Maverick Spy

Stalin's Super-Agent in World War II

Hamish MacGibbon

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781784537739
• eBook ISBN:
  9781786722638
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Biografie in ambito storico

A few years before he died James MacGibbon confessed to his close family that he had spied for the Soviet Union during World War II. At the end of the war MI5 suspected him of espionage and interrogated him but he did not confess. Nevertheless they kept James, his wife Jean and their young family under close surveillance for a number of years, regularly intercepting their mail and recording their telephone conversations. Only after James's death did the true significance of what he might have revealed become clear – in his wartime office role, James had access to the plans for Operation Overlord, D-Day. In this book, James's son Hamish tells the story of his parents, their interaction with the communist party and their flirtation with wartime espionage. It is a unique portrait of two very ordinary people caught up in the extraordinary events of World War Two and the Cold War.

1

Son of the Manse

James, the youngest of three brothers, was born on 18 February 1912, in the manse at Hamilton near Glasgow where his father, James senior, was the Church of Scotland minister. His mother was the daughter of a prosperous owner of a shipping and shipbuilding firm whose wealth had been substantially increased by his marriage to the only child of a rich landowner.

James senior and his wife, Margaret, were seen as a highly suitable couple. He was in a respected profession – having, much to his parents’ satisfaction, risen socially from his father’s position in ‘trade’ (a successful chain of haberdashers). He was handsome, wore a rimless monocle, conveyed gravitas. She had beauty and money. The wedding generated much excitement: in October 1906, the local paper breathlessly reported the demand for tickets and the social quality of the guests.

Perhaps the marriage was more socially desirable than emotionally satisfying. James remembered:

When I was still young, my mother told me of their ‘terrible’ marriage night. Indeed, it is hard to know how they produced three nicely spaced children at all. I have no memory of their sharing a bedroom, much less a bed […] We three boys often lay on top of mother’s bed for talk in the morning, much, I think, to our father’s disapproval.

Shortly after the outbreak of war in 1914 James senior joined up as a padre and was awarded the Military Cross for attending to the wounded and dying under fire. His army service ceased after two years when he was appointed Minister of St Mungo’s Cathedral, Glasgow, the second most senior post in the Church of Scotland. He was well known and admired for his sermons, his fine speaking voice and his distinguished demeanour. He was not entirely the model of an austere Presbyterian: he drank a bottle of port a day, the decanter always at hand at meals for him only – his wife and guests were served with something else. Actually, he was probably a bit daunting to his two elder sons, George and Rab. But not for young James, his father’s favourite, who inherited his presence and fine speaking voice.

In 1922, when James was ten, his mother returned from a visit to her sister in Siena (married to the mayor, an enthusiastic Fascist). Her husband met her in London where they spent a few days with his brother and sister-in-law, touring in their chauffeur-driven open-top Daimler. Possibly because of exposure on one of these excursions, James’s father contracted a heavy cold, which developed into pneumonia. He died soon afterwards.

James’s warm-hearted, self-centred, eccentric mother’s influence on him was on the whole benign, but she was possessive, and he came to resent this. She lived entirely for pleasure, and had several liaisons, probably fairly innocent, during and after her marriage. With plenty of money, she could afford to act on impulse.

In 1925, James followed his elder brothers to Fettes College in Edinburgh, not part of the Scottish educational system, an ‘English’ public school like its fellows south of the border. There was an annual concert at Fettes, a classy occasion attended by parents and local dignitaries. At one of them, James and other boys observed the scene from a window as men in white ties and tails handed their women, in ballroom dresses and furs, out of their cars. There was much comment among the boys on the make and qualities of each car, aspersions cast on modest ones. James was confidently dismissive of the latter since his mother drove a De Dion-Bouton. No one laughed more than he when an old taxi ground up the drive. James’s merriment turned to horror when out stepped his mother, dressed to the nines, except for footwear – Wellington boots. ‘It was such a lovely evening, I thought I’d walk across the fields and do the final stretch by taxi’, she explained. Such social confidence, even a touch of eccentricity, was an aspect of her youngest son’s make-up.

A mix of genes and nurture in James produced someone who shared several of his parents’ characteristics, but the result was very different from them and his brothers. His charm, nonconformity (with traces of Presbyterian morality), tolerance and energy would impress, quite often captivate, most people he encountered.

