Last of the Cold War Spies (35 page)

In June 1949 Straight and Bin flew to the United Kingdom for a visit to Dartington Hall and a reunion with the family and such friends as Michael Young, a frequent visitor to his old alma mater.
¹¹
Young had renounced his links to the communists but still held radical views, which he inculcated into his work in the Labour Party’s research department and in the occasional article in left-wing magazines, such as
The New Republic
. Straight managed to slip away to London on his own for a few days where he again met Burgess and Blunt without Bin’s knowledge.
¹²
They and other Apostles, including Rothschild, gathered at an annual reunion dinner. It was arranged by Burgess, who chaired the event in private rooms at his RAC Club in Pall Mall close to Carlton Gardens.

Thirty Apostles sat down to dine at two tables. Burgess was next to the speaker, drama critic Desmond MacCarthy, at the head table. Straight said he became embroiled in an argument over “Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia” with a young Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawn—a most unlikely claim, which was a further attempt to portray himself as at odds with his fellow Apostles.

The trio of Burgess, Blunt, and Straight decided to meet again the next morning at the RAC Club to talk about what each had been doing. Straight claimed in his autobiography that Burgess had arranged the meeting to determine if he had double-crossed him and turned him in to the authorities.

Straight admitted that the discussions reflected his continuing inability to break completely with his past. The old Apostles were hanging on. Yet he was not unfriendly to his old comrades and Marxist mentors, which was the reassurance Burgess (according to Straight) needed. He would not be double-crossing them; his apostolic oath not to betray his comrades would see him remain silent about their continuing espionage work for the KGB.

Straight alleged that Burgess asked him if he still had allegiance to the Cambridge ring. Straight further claimed that he asked him in return if
he (Straight) would be here if he did not have that allegiance. This was meant to give the impression to his FBI interrogators that he was prevaricating and not strong enough to inform on Burgess.

This spin on events was to appease the FBI twenty years later. In reality, Straight was still a fully fledged agent. He had turned up at the Apostles meeting to be with his fellow spies in an environment he would have considered a perfect cover—a reunion with his old university friends. His feeble explanation under the circumstances was not credible. Had he been trying to avoid KGB agents, he would have stayed well clear of such a meeting.

Back at Dartington, the family was preoccupied with Beatrice’s problems, and Straight was under no pressure to explain the situation at
The New
Republic
to Dorothy. He was the family favorite, worshipped for his gallant fight for liberal positions in the United States, which she feared was turning hard right. Whitney, based in the United Kingdom and moving into business with the skill and dynamism he showed as an air ace, had ignored developments in the family Trust set-up and the Whitney Foundation in the United States.

Whitney visited Straight at Weynoke in 1948 and saw him again at Whitney’s club on this trip in London. They had grown a long way from each other and had little in common except for flying and photography. Whitney was a confirmed conservative, bent on making his way in the business world. His natural attraction was to planes. After the war, he had joined the board of British European Airways. Then he formed Alitalia. Whitney was married but kept a rich playboy image with a mistress and his interests in sports. If he wasn’t on the ski slopes of Switzerland, he was scuba diving in the Caribbean or indulging his love for photography, good food, and wine. His adventurous lifestyle and endeavors were not appreciated by Dorothy as much as those of Michael, who appeared to have sacrificed much for liberal causes she held dear. Straight could talk her language. She read
The New Republic
editorials and features and loved discussing them with him. Whitney was disdainful of the magazine. He was not ashamed of his privileged life or guilty about being rich; he enjoyed the trappings of wealth but was not idle or a dilettante. Whitney was able to apply himself to a business he knew and be comfortable with it. By contrast, Straight had lived a double life and had not been capable so far of sustaining a lasting interest in a profession or job.

Whitney’s easy nature, pragmatic intellect, and good humor had endeared him to the English elite in which he circulated—so much so that he too had a secret. Whitney had been approached by MI6 to “make observations of interest whenever he traveled abroad on business,” a not uncommon practice by British executives.
¹³

In effect, he too had become a spy.

