Authors: Nick Barratt
Clearly, Oldham knew how to look after himself in a foreign country and possessed more than sufficient language skills to get by; the ‘poor French’
deployed in 1929 was almost certainly a ruse to support his own masquerade as a humble clerk, an ingénue abroad. Furthermore, it is highly likely that he came up with his desperate plan on one of his earlier trips to Geneva on League of Nations business, the place where De Ry returned in foul spirits after he had been deceived by Ianovitch in 1928. Given the way ‘private information’ had a habit of spreading around Geneva’s bars and restaurants, Oldham would have picked up details of the attempted sale and deception fairly easily, possibly over a late night drink at the International Bar or at the Beau Rivage when the flawed plans of others could be refined in alcohol-fuelled conversation. Doubtless, Oldham thought that he could do better than de Ry and would not make the same mistakes – his reluctance to leave the code books unattended on his first visit to the Soviet Embassy was born partly out of natural caution, but also shows some prior knowledge of the way de Ry was tricked out of his material by the Soviets.
However, what is certain is the strain that Oldham felt as a result of his duplicitous behaviour. His first bout of sick leave on 18 October 1929 can probably be explained by the shock of Bessedovsky’s revelations – after all, he would have had prior warning about the nature of the claims before they hit the press and his prolonged absence meant that any internal investigation was seriously hindered. Intriguingly, the Oldhams’ good friend Count Octave de la Chapelle suffered a nervous breakdown at around the same time, ostensibly due to a ‘misappropriation by a trusted member of staff’
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that affected his legal business. It took him some time to return to work. However, given the sensitive nature of his legal business and close connection with key Romanian politicians and diplomats, it is tempting to speculate on what, exactly, was misappropriated.
In 1931, Bessedovsky finally published his book in English about his time in the Soviet diplomatic service and provided far more detail about the ways in which Ianovitch and his associates obtained codes – in particular, through agents carefully placed in Romanian circles:
I remember a conversation I had during a poker party given by Dovgalevsky. This game occupied a great deal of the time of the
higher officials at the embassy; Dovgalevsky and Piatakov were both enthusiastic card players. I won a fair amount of money and eventually stopped playing, as I found my continual wins embarrassing. One day Ianovitch was playing. He had just lost some thousands of francs to Dovgalevsky and was very nervous. I said to him ironically:
‘What does it all matter? There are plenty of fools wanting to sell codes’.
‘I like that,’ he replied. ‘What have I made out of these codes? Scarcely a few thousand dollars. I know a fellow who has had some luck with the Romanians. He has managed to place a woman near one of the heads of the Romanian Siguranza [Special Branch] and now he has all the Romanian codes at his fingers’ ends and knows their inmost secrets.
He
has made some money!’
‘How is it’, I said, ‘that the Romanians can’t see that the chief of their police is working for the OGPU?’
He laughed noisily.
I was astonished and asked some questions. A few glasses of vodka made him talkative.
‘He’s an ace. His whip has been felt by nearly all Bessarabia. When he arrests Romanian communists he tortures them in his office. How could the Romanians believe that he is in league with us?’
I was horrified. Here was an agent of the OGPU who tortured Romanian communists. It was diabolical. I said that the thing was a disgrace to the Soviet government. None of the political police of former regimes had ever used such abominable methods.
‘Don’t be so simple,’ replied Ianovitch. ‘Don’t you know the value of the services of an agent of that stamp? We should be willing to send him communists to flog ourselves so that he can carry on with his work. And if revolution breaks out in Romania let him be shot with the rest!
We
shan’t intervene. The effect of his activities is clearly revolutionary – he gives us information and flogs Romanian peasants. Thanks to him we even know the names
of the people who dance with the ambassador’s wife in Paris’. Dovgalevsky flushed. ‘Remember that the Romanian Siguranza exchanges its information for counter-espionage abroad. Thanks to that we have had tips worth tens of thousands of dollars – hundreds, perhaps. A few peasants flogged in Romania – well, that’s all in the day’s work!’
