AN anonymous poison pen letter describing Wallis Simpson as a "Delilah"
and friend of pro-Nazis whose sordid intrigue had undermined the British
monarchy was praised as "well done" and "surprisingly accurate" by the
Scotland Yard officer asked to investigate it.
Files released at the Public Record Office yesterday show that Special
Branch made no effort to discover the origin of the letter, despite a personal
request from the former King Edward VIII that an inquiry be carried out.
Senior officers not only ignored his concerns, but appeared to support the
author's criticisms of the future Duchess of Windsor.
The letter, apparently written by someone with detailed knowledge of the
courtship of Mrs Simpson, a divorcee, and Edward VIII, was sent to Herman
Rogers, a friend of the couple, in May 1937, three weeks before their
marriage on June 3. Mr Rogers, an American businessman, had provided a
haven for Mrs Simpson at his villa on the French Riviera during the abdication
crisis.
In the tirade, headed Public Opinion - The truth about Mrs Simpson, the
author accuses her of being an immoral social climber at the centre of a
pro-German set of Americans. The letter said: "This Delilah dragged him
away from his true friends and surrounded him with her own circle, all with the
same idea: 'pleasure first'. Mrs Simpson has dared to call herself King
Edward's friend; in reality she was his greatest enemy.
"She paid him all those flattering attentions dear to the heart of every man. She
cooked special little dishes for him with her own fair hands. She feigned a
deep interest in all the subjects which interested him. She advised the King on
his garden, and saw that he wrapped up well for early rounds of golf. Mrs
Simpson seemed to glory in the fact that she caused King Edward to be made
the target of publicity. British citizens had rather King Edward had married a
shopgirl."
The author accused Mr Rogers and his friends of being at the head of a
German-American set that hoped to have free entry to Buckingham Palace.
On May 13, Chief Insp Storrier, the Duke's Special Branch detective, wrote
via his superior to Sir Norman Kendal, assistant commissioner in charge of
the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, passing on "HRH's" request that an
investigation be carried out.
Mr Storrier said abusive and threatening letters had been circulating "freely"
but that most came from "illiterate persons". Mrs Simpson was the object of
the threats. But Sir Norman wrote to Air Vice-Marshal Sir Philip Game,
commissioner of the Metropolitan Police: "It [the anonymous letter] is rather
well done and, so far as we know, it is surprisingly accurate."
Sir Norman said Mr Storrier should be told no copies had been received in
Britain and that, as the author was unknown, the matter should be left there.
~*~
Duchess helps Wedgwood to 31%
increase in profits (UK Times)
BY SALLY PATTEN
THE Duchess of York's US advertising campaign for
Wedgwood china has been so successful that Waterford
Wedgwood is negotiating to renew her two-year contract
nine months before it expires.
Ambassadorial efforts by the Duchess, which include
making up to 50 personal appearances a year across
America, helped the group to a 31 per cent increase in
pre-tax profits before goodwill amortisation to euro18.2
million (£11 million) for the six months to June 30.
Richard Barnes, finance director, confirmed that the
company was in negotiations with the Duchess, whose
current contract is believed to be worth about £1 million a
year.
While the company would not be drawn on the likely
value or duration of any future arrangement, it did confirm
that there were no plans to expand the Duchess's role into
other Waterford Wedgwood products or increase her
number of appearances.
Redmond O'Donoghue, chief executive of Waterford
Crystal, said: "She should be like Frank Sinatra, who used
to come out only occasionally, but when he did, it was
terrific."
While turnover in the core china and glassware businesses
improved 10 per cent, ceramics sales in the all-important
US market surged by 15 per cent.
Total turnover for the group, bolstered by a strong
performance from All-Clad, the US premium cookware
company acquired in June last year, and a favourable
exchange rate, was lifted 30 per cent to euro447 million.
Japan was another strong market for ceramics in the first
half. Sales grew by 15 per cent after several of Waterford
Wedgwood's 56 Japanese concessions were refurbished.
However, the UK and Irish markets, which continue to be
plagued by overcapacity, proved more difficult, with sales
ahead by just 3 per cent.
Mr Barnes revealed that the group paid euro10.2 million
for its recent purchase of Hutschenreuther, the German
ceramics manufacturer, but indicated the group was
unlikely to make any further acquisitions before the end of
the year. Waterford Wedgwood is understood to want to
extend its brand portfolio to luxury leather goods or
upmarket watches.
The interim dividend is 0.66 cents, up 15 per cent. The
shares trading in London rose ½p to a new two-year high
of 75½p.
~*~
Was Simpson a lady who lunched
for Hitler?(UK Times)
BY GRAHAM STEWART
THE tone is snooty, misogynistic and occasionally
hysterical. But the anonymous informant whose
memorandum has now come to light in the Special Branch
files believed he knew a scheming dominatrix when he
saw one, and he saw one in Wallis Simpson.
Advising him on gardening and making him wrap-up warm
when playing golf may not now be considered conclusive
proof of her designs to ensnare the future King Edward
VIII as it did to the informant but, for historians, the more
important contention concerns allegations about her malign
political influence.
The document insists that Mrs Simpson was friendly with
Nazi agents and was surrounded by a social set that every
Cabinet member knew to be closely identified with a
"certain foreign power". The Cabinet records concerning
the Abdication period remain closed to public scrutiny
under a 100-year rule, but it is well-known that Mrs
Simpson's association with Joachim von Ribbentrop, the
German Ambassador to Britain, created talk at the time.
