Last of the Cold War Spies (53 page)

Straight expressed the stark view that the arts could be a vehicle for each of these areas for showing feelings of bitterness, rage, and alienation. Drama and dance performances that attacked government, for instance, could also demonstrate rejection of traditional values and exhibit a newfound sense of freedom.
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No doubt if Straight had said this while in his job, there may have been some rage and bitterness from Republicans and some Democrats, who would have wondered about this use of taxpayer funds. Yet Straight was enjoying himself. Instead of tightly disciplined fronts controlled by Moscow, which he once helped keep afloat with family trust money, he could now use the public purse to dramatize attacks on the U.S. establishment. It was perfect for his ongoing role as a KGB agent provocateur and agent of influence.

Straight needed all his manipulative capacities to maintain this radical dramatic commitment, while lobbying to keep the confidence of the congress. He had many a battle against objections to taxpayers’ money being given to groups for expressing strong protest against mainstream values. When asked for a “please explain” from irate congressional representatives reflecting their constituents, Straight hid behind a clause in the NEA act. This prevented any government employee acting as a censor. First, he would nudge grants toward the fringe, cultural “revolutionaries” who stretched the boundaries. When protests came in from outraged citizens, he would slip in behind the clause, saying, “sorry, I’m prevented by law from intervening in any way.”

An example of this was the black dance group the Eleo Pomare Company. It came to Washington to perform at the Kennedy Center and to give demonstrations in city schools. One protest dance, “Embers,” was accompanied with shouts that the United States had fought three wars in order to suppress colored peoples and to keep up the price of rice. The
Washington Star
reported that the group would be visiting schools. It asked if public funds should be used to impose “Black Panther” attitudes on impressionable children.

Straight was called to the office of Senator James L. Buckley of New York, whose assistant, William Gavin, met him. He was asked if he would exclude “Embers” from future performances supported by the endowment. Straight, poker-faced, said it was impossible under the terms of the Endowment Act. He couldn’t even call the company to find out if the offending dance were scheduled for further performances.
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Straight’s method of handling the arts in the United States impressed, it seems, even the Presidium of the USSR. It sent its only woman member, the formidable Soviet minister for culture, Yekaterina Furtseva, to the United States in January 1972, with very short notice. Demonstrating the esteem in which he was held at the Kremlin, she went to Straight’s home for lunch on her first day.

The hard-line Furtseva had made news in the West for her attacks on writers Boris Pasternak and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. She had voiced her displeasure at the Jewish Defense League in the United States. The group had staged persistent protests against touring Soviet artists. It wished to highlight the suppression of Jews and Jewish culture in the Soviet Union and its restriction of movement out of the country, particularly to Israel. Furtseva, it was thought, had turned up without invitation in an attempt
to persuade U.S. officials to stop the protests. She had rarely traveled outside her country.

Furtseva made the arrogant, if not ignorant, assumption that the U.S. government could abuse its powers concerning civil rights the way her own regime did. She insisted that the Jewish Defense League be curbed after it caused the cancellation of the Bolshoi’s first ballet performance at Carnegie Hall. She was told it could not be done. Furtseva responded with scathing remarks about the United States’ lack of resolve to stop violence.

Aware of her attitudes, Straight was thrilled to play host to her, as she was to be received by him. Furtseva was impressed by his home as she eyed the tall columns of the ancient Georgetown house. She seemed confused (Straight alleged) to learn that his boss, Nancy Hanks, lived in a much smaller house.

Furtseva was not impressed by Straight drinking champagne while she plied herself with strong gin and tonic. Real men in Russia wouldn’t touch it. She illustrated this with a story about a 1905 Russian revolutionary feeding champagne to his horse after czarist officers offered it to him in a restaurant. Not even the horses would drink it.
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The next night Straight took her to the heavily policed premier performance of the Balalaika Orchestra at the John F. Kennedy Center. The two got on so well that she sent him an ironic gift—Soviet Champagne Number 4—at the end of her stay.

Clearly, Furtseva appreciated Straight’s work. Intelligence contacts suggested that this was the time when Straight was honored with the high Soviet/KGB award—the Order of Lenin—for his lifelong services to the cause. It would explain Furtseva’s singling him out for a private audience and their cozy relationship.

While he enjoyed more public status than ever before, Straight’s clandestine past continued to nag him as MI5 reviewed his file and compared it with information supplied by Blunt. The frustration caused by not being able to identify the mole inside British intelligence had caused a resurgence in the early 1970s of interest in the responses by the Cambridge ring.

Straight’s discussions with MI5 had been going on for about a decade, and he was wondering when they would finish. His case had been taken
over first by Cecil Shipp, MI5’s top interrogator (later its deputy general). He had a tough reputation after his ruthless inquisition of Alister Watson in the mid-1960s. Yet Straight was handled gently. He was categorized as a voluntary “confessed” informer, not a suspect. His manner and breeding made him someone not to be trifled with, so “chats” were agreeable. Straight used his well-practiced charm to secure the confidence, trust, and in some cases the friendship of his interrogators. The FBI men had been easy. The British, with their mannerly and apologetic approach, were deceptive. They prefaced their requests with “would you mind awfully if . . .” and “it would be most helpful if you could . . .” when in reality he had no choice but to oblige.