Straight stayed in the United Kingdom until August 1949, then spent a short time in Rome from where he filed a report to
The New Republic
that appeared on August 22. It was here that the FBI pressured the magazine’s Rome correspondent to spy on him. Yet he expected the bureau to use some of his staff in this way. The magazine had been critical of the United States’ ECA program in Italy to aid postwar reconstruction.

Straight spent the next ten weeks back in the United States before returning to Dartington Hall with Rose on November 8. Dorothy was considering the reorganization of the family trust setup. That would see her “trustee,” the Royal Trust Company of Canada (managed by Rose), succeeded by Trust 11, with Rose and a family member, either Whitney or Straight, as “successor” trustees. This arrangement would give the selected family member control over the considerable funds and a big say in how they were used. Rose was urging Dorothy to select Straight. The suggestion may well have been planted in her mind at this moment, for she would have been more influenced by Rose than any other trustee. He had worked on the creation of the split-up of the estate into the several trusts in 1936. The details had taken him a year, and in that time he and his wife Emily had become “very close friends” with Dorothy. He was the one most responsible for investment of the working capital and its dividends for each of the five children.

However, Rose’s recommendation of her son as a fellow successor trustee presented her with a problem. There was something to be said for the trust being run by two friends who had now had a close working relationship over a decade. And Dorothy would have been pleased to know that Rose, then a decade older than Straight, had such confidence in him. Yet Whitney was the elder brother, and he had proven himself a more
natural businessman than Michael. He was also a better decision-maker through wider experience.

Once again the words—relayed to her via a medium—from her first husband would have been prominent in her thoughts: “Whitney . . . will mix in the world—stand out but more as a good businessman and good fellow . . . ”

The decision gave Dorothy much to ponder over the next year. In Straight’s favor was his seeming effort to make
The New Republic
a liberal standard bearer once more. He was clearly far more interested than his brother in the trust’s main activities.

Dorothy had started the “old role” of the magazine, with its liberal, intellectual approach. Straight had turned it into a radical political pamphlet and had brought it close to ruin. By returning
The New Republic
back to what it once was, Straight was trying to show his mother that he had matured.

But had these pushes and pulls within him been resolved? They had originally been caused by his hidden espionage work clashing with his desire to be a public figure. Now his public role would be limited to
The
New Republic
. At 34 years of age, had he—as he maintained—changed enough to be content with such a minor voice?

President Truman announced on September 23, 1949, the explosion of Joe 1, the first Soviet atomic bomb. An excited Teller, who was working at Los Alamos, phoned Oppenheimer to tell him.
¹⁴
In October he told fellow scientists that the United States should go ahead with a superbomb. Teller was certain that the Russians would decide to create their version. Better, he thought, to make the weapon first in the United States as an insurance policy. Yet with key scientists such as Oppenheimer, Szilard and Fermi cautioning against this huge escalation of the arms race, Teller would have to lobby hard to achieve his wish. Communism had made him, like Nixon, a man on a mission determined to make his name in history. A secret debate began in Washington with less than a hundred people over whether the United States should build the superbomb. There were advocates for and against the concept at the AEC and in the congressional committee on atomic energy. Some at the Defense Department joined in, as did a handful of the most accomplished scientists.

Truman was lobbied from different directions. He was more inclined to take advice from Dean Acheson, his secretary of state; Louis Johnson, his secretary of defense; and the Joint Chiefs of Staff than he was the scientists. The military were adamant that they could not let the Soviets push ahead. Acheson was more troubled but thought it would be intolerable for the United States to fall behind. The scientists, led by Oppen-heimer and Fermi, recommended a program to expand the production of uranium and plutonium. They were categorical in not wanting to make the superbomb a priority, although it was to be considered. It was not enough for Teller, who by-passed committees. His argument was compelling. How could the United States afford to let the Soviet Union develop such a weapon that would give it world military superiority? The fear factor was at its feverish best as the military fought for increased funding.

That fear influenced the president. On January 31, 1950, he directed the United States to develop the superbomb. Teller had won his long-held dream. The KGB would now once more have to step up its vigilance and espionage with U.S. scientists involved in this new, more vital program.