Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly by Andrew Cook

Author:Andrew Cook [Cook, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, World, Sidney Reilly
ISBN: 9780752429595
Publisher: Tempus
Published: 2004-01-31T23:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

FINAL CURTAIN

Instead of heading for New York as scheduled, the captain of the SS Olympic docked at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 21 April, due to propeller trouble.1 Although most Olympic passengers completed their journey by transferring to the SS Adriatic, Reilly was in no mood to wait and took a train to New York’s Pennsylvania Station via Boston.2

The object of his visit was to meet Samuel MacRoberts and as many other bankers as he could, in order to persuade them of the virtues of his latest ‘grand plan’. Working as an intermediary for Polish banker Karol Jaroszynsky,4 an old acquaintance from his pre-war St Petersburg days, Reilly was clearly seeking to lay the foundations for an Anglo-American syndicate to invest in a post-Bolshevik economy.

Confirmation of his intentions are to be found in a cable dated 10 May to John Picton Bagge at the Department of Overseas Trade, in which he emphasised his belief that American business was looking for new export markets and saw Russia as a place of some potential.5 In Reilly’s view, MacRoberts in particular was keen to form a syndicate involving American and British interests to exploit the opportunities that a Denikin victory might bring. In an echo of the rivalry over munitions contracts during the war years, MacRoberts was keen to press ahead in order to gain an advantage over J. Pierrpont Morgan. On 15 May Reilly departed for England on board the White Star Line’s SS Baltic.6 Arriving in Liverpool on 25 May, he stayed overnight at the Adelphi Hotel before heading back to London.

Bagge also saw the potential of the Jaroszynsky proposals, recognising that their success would not only bring about new market places for British-made goods, but might eventually lead to economic and political control of Russia. Ultimately, however, British banks like Lloyds, the London County and Westminster Bank and the National and Provincial Bank were reluctant to make major commitments while the success of the White forces was still in the balance. Indecisiveness and the snail-like progress of discussions within the Foreign Office, the Treasury and the Department of Overseas Trade meant that by the time consensus appeared to have been reached, it was a matter of ‘too little, too late’ to be of any benefit to Denikin.

Despite the fact that Reilly’s assignment to South Russia had ended in March, this did not stop him from continuing to correspond with the likes of Rex Leeper and John Picton Bagge on a personal basis, sending them a stream of memorandums and handwritten missives from his Albany apartment in London’s exclusive Piccadilly. Someone else high on Reilly’s address list was Churchill’s aide Sir Archibald Sinclair, MP, who he had first met the previous month at the Hotel Majestic in Paris. Reilly seems to have used the same tried and tested methods of achieving access and influence in British circles as he had utilised so effectively in St Petersburg a decade earlier. This was essentially done by cultivating the aides and associates of the influential, who once secured as acquaintances could then act as a pipeline to their lords and masters.

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