STEPHEN KOCH
37
the Anschluss of 1938, Stalin's protests were strictly perfunctory.
All this had required a lot of smoke and mirrors. Bookstore windows
groaned with titles on Viennese outrages; the press was drenched in
Austria's agony. Naomi Mitchison was dispatched to Vienna by Victor
Gollancz, with a "generous" advance to write what became her
Vienna
Diary .
Mitchison, an inveterate fellow traveller, was greatly flattered by
being made a courier. "I was carrying papers," she proudly wrote, "from
socialist friends to their British comrades in my thick woolen knickers."
From Stephen Spender and W. H. Auden to Hugh Gaitskell, the fellow
travellers were made to converge
en masse.
Strachey was right. Vienna was
the
place to be.
Meanwhile, John Lehmann took up his job as a "secret correspon–
dent," typing up innocent but fervid "anti-fascist" articles. Presently he
was approached by a "swarthy" comrade, casually introduced, who in–
sisted upon getting together privately with Lehmann. And what did he
want to talk about? Politics. Serious politics.
The chat at this sort of recruitment rendezvous was notable for being
at once very probing and distinctly evasive. At last the stranger had a sug–
gestion. Up until now Lehmann had merely been writing articles - wisely
suggested by the International - and placing them in various publications
back home . Wonderful, brave work. But there was other work to do for
anti-fascism. Even more important, more serious work. Special work.
Like?
Well, it dealt with ... "other political information."
Other information?
Precisely what "other information" remained unclear, but the swarthy
visitor was persistent, "refusing to take 'no' for an answer."
"My 'recruiting sergeant' was very pressing, but extremely vague
about what he exactly wanted me to do ."
Lehmann became uneasy. "I smelt a rat ... that is, I decided he
would finally reveal that he wanted me to become a Soviet agent." At this
point, still deep in his " secret correspondent's" innocence and a little
scared, Lehmann turned for advice to John Strachey. What passed be–
tween Strachey and Lehmann is not recorded. Lehmann releases only the
information that their talk "convinced me I was treading on too danger–
ous ground." Mter his conversation with Strachey, "the mysterious gen–
tleman" who had been so very persistent "vanished from my life."
Lehmann ends his mini-confession with a sigh: "Of course I see now
that I was peculiarly vulnerable, and perhaps lucky to swim past the lob–
ster-pot as easily as I did."
This heir to Bloomsbury has been standing at the precise point of in-