* * *

It was on a family holiday on the coast of Northumberland, in 1926, when James was 14, that his family encountered the Howards. Jean, the older of two sisters, described him in her memoir, I Meant to Marry Him, as ‘Strong, cheerful, open-hearted – and what was equally important – unusually open-minded.’ The two families were decidedly different. As Jean put it: ‘My parents, my sister and I led a life of extreme regularity, governed by my father’s habitual needs: holidays were planned in January; meals never five minutes late.’ On the other hand, the MacGibbons, she said, ‘Lived like lilies of the field. Fatherless, they responded happily to their mother’s impulses which took her anywhere on the spur of the moment.’

The two families spent days on the beach, and in the evenings entertained each other. James played the ukulele and sang ‘Valencia’ at the top of his voice. At her mother’s behest, Jean ‘Gave them my Paris street cries … Those raucous, incomprehensible shrieks … must have seemed bizarre in the extreme. But not to James who said later he had been tremendously impressed.’

Jean’s mother, like James’s, was called Margaret. That was the only feature the mothers had in common. She had been a child prodigy; at a young age she played a Mozart piano concerto with the Scottish Orchestra in the St Andrew’s Hall. However, worn out by tours of Europe organised by her exploitative mother, she had to give up her career by the age of 18. Fortunately, she found her métier as an accompanist when she was taken on by a celebrated coloratura soprano touring Europe and America, enjoying Edwardian society in the company of celebrated musicians. She also gave singing lessons. One of her pupils was Will Howard, who fell in love with her on sight. They were married not long after, and moved to Hampstead Garden Suburb – which she hated. She liked to live in style, the cause of some anxiety to her loving husband. (During World War II, tea at her house was served by her maid, including wonderful cakes, the like of which were not supposed to be obtainable under rationing – she had a ‘dear friend’ in Fortnums.) She died of a stroke, 20 years before her husband.

Will was proud of coming from a long line of what he described as ‘yeoman farmers’. He achieved a good degree in history and hoped to become an academic, but his father compelled him to join the family firm of accountants. A gentle and kind person, his financial caution would be noted by MI5 listeners when he refused a request from his daughter Jean to invest in her husband’s publishing venture.

* * *

Just before the end of the Bamburgh holiday, James’s mother injured herself, falling on a rock while bathing. Her bleeding head was held above water by Jean’s mother until help arrived. Both families stayed on so that Jean’s mother could nurse James’s. Thus James and Jean were able to get to know each other. While James was at Fettes, Jean went to St Leonards, the robust girls’ school in St Andrews, literally open to the bracing winds of the North Sea (dormitory windows were never closed, even in winter). There she had a good education, although sport was a priority (a talented pianist, she was not excused cricket catching practice the day she was to play Schumann’s Piano Concerto). Puzzlingly, given fairly enlightened parents, she did not go to university; possibly because they thought she was not psychologically up to the stress, or maybe her father felt that the expense was not worth it. Her education continued after St Leonards, mainly on her own initiative. Living in her parents’ home in Hampstead, she took singing lessons and was given tutorials in Middle English. This was followed by a time in Paris with lessons in French, in which she became fluent, and at the piano there she practised every day. She began to work at scraps of stories, making copious notes of overheard conversations and experiences in her notebook, a lifelong practice.

The MacGibbons and the Howards stayed in contact, although, generally, James and Jean pursued separate lives during their teens. In their late teens James took Jean to a golf club dance. ‘But it was no use,’ according to Jean, ‘He thought me a pretentious intellectual snob, I thought him a bourgeois bore.’

* * *

James had been removed from Fettes at the age of 17 by his mother. Her middle son had performed well at Oxford reading classics, and won a rugby blue. James could almost certainly have proceeded to the University, but his mother wanted to keep him with her when she moved from Scotland to London – one of her impulsive moves – to enjoy the freedom and pleasures of metropolitan life. She often moved house. One of her motives was to be ‘rid of the problem of servants’. Their first London home in the late 1920s was in Golders Green, taking with them their devoted maid. But even she was a burdensome responsibility, so Margaret took a two-bedroomed service flat in the recently opened luxury hotel, Grosvenor House. She went on several trips abroad, where she seems to have enjoyed the occasional romantic liaison, including one on a visit to her elder son George, a naval officer now stationed in Malta.

Instead of university, James’s mother proposed a job for him in the motor trade, suggested to her by a suave second-hand car salesman.

About that time, Jean’s father was proceeding to the funeral of his own father who had been a shareholder in the British subsidiary of the American-owned publishing firm of Putnam & Co. Ltd. In the car with him was the firm’s chairman, Constant Huntington. As the cortège turned into Golders Green Crematorium, Huntington observed a young man standing at the verge, top hat in hand, head bowed, paying his respects (from much experience of funeral protocol in Scotland). ‘I would like that young man to work for me,’ he said. ‘I should think you could,’ replied Will. ‘His mother’s putting him into the motor trade.’

