Dr Gerald Roche Lynch stared at the mouse, which did not stare back – for it
was quite dead.
The death of a mouse in the custody of the man known as the “king’s poisoner”
was scarcely a surprise; but when it had recently ingested tobacco from one
of the prime minister’s cigars, its demise was quite possibly a matter of
the gravest national security.
Since taking his first puffs as a schoolboy and experiencing Cuban cigars in
Havana as a young war correspondent, Winston Churchill was rarely without a
cigar clamped between his jaws. It was a potent political prop and steady
source of solace when the “black dog” of depression snapped at his heels.
In the second world war, cigars brought ease and balance to a mind and body
forced to carry the last hopes of a democratic Europe. Cigars, like food,
were fuel to power his titanic fight. But, as the Churchill archives have
now revealed, they also brought a problem for British security: could his
love of cigars be exploited by an assassin?
On March 27, 1941, the British ambassador to Cuba, Sir George Ogilvie Forbes,
was informed that the Cuban National Commission of Tobacco had prepared a
gift for Churchill “in recognition of his services to the causes of
democracy”.
It was a beautiful mahogany cabinet, 5ft tall, containing 2,400 of the
island’s finest cigars. Forbes made clear in a telegram that, in his
opinion, the gift was “impossible to refuse”.
On April 8, at the official presentation in Havana, Ogilvie Forbes saw what a
truly striking gift had been given. The cabinet had exquisite marquetry and
its doors opened to reveal six shelves, on each of which sat four wooden
boxes marked with the exclusive brands they contained: H Upmann, Por
Larranaga, Ramon Allones, Romeo y Julieta, El Rey del Mundo and Hoyo de
Monterrey.
Churchill was informed in a memo from John Colville, one of his private
secretaries, who warned that Scotland Yard had advised against smoking
cigars given as gifts: “They say that any noxious substance could have been
added to the cigars during the process of manufacture, and it would only be
practicable to examine chemically a limited number of them.”
No one in the government, with the obvious exception of Churchill himself,
wanted him to smoke the cigars on their arrival. As they were now in the
hold of a Red Cross ship travelling to Britain via America, Winston’s
concerned colleagues had a little time to examine their options.
Colville met Brendan Bracken, Churchill’s close friend and parliamentary
private secretary, to discuss what to do. Bracken was blunt. In his opinion
the very existence of the cigars should be hidden; if Churchill did not know
about them, he surely could not smoke them.
Colville, however, disagreed and later wrote a memo to Eric Seal, the PM’s
principal private secretary: “When these arrive, I think it will be very
difficult to do as Mr Bracken suggested and suppress them! The prime
minister is quite likely to ask what has become of them and in any case they
represent a gift of considerable value. Would it not be best for you to ask
Mr Bracken and Mrs Churchill to represent to the prime minister that they
should not be smoked?”
The following day Seal sent a hand-written note to Professor Lindemann,
Churchill’s close friend and scientific adviser, which concluded: “In short,
is there any watertight examination by means of which we could make sure the
cigars are okay?”
Lindemann turned to Victor Rothschild, the jazz-loving head of the
counter-sabotage section of MI5. Having reluctantly taken on the task of
vet-ting Churchill’s cigars, Rothschild received a memo from Colville about
another unsolicited gift – chocolates, which were frequently sent to
Churchill. Hitherto, these had been sent to the police for testing.
Colville asked: “Do you think it would be desirable that we should in future
send you small boxes of cigars, chocolates and other things of the same kind
instead of sending them to Scotland Yard?
“In the past such things have been given to the prime minister’s detective,
Inspector Thompson, and have, as far as I can make out, never emerged again
from the Yard. If we send them to you, I feel more certain that they were
properly examined, and we might also stand a better chance of getting them
back if they were innocuous!”