On one visit to London he found another MI5 officer, P. A. Osmond, had reviewed Blunt’s interviews and had discovered apparent discrepancies. The question arose as to whether Blunt had recruited Brian Simon, a Cambridge man of their era and a staunch Communist Party member. MI5—namely, its boss, Sir Dick White—wanted Straight to find out. The way Straight handled this quaint “mission” exemplified just how much he was in control of the situation. He played along, took Brian Simon out to dinner, and had lots to eat and drink. After a convivial evening with this fellow traveler, he came back and told Osmond (who reported to White) that Simon was in the clear. He never left the party, Straight told his MI5 masters, and he certainly did not go “underground” for the KGB.

The story that Straight reported to MI5 was that Blunt had tried to recruit Simon but that Simon had said any move by him would be too obvious since he (Simon) was close to Blunt (so close, in fact, that they were lovers, Straight alleged). This seemed a feeble bit of intelligence on Straight’s part, but it was apparently accepted by MI5, although Peter Wright thought this excuse was too thin, and he remained suspicious of Simon. Straight also reported to MI5 that Simon was in love with Tess Rothschild and that the two had a relationship in 1939. This was after the time (1938) when many sources believe Tess was recruited by the KGB. Any relationship in 1939 would have been directed by the KGB, which points to Tess attempting to seduce Simon into the Russian intelligence network. She may well have failed to have him recruited.

This report by Straight would have paved the way for him to have a future meeting with Tess and/or Simon should he choose to return for the 1987 fifty-year reunion of the Cambridge class of 1937. If they were both
accepted as nonagents—as Straight portrayed them to MI5—then they would be free from surveillance. Since Straight had been involved with Blunt in Tess’s recruitment, his keeping MI5 off the track a half a century after the event would have given him great satisfaction.
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Dorothy Elmhirst’s passing left a vacuum at Dartington and a change in the control of the trust running it. Leonard was the chairman of the trust. He was fit enough to continue, but was lost and lonely without Dorothy and ready to retire.

A conflict developed on the board of trustees with William Elmhirst, a trustee since 1957. He had started the Solar Quest, a charitable organization that attempted to bridge the Western esoteric tradition with the Eastern, as practiced by Rabindranath Tagore in India.
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This rift lead to a crisis in the trustee body. Maurice Ash, William’s brother-in-law, and other trustees objected to the charity being based in the hall. Leonard had often used Tagore’s teaching and philosophy in speeches.
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Dorothy, with her spiritual leanings, had approved also of William’s interests and had encouraged him.

Leonard was persuaded to oppose William’s work being centered at the hall. The majority of the board was against him. He was forced to leave with his wife, Vera, who was a “visionary,” or medium. The rift between William and his father was never healed. He realized later that his half-brother Michael had “pretended to mediate between me and Leonard” when he had other reasons for wanting them out of Dartington.

Leonard retired as chairman. He married Susanna Isaacs, a former pupil at the school, in December 1972. She had been offered a teaching post in California for two years, and they moved there. Leonard could never really settle in the United States. He tried to get a loan from the trustees in 1974 to build a house on the Dartington estate. It was refused. He died in the United States in April that year.
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A few weeks later, Straight, 57, married Nina Steers, 37, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Washington. It was a rewarding time for him in his fifth year as deputy chairman of the Arts Endowment. He was enjoying
his status and power, first under Nixon before he was forced to resign the presidency over the Watergate Affair in August 1974, then with Gerald Ford’s administration.

A small hiccup occurred when
The Washington Monthly
discovered that Garment was renting Straight’s Virginia home. Garment’s high profile in the final dark days of Nixon’s presidency meant he was a target for media attention. Straight complained that the magazine described the rental of his home as a scandal. He threatened a libel suit, and Jay Rockefeller phoned the magazine to support Straight. The
Monthly
’s reporter, James Fallows, interviewed Straight for a square-off article.

This incident did not interrupt the enjoyment of his position. There were endless glittering nights, if he desired them, with his attractive new young wife. Ford was beaten by Jimmy Carter in the 1976 presidential election, and it took a year for the new government to decide who would run the Arts Endowment. Hanks thought she might be awarded a third term. Despite personal meetings with the new president, she failed to secure it, so she decided to resign. Joan Mondale, the wife of Vice-President Walter Mondale, was Carter’s adviser on the arts, replacing Garment. She asked Straight to stay on as acting chairman until a replacement for Hanks was found. He accepted the appointment, thinking there was a chance he could slip into the senior role by default. There was always the hurdle of FBI checks, but he may have been able to avoid them. After all, he had been the “loyal” deputy chairman for eight years. He felt also that he was the token Democrat in the Republican arts administration of Nixon and Ford. Carter’s choice, Livingston L. Biddle Jr., was not popular.
The New Republic
and the
Wall Street Journal
attacked the probable appointment. When Hanks failed to get reappointed, she started a campaign to stop Biddle. It was uncovered by the White House. This caused it to dig in on its choice. Biddle’s name was sent to the senate for confirmation.