Last of the Cold War Spies by Roland Perry Read Free Book Online Page A

of in the establishment system. British institutions and conventions were not studied or lauded at Dartington. In other words, this new radical facility was looking for a utopia that would overthrow tradition where learning was a preparation for a vocation. Dartington wanted education to relate to the here and now. For instance, the students would be shown how to tend pigs and clean out their pens, the latter being a solitary lesson for most in what they would never do for the rest of their lives.
    Dartington was a state within a state—self-enclosed and self-governing. There was little to relate to in outside communities in rural Devonshire, which was isolated enough as it was. The headmaster, W. B. Curry, was a pacifist whose guru was Bertrand Russell. Curry was cut off from the British establishment and essentially a radical, although he would not have seen his politics in this light. (When World War II broke out, Curry couldn’t cope and committed suicide, which in a perverse way meant that he stuck to his anti-war principles.)
    The school also had a heady atmosphere of sexual freedom and liberal thought. It absorbed the “in” ideology of Marxism. It looked to a false and idealized vision of the mysterious Soviet Union as a trendsetter for life, society, and political development. Not surprisingly, seven of Straight’s final-year class of ten went on to join the Communist Party. Dartington was a wonderful breeding ground for communism despite the fact that only Straight’s “lover,” Margaret Barr, was the one raw and knowing Communist, although she never taught it. (Barr moved to Australia, where she joined the communist movement there.) She limited her Dartington teaching to dancing and to “hands-on” sex education, with Straight chosen as the only one-on-one student. Straight absorbed the naive communist indoctrination while making the banal claim that he was naturally the creative type, particularly in writing and art, although Dartington offered nothing in these fields.

    In this rarefied atmosphere of alleged political and creative enlightenment and inspiration, in the summer of 1933 Straight, then 16, took theschool certificate exam. He failed mathematics, which meant he would have to sit out a year before going on to Cambridge. He thought of himself as a poet/writer but was made to realize that to attain his vague, unshaped dreams of saving the world through revolution, he should comprehend economics, especially at Cambridge. It was reputed to be the most radical university in the country next to the London School of Economics (LSE). In the 1930s, especially the early part of the decade, economics was viewed by the leading left-wing intellectuals as the key to understanding Marxism.
    This was made clear to Straight when he used family contacts to meet liberal American jurist Felix Frankfurter, who was living in Oxford in 1933, on sabbatical from his job as professor at the Harvard Law School. The New Dealer and close friend of Franklin Roosevelt suggested he see the leading academic Marxist, Harold Laski, professor of political science at LSE, even though Straight’s mediocre exam performances didn’t warrant entry there. Laski, who was a regular contributor to The New Republic , was impressed enough by Straight to use his influence as chair of its admissions committee in order to get him in. 5
    Straight moved to London and joined his brother Whitney, who had left Cambridge. They rented an “elegant” house in Mayfair from the writer P. G. Wodehouse, who gave a dinner in their honor. He spoke in support of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
    Whitney showed his eccentric side by having the dining room redone in a luminescent paint, purchasing six big paintings by Ben Nicholson, and buying a monkey, which had its home on the top floor. Soon Whitney, a racing car driver, took off for the European circuit, with his team of mechanics and Maseratis, leaving Straight with a footman to look after him and