Rothschild replied: “I do not see very much point in your sending chocolates
and things of that sort to me instead of to Scotland Yard through Inspector
Thompson. I imagine that they eat the chocolates or feed them to dogs and
observe the results. In any case I think they would be very hurt at the
thought that somebody else was going to do that work.”
On June 18 – the day after Churchill heard that the British Army’s first big
counter-attack in the Western Desert, Operation Battleaxe, had ended in
defeat with the destruction of 91 British tanks – Colville cheered him up
with the news that the cigars were about to arrive.
Colville also sounded caution: “I have discussed with the professor, and also
with Lord Rothschild of MI5, the question of security and they both insist
that however reputable the source from which the cigars come it is
impossible to ensure that they are safe. It would be perfectly possible to
insert a grain of deadly poison in, say, one cigar in 50, and although Lord
Rothschild can and will arrange for those that arrive to be x-rayed, he
would only guarantee them after subjecting each one to careful analysis.
This could not be done without destroying the cigars.”
Lindemann had an alternative solution, said Colville: “The professor thought
however that you might like to let them accumulate in a safe and dry place
until after the war, when you might feel justified in taking the risk
involved in smoking them.”
Churchill believed that no pleasure should be delayed. On June 22, hours after
learning of Operation Bar-barossa, the German invasion of Russia, he
dictated a terse memo: “Let me see them.” If he wished to see them, he would
wish to smoke them.
The cabinet of cigars had arrived in Britain by August 20 and now sat in the
Red Cross’s bonded warehouse at Hobart House in London. Before it could be
moved there was the small matter of customs duty. Cigar importation into
Britain was prohibited as an unnecessary waste of dollars on a luxury item,
and even gifts of cigars were subject to a crippling rate of tax. The total
duty on the entire cabinet was more than £50 – six times the average monthly
wage at that time.
The Treasury had no powers to waive the duty for any citizen, even the prime
minister, and so their price would have to be paid. But by whom? The most
suitable candidate was the Cuban legation, who were disgruntled to discover
the cost of their gift escalating even higher. Worse still, they were denied
any publicity. The Cuban ambassador’s request for an official presentation
at 10 Downing Street was politely refused. Instead Cuba received only a
brief thank you note and a signed photograph.
On September 23, soon after the cigars arrived at 10 Downing Street, Churchill
was informed that a cigar from each box had been sent to Rothschild for
laboratory testing. Colville warned him against sneaking a sly smoke from
those that remained. “It is hoped that you will not smoke any of the cigars
until the result of the analysis is known . . . there has just been a
round-up of undesirable elements in Cuba, which has shown that a
surprisingly large number of Nazi agents and sympathisers exist in that
country.”
Ten days later the prime minister asked his secretary to check if the analysis
was complete. It was not.
MI5 had called in Gerald Roche Lynch, who was both the director of the
department of chemical pathology at St Mary’s hospital in London, and senior
official analyst for the Home Office, a role that carried the unofficial
sobriquet of “king’s poisoner”.
Lynch had taken possession of a total of 47 cigars and quickly set about their
dissection. There were two areas of study: the end that would eventually be
wedged into the prime minister’s mouth (or “surface of contact”, as it was
called) and the trunk of the cigar or “main substance”. The end that entered
the mouth was examined for both bacteriological and chemical abnormalities,
while the trunk was scrutinised for “potentially volatile chemical agents”.
It was discovered that three cigars contained foreign bodies: “One contained a
small black and flattened mass of vegetable debris containing much starch
and two hairs with the features of those of a mouse: this was almost
certainly a faecal pellet from a mouse. One contained a tiny concretion of
what appeared to be uncooked maize starch. The third showed a group of tiny
oval pellets of vegetable debris; this was obviously the droppings of an
insect.” A sliver from every cigar was individually mixed into its own
“nutrient broth”, after which approximately 0.6cc were injected into a
selection of laboratory mice. Each one succumbed to the sensation familiar
to cigar connoisseurs, the delicious narcotic quality of nicotine.