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Such news would have been deeply unnerving to anyone connected with the Romanian diplomatic service, given the way in which communications had been compromised, although no connection to de la Chapelle or his immediate associates can be proven. On 9 June 1931, de la Chapelle shut himself in his office in Gresham Street. A few hours later his secretary heard a loud noise from his room and rushed in to see if he was alright. She found him slumped at his desk with a bullet wound to his head and a revolver by his side; the coroner’s verdict was suicide. On 13 June, the Count’s funeral was held in his beloved Tollesbury and he was laid to rest at West Street burial ground, facing the sea. Significantly, it would appear that the Oldhams were not present.
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By this stage, Oldham was facing demons of his own. It is clear that a major cause of his lengthening absence from work was a growing alcoholism, referenced by Bystrolyotov when he tried to get Oldham drunk, and no doubt exacerbated through 1929 and 1930 by the double life that he was leading. Nonetheless, the root cause of his fondness for drink can be traced to one of the hidden pleasures of the Foreign Office – ‘the Mine’, as the basement bar was referred to – presided over by the head office keeper ‘assisted by his elegant and charming wife and daughter’. Antrobus described the setup:
The bar was quite a picturesque place and looked more like a wine-shop in the south of France than an English public house; the bar itself was a couple of broad planks on a foundation of upended barrels and the stock-in-trade was on view behind it, in the shape of half a dozen puncheons of ale, sundry cases of bottled stout and soda water and a goodly selection of stone jars and bottles of whisky, gin and brandy.
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For someone with a weakness for drink, this was a dangerous lure and can help explain how Oldham slipped into bad habits; there was something of a drinking culture in the Communications Department. As Antrobus explained:
Ciphering is thirsty work and although the true, bred-in-the-bone cipherer has a strong head, we were obliged in times of pressure to reinforce our numbers with selected amateurs. Some of these gentlemen, I regret to say, had not acquired so great an impermeability to the effects of strong waters as to justify them in drinking so much as they did…. I have certainly seen temporary gentlemen emerge from the Mine’… with their faculties sufficiently impaired to make the reading of what they subsequently wrote a task beyond human powers.
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Drink clearly affected staff in different ways, and not all of them were tolerated:
One young gentleman, I remember, specialised in bumpers of port and amused himself by discharging the empty glasses at the heads of those who entered the room; another repaired to the basement at an early hour of the evening and drank himself into a complete coma; while a third, less immoderate but more volatile, became so amorously inclined towards a dark-eyed damsel in the adjoining room that his advances led to an active repulse from the lady concerned and his consequent ejection from the department.
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Not all of Oldham’s first period of absence can be blamed on the booze. He was clearly well enough to accompany his wife on a trip to Algiers by boat, departing from Southampton on 30 January 1930 having booked passage on the
Johan de Witt
, a vessel owned by the Nederland royal mail. This choice of transport suggests an attempt to avoid the more popular liners that they would normally have considered. Also on board was a young lady from Glasgow with the rather exotic name of Yolande Gabrielle Jeanne Elizabeth Mauboussin,
the daughter of a French-born language teacher. She was to become the Old-hams’ daughter-in-law later in 1930 when she married Thomas Wellsted on 22 September at Kensington Parish Church.
Equally, Oldham’s absence was a useful cover for his regular trips to Paris to deliver material. It may well have been necessary for Oldham to use his counter-surveillance skills to avoid detection by his own colleagues and associates in the diplomatic corps, given he was meant to be at home recuperating from his ‘illness’.
Nevertheless, as the strain increased, Oldham’s absences from work continued. He was signed off sick again on 23 January 1931, forwarding various medical certificates that extended his absence until at least 23 February and probably the end of March. A further entry in the Foreign Office day books, dated 17 April 1931, stated that ‘after being at the office from 1 to 9 April after his last sick leave, he was taken ill with bronchitis’ and ‘hopes to return soon after 20 April.’