James joined Putnam in April 1929, as it happened, just two months after the firm published the English translation of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. There was reprint after reprint. It was an auspicious start to a career which he would enjoy for his long working life. Initially working on publicity – designing advertisements and sending out review copies – James moved to the sales department, logging orders and becoming familiar with booksellers’ names and tastes. Another big seller was Marie Stopes’ Married Love. Stopes invited James to join her famous – and at the time highly controversial – birth-control clinic as manager, but fortunately he declined; apparently, she was a difficult employer and he would have been diverted from a satisfying and successful career.

Meanwhile, James’s mother was once again on the move. She bought a house in the newly built Wentworth Estate in Surrey, where the famous championship course had just been completed, and golf took up much of James’s time. Life opened up for him. At the club there were regular Saturday night dances, with full orchestras and white ties. Friendships with girls became easier because he was a debenture-holder – a loan to the club on fixed interest – enabling him to invite them on Sundays (women were barred for the rest of the week).

Much as he enjoyed life in London, James felt the need to broaden his cultural experience. He was aware that Berlin was the place to be, the city where intellectuals sought freedom and enlightenment. In 1932, he asked for a year off. His boss, Huntington, approved the plan. It would extend James’s knowledge of the world, he believed, allowing him to frequent the ‘salons where authors could be found’. (Publishing then was ‘an occupation for gentlemen’, as the publisher Fred Warburg a couple of decades later semi-ironically entitled his memoir.) As it happened, the sabbatical was the start of a political awakening that would lead to the most extraordinary episode of his life.

Huntington put James in touch with Frau Helene von Nostitz, a friend of Rodin who sculpted a bust of her (James had never heard of him) and a leading light in Berlin society. Helene was a niece of President Hindenburg, who would appoint Hitler as chancellor in 1933. Her husband Alfred had been ambassador for Saxony to Imperial Germany. It may be assumed that the von Nostitzes were liberal aristocrats, no doubt with a distaste for petit bourgeois Hitler and Brownshirt thugs, and antipathetic to the Nazis. But their children probably did not share that view, or certainly not their elder son, Oswald. He was a Brownshirt who marched in anti-Jewish demonstrations. At that time, James was politically uneducated and appreciated little of what was happening.

The Nostitzes had lost their fortune during the period of catastrophic hyper-inflation in Germany, and were happy to welcome respectable young Englishmen as ‘house’ (in other words, paying) guests. Oswald was a few years older than James, and the younger son, Herbert, James’s contemporary. Their sister was 16-year-old Renata. The Nostitz family were amused by his ignorance of the world and art and literature, but they also sensed his eagerness to learn more. And so he was welcomed into the family, soon escorting Helene on her many social engagements. Her husband Alfred did not go out much, perhaps because of the expense, whereas James was happy to pay.

And so a new life began, meeting cultivated Berliners at parties and other public gatherings. It was agreed that Renata should give him regular lessons, which involved his reading aloud to her. Before long his German became fluent. Instead of a tuition fee for Renata, which her parents thought to be socially unacceptable, he was allowed to take her to theatres and the cinema. During this time they became fast friends, exchanging ideas, thoughts and troubles as they walked around local lakes. On James’s side there was a growing love, which remained unexpressed until just before he left Berlin, over a year later. They became increasingly close during their walks and talks. He got as far as kissing her and declaring his love, which was received affectionately, but not reciprocated. It was friendship but, according to James, not passion on her part. A photograph, with an affectionate message in James’s album shows her at 16, beautiful, the epitome of mid-1930s chic. Another shows him with Helene and Renata on either arm, striding down what might be Unter den Linden. In a later portrait, photographed about 1946, she is a mature young woman, as beautiful and sophisticated as ever. They remained fond friends pretty well for the rest of their lives.

By spring 1933 James had spent over a year in Germany. His mother was worried that he had ‘changed families’, and sent an urgent plea for him to return home. ‘This was the last time that I allowed my mother to manipulate me,’ said James. The time spent in Berlin was probably more mind-expanding than three years spent at university where, according to him, James would probably have been more concerned about getting into the college rugby 15 as much as anything else. During his stay he worked for a firm of printers, giving him an understanding of book production that would serve him well.

