28
   
Wells,
H. G. Wells in Love
, p. 227.
29
   
Lockhart, diary entry for 6 Mar. 1942,
Diaries vol. 2
, p. 149.
30
   
Lockhart, diary entry for Aug. 1944,
Diaries vol. 2
, p. 348. The Carlton Grill was all that survived of the Carlton Hotel, which had been wrecked by a bomb in 1940. In the 1950s it was demolished and New Zealand House was built on the site.
31
   
Wells, letter to Moura, no. 2,747, summer 1944,
Correspondence of H. G. Wells vol. 4
, p. 500.
32
   
Nathalie Brooke (née Benckendorff), interview with Andrew Boyle, CUL Add. 9429/2B/114 (i).
33
   
Lockhart, diary entries for 10 May and 3 Aug. 1945,
Diaries vol. 2
, pp. 431, 480.
34
   
Orwell, ‘Wells, Hitler, and the World State’,
Horizon
, August 1941, pp. 133–8.
 
 

Chapter 24: The Movie Mogul

  
1
   
Phillips,
The Stage Struck Me
, pp. 130–31.
  
2
   
Will of H. G. Wells. The total amount of £10,240 in 1946 would be equivalent to about £374,000 now.
  
3
   
Korda,
Charmed Lives
, p. 120. Michael Korda believed that his uncle had first met Moura in Britain in the early 1930s.
  
4
   
Frank Wells, cited in Kulik,
Alexander Korda
, pp. 126–7.
  
5
   
Lockhart, diary entry for 23 Aug. 1938,
Diaries vol. 1
, p. 392. £4 million in 1938 is equivalent to about a quarter of a billion now.
  
6
   
Korda,
Charmed Lives
, p. 156.
  
7
   
Korda,
Charmed Lives
, p. 154 n.
  
8
   
Kulik,
Alexander Korda
, pp. 256–7.
  
9
   
Lockhart, diary entry for 21 Sep. 1947,
Diaries vol. 2
, p. 630.
10
   
Lockhart, diary entry for 8 Jan. 1948,
Diaries vol. 2
, pp. 630–35. £12,000 in 1947 would be equivalent to over £400,000 now.
11
   
Burton,
The Richard Burton Diaries
, pp. 575–6.
12
   
Vickers,
Cecil Beaton
, p. 307. Beaton’s diaries indicate that his friendship with Moura dated back to at least the early war years (Beaton,
The Years Between
, p. 69: ‘Moura Budberg dined and we found that with the help of a good bottle of claret the evening went easily. Wars, we agreed, knocked one from one level of age down to another.’).
13
   
Moura Budberg MI5 file, Metropolitan Police report, 14 Jul. 1948, written upon her entry to Britain from Warsaw via Prague; Michael Korda, interview with Deborah McDonald, 12 Jan. 2012.
14
   
Korda,
Charmed Lives
, p. 214.
15
   
Michael Korda, interview with Deborah McDonald, 12 Jan. 2012.
16
   
Moura Budberg MI5 file, Metropolitan Police Special Branch note, 31 Mar. 1947.
17
   
Moura Budberg MI5 file, note, 30 Mar. 1950.
18
   
Alexander,
Estonian Childhood
, p. 143.
19
   
Moura Budberg MI5 file, Metropolitan Police Special Branch note, 24 Apr. 1944.
20
   
Moura Budberg MI5 file, note recording Home Office Certificate of Naturalisation No. B 319, MI5 No. PFR 3736, 19 Jun. 1947. The note states: ‘MI5: A certificate of naturalisation has been granted to Marie Budberg of 68 Ennismore Gardens, London, S W 7 and the Oath of Allegiance has been duly taken.’ It is not known why this surprising decision was reached. The appraisal mentions Professor J. B. S. Haldane, a ‘prominent member of the Communist Party’, which one would expect to count against her. The document then speculates about how truthful her interview had been, noting that what she had said was broadly consistent with the facts as they knew them. Moura’s nocturnal meetings in Felixstowe in 1935 are mentioned. The document notes Wells’ wish to take Moura to Russia with him and his opinion that she ought to be naturalised. Duff Cooper is mentioned as saying that he had refused to allow her to work in Auxiliary War Services. The appraisal also lays out her relationship with Ambassador Maisky and his wife. But it was noted that Moura had apparently passed on some information regarding the Russian Embassy to Duff Cooper, which must have counted in her favour. But on the whole one can only conjecture that Moura used a great deal of her natural charm, or possibly that the approval was a bureaucratic blunder which could not be undone. After the decision was made and she was naturalised, several papers in the MI5 file comment on the mistake that had been made.
21
   
Regnery, letter to Moura, 10 Dec. 1947, HIA.
22
   
Regnery, letter to Moura, 11 Jul. 1948, HIA.
23
   
There is no information on how close the renewed relationship between Moura and Scheffer became; probably not close. He carried on working with Regnery until 1951, living in very modest circumstances and suffering continual pain from the injuries he had sustained during the war. He died in 1965.
24
   
Lockhart, diary entry for 26 Aug. 1948,
Diaries vol. 2
, pp. 672–4.
25
   
Lockhart, diary entry for 26 Aug. 1948,
Diaries vol. 2
, pp. 672–4. Despite her opinion of him (‘the vainest man in the world’) Moura retained Maugham as a friend. Later that year, she had him and Lockhart to dine at Ennismore Gardens. Maugham would soon be seventy-five, but had a physique that Lockhart thought ‘wonderful’. Over dinner, Maugham explained that an attack he had made on Hugh Walpole in
Cakes and Ale
was due to Walpole having attempted to style himself the ‘father of English letters’; Maugham claimed that he had now achieved that position himself despite having ‘never tried to push myself’ (quoted by Lockhart, diary entry for 16 Nov. 1948,
Diaries vol. 2
, pp. 684–5).
 
 

Chapter 25: A Russian Patriot

  
1
   
Moura Budberg MI5 file, report by B2a, 9 Oct. 1950.
  
2
   
Weidenfeld,
George Weidenfeld
, p. 131.
  
3
   
Quoted by Robin Bruce Lockhart,
Reilly
, p. 84.
  
4
   
Weidenfeld,
George Weidenfeld
, p. 132.
  
5
   
Lord Weidenfeld, personal communication to Deborah McDonald, 6 Jan. 2012.
  
6
   
Weidenfeld,
George Weidenfeld
, p. 158.
  
7
   
Quoted in Carter,
Anthony Blunt
, p. 79.
  
8
   
Weidenfeld,
George Weidenfeld
, p. 134.
  
9
   
Moura Budberg MI5 file, note on Budberg/MacGibbon, 26 Jul. 1950.
10
   
Moura Budberg MI5 file, note from agent B2a to Mr B. A. Hill, 15 Aug. 1950.

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