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It is fair to state that he spent almost as much time away from Whitehall as he did in his office, taking into account his ‘official’ trips abroad on League of Nations business. Yet it was from Geneva that he fled when Bystrolyotov ambushed him at the Beau Rivage and his sudden disappearance landed him in hot water. The Deputy Head of the Communications Department, Commander Cotesworth, made a complaint ‘regarding Mr Oldham’s behaviour in September and October’.
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So where had he gone?
Having unmasked Oldham, Bystrolyotov and Bazarov planned a trip to London in early September to thoroughly research Oldham’s identity and background. This did not take long. It was a relatively simple task to discover his true position within the Foreign Office by consulting the
Foreign Office List
and
Imperial Kalendar
while Oldham’s address was readily available in the published electoral lists. The next step was to visit in person, to reinforce the fact that OGPU could gain access to Oldham whenever and wherever they chose – a gesture that would make it abundantly clear that the nature of the relationship was firmly out of Oldham’s hands.
The OGPU agents returned to London. Adopting the Perelly guise once more, Bystrolyotov modified his dress code to reflect his location – dark grey suit jacket, striped trousers, a bowler hat – and set off for Kensington, with a
last exhortation from Bazarov praying for a successful outcome to the mission, ‘May God be with you.’
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Once again, we are indebted to Bystrolyotov’s vividly written memoirs and OGPU reports as an account of what happened.
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On his arrival at 31 Pembroke Gardens, Bystrolyotov was greeted at the door by the Oldhams’ maid, to whom he presented a calling card that had been specially designed to contain his Perelly crest, as well as false credentials that identified him as a representative from a Dresden bank. The maid took the card – as well as a £1 tip, a large amount for the time – but informed Bystrolyotov that her master was not at home. This was a surprise and he was even more unnerved when Oldham’s wife – ‘a beautiful woman around 50 years old who tried to look younger than her age’ – came to the door to demand to know what he wanted with her husband. Thinking quickly, Bystrolyotov explained that he was there to provide some advice about Oldham’s investments, which were at risk due to the volatile stock market. This shows some knowledge of Oldham’s affairs – it is possible the two men had discussed financial matters during their meetings. At any rate, Lucy’s attitude to the handsome stranger relaxed somewhat, she confided that her husband was out of town and asked whether she could help. This provided Bystrolyotov with a perfect opportunity to find out more information before he confronted Oldham.
Playing the part of a confused foreigner, he explained, ‘I’m sorry, I’m not very familiar with British etiquette, but I hope it’s not out of line to invite you to lunch with me at the Ritz hotel?’ Duly impressed at his choice of expensive venue, Lucy agreed and they arranged to meet the following day.
Over a lengthy lunch, washed down with ‘a bottle of high-priced burgundy and coffee with cognac’, Lucy warmed to the handsome count and revealed that her husband was a hopeless alcoholic. She explained that his absence from home was due to ongoing treatment for his addiction in Rendlesham Hall, a large country house near Woodbridge in Suffolk that had been converted into a sanatorium in 1923. Commenting on her husband’s position at work, she noted that he was in poor standing with Monty, who she claimed was the head of the intelligence service at the Foreign Office.
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It is not certain whether this topic of conversation was an attempt
to impress the count by a bit of shameless namedropping or to issue a subtle warning that the Oldhams were under the scrutiny of security forces – it would appear that Oldham’s liaison with Perelly was still a mystery to her, though Bystrolyotov was later convinced that she had been the driving force behind her husband’s actions in July 1929. Either way, she was being disingenuous. Sir Charles Hubert Montgomery was the Chief Clerk in the Foreign Office and, by 1930, the Deputy Under-Secretary of State; he would have known about Oldham when the Communications Department was set up. To have fallen out of favour with such an important figure within the Foreign Office did not bode well for Oldham’s prospects.
In a desperate attempt to help her husband, Lucy asked the count if he would visit Oldham at Rendlesham and ensure that he completed the treatment. She indicated that he had failed in previous attempts at rehabilitation – most notably during his major period of absence from work between October 1929 and April 1930. This presented Bystrolyotov with a golden opportunity to exert his influence over the stricken Oldham, one that was made easier by Lucy’s offer of the family car, complete with chauffeur.