Only towards the end of his visit did he begin to become properly aware of what was happening in Germany. The morning after the burning of the Reichstag, he found a Jewish publisher he had worked for, weeping, his books banned and ready for burning. Kurt Hahn, Jewish founder of the progressive school, Salem (then, after his escape to Britain, Gordonstoun), came to the Nostitzes for help. ‘I can’t forget his haunted, hunted face,’ James wrote to Jean. His letter, although written in Berlin, had a British postmark, posted on his arrival in England, no doubt as a precaution to protect the von Nostitzes and others mentioned in it.

Culturally, he was a changed man. Subconsciously, the visit began a sea change in his political perspective.

* * *

During his time in Germany, James had been corresponding with Jean’s mother. He found that Jean was in Mombasa staying with her Aunt Nelly, one of Jean’s mother’s sisters, who was married to the Union Castle Line representative for East Africa. Jean had had an ‘unsuitable’ love affair with an American singer, and the trip to Kenya was planned to break the relationship – a ruse which succeeded. Jean wrote diary letters home and to James in Berlin, and he responded with accounts of life in that exciting city.

Jean’s mother had written to her, saying that she would find James ‘much changed’ by experience in Germany. As Jean wrote in her memoir: ‘It was not so much that James was fundamentally changed, as open to new dimensions of life and art. In the National Gallery he demonstrated how bourgeois the Constables were. Where were the Lochners? The Cranachs? Hieronymus Bosch? We found them disgracefully tucked away. I was enchanted.’

When he got home, James’s mother had returned to Scotland for a holiday in a country hotel. She had bought a small, second-hand Rolls-Royce, and James spent a carefree summer driving it and girlfriends to the many golf courses, such as Gleneagles, in easy reach. The holiday was interrupted by a request from the Howards, who had been invited to join a party at a rented house in Unterach, on the shores of Lake Attersee, near Saltzburg. James was invited to join the party, taking over from Jean’s father, who was relieved not to have to go. Huntington agreed to extra leave for James, thinking no doubt that more Continental experience would be good for the aspiring publisher.

James made one condition: only a few days after their arrival in Unterach, he had to be in Sanssouci, the former palace of Frederick the Great in Potsdam, for a few days in order to celebrate Renata’s birthday. Jean thought this a bit strange, but generously waved him off, finding a handsome young Austrian count to keep her company. James was glad that he had kept his promise to be with Renata on her birthday, although it was clear that her love was elsewhere. By the time James returned to Unterach Jean had abandoned the count and had become engaged to a schoolmaster, a member of a skiing party, who wrote her love poems in Greek and Latin. James, brushing him aside, was unimpressed by his ordering an omelette in Latin in a monastery bier keller.

During the return journey to London with the Howards, his feelings for Jean blossomed. Her mother left early to get back to her husband, leaving Jean and her sister Ferelyth with him to make their way back together. About half-way back the car’s big end broke, forcing them to stay for nearly a week in Heidelberg, while spare parts were ordered. They passed the time walking in the Black Forest, once taking a trip up the Rhine in a German barge and, above all, dancing in the evenings at the hotel. They found that they danced well together, and felt they were the cynosure of all at the tables around the floor. This, James felt, was the true beginning of their love.

That autumn, Jean started her first term at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, living with her parents, and she and James went to many dances. When James presented her with an orchid one evening, Jean felt that he really had come to love her, which indeed he had. Although marriage had not really arisen in his mind, after the Howard Christmas dinner he told Jean he wanted to drive to Hampstead Heath for a walk. But, while they were still sitting in the garage of the house, and without any forethought, he asked her to marry him. Jean’s mother was sitting in bed, reading, when they went to announce their news. As James recalled, ‘It was all rather dreamlike; I had not even considered the practical expense of setting up a home together.’ Fortunately, his mother’s solicitor was on hand to make arrangements that provided each of her sons with an allowance of £300 ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue
• 1 Son of the Manse
• 2 ‘Ma voisine chez Shakespeare’
• 3 Spain
• 4 The Party and British Attitudes to the USSR
• 5 War: James Recruited by the Intelligence Corps
• 6 The Family in Berkshire, 1940–1941
• 7 Barbarossa
• 8 Natasha
• 9 Code Name ‘Dolly’
• 10 The Red Army: From Disaster Towards Victory
• 11 Tehran and the D-Day Plans
• 12 ‘He’ll be wearing yellow boots’
• 13 The Good Life in America
• 14 The Security Service Takes an Interest
• 15 A New Author; A New Firm
• 16 ‘Not the way it’s generally done’
• 17 A Visit from Mr Skardon
• 18 Mr White Misses the Plane
• 19 A New Director: Would He Fit In?
• Epilogue
• Appendix
• Notes
• Sources