It was his blandishments that mattered, rather than those
of supposedly sympathetic German-Americans referred to
in the file. "Brickendrop", as society wags dubbed the
gaffe-prone ambassador, who became Hitler's Foreign
Minister, had deduced that the British social and political
elite were one and the same.
He sought to further the cause of Anglo-German
friendship through attempts to make the German
Embassy, off The Mall, the centre of a social world.
Instead, his charm offensive soon attracted only the
hangers-on and social alpinists, of which Mrs Simpson
was the prime example. At least in her case he had a route
to the heir to the throne and it was reported that he had
taken to having her sent flowers by the armful.
In fact, politicians were fussing needlessly that Mrs
Simpson was being used to cement pro-German
sentiments in her royal lover's mind. But the extent of her
psychological control on him naturally led to fears that she
was a latter-day Mata Hari, who had learnt unusual
practices during a suspiciously ill-documented period in
the red-light area of Shanghai. All the evidence suggests
that Edward had come to the same political conclusions
even before he became fixated with Mrs Simpson.
His decision in 1937, after his abdication, to visit Germany
and take tea with Hitler showed the direction in which he
wanted to see British foreign policy moving. In 1939 his
views and those of the British Government parted
company.
While the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were in Spain
and Portugal in 1940, Ribbentrop expressed an interest in
taking them back to Germany from where they could be
installed as puppet-rulers of Britain after its defeat.
Churchill's assessment, that they were caught up in the
"backwash" of Nazi intrigues, could equally describe the
cocktail politics that enchanted Mrs Simpson.
~*~
Met refused ex-king's plea to stop smears (The Guardian)
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Scotland Yard secretly refused a demand
from ex-king Edward VIII that they
investigate the source of anonymous
allegations which branded his future wife,
Wallis Simpson, as a "scheming
adventuress" and "a Delilah and a harlot"
who had caused "more grievous harm to
the British empire than any other
foreigner".
Metropolitan police special branch files
released yesterday at the public record
office show that the most senior Met
officers turned down the exceptional
request for action from the Duke of
Windsor only five months after his
abdication on the grounds that the
allegations were "rather well done and as
far as we know... surprisingly accurate".
The first batch of special branch papers to
be released show the anonymous attack
claimed that "British citizens had rather
King Edward married a respectable shop
girl whom he could have enobled" than a
woman "having divorced two husbands in
18 years" and "before she was free was
planning to get a third husband".
Even more damagingly, the article, which
was circulated in May 1937, claimed Mrs
Simpson was surrounded by a social set
of German-American "social climbers"
who had done everything possible to force
the king to marry her. It said the cabinet
was told there was evidence that she
friendly with Nazi agents.
The anonymous author appeared to have
inside knowledge of the relationship
between Edward and Mrs Simpson,
referring to details such as the fact she
used to wrap him up in a scarf each
morning before he went to play golf.
The abdication crisis of December 1936
was a world-wide scandal, which was kept
secret from the public as it unfolded,
ended when Edward VIII announced that
he was stepping from the throne "to marry
the woman I love". The attitude of the rest
of the royal family to Mrs Simpson was
made plain in a letter which the Queen
Mother wrote three years after the crisis in
which she described her as "the lowest of
the low". The file contains no
encouragement from Buckingham Palace
to the police to help the Duke of Windsor
in any way.
The ex-king, who became the Duke of
Windsor, left England for Austria to wait
for Mrs Simpson's divorce to come
through. The decree absolute came
through on May 3, 1937 and he joined her
at a chateau in France owned by a
pro-Nazi American businessman Charles
Bedaux, where they were to marry on
June 3, 1937.
The file includes a letter from the ex-king's
detective, Chief Inspector Storrier, to the
head of special branch dated May 13,
1937, saying that Edward had handed him
the document, Public Opinion - the truth
about Mrs Simpson, which had been
received by Herman Rogers, an American
financier and adviser to Mrs Simpson, and
asking the police to do something about
it.
The attack on Mrs Simpson, written by a
"British citizen who has lived on the
continent for 10 years", said she had
"acted as an enemy rather than a friend of
peace by dragging King Edward off his
throne at a moment when the nations
were trembling on the brink of war". Those
who surrounded her, such as Herman
Rogers, were German-Americans who
posed as the friends of Edward and had
chaperoned her on her visit to Balmoral.
"Instead of the king keeping his four
months old engagement to open
Aberdeen's completed royal infirmary, he
went to Aberdeen station to meet his
guests. That night was chalked on
Aberdeen walls: 'Down with the American
Harlot'."
The author alleged that the charms of
"this scheming adventuress" were not
sufficient to "keep the affection of either
husband for any length of time" and that
she was a woman who was without, heart,
scruples or principles, whose scandalous
efforts to gain the title of queen of England
jeopardised the very existence of the
monarchy.
At Scotland Yard, Sir Norman Kendal, the
assistant commissioner in charge of
special branch, greeted the allegations
with equanimity: "It is rather well done and
so far as we know it is suprisingly
accurate."
Scotland Yard officers decided that since
there was no one else - presumably the
palace - pressing them to do anything
about the document they would tell Chief
Inspector Storrier and by way of him, the
ex-king, that it was unable to trace the
author and had no knowledge of his
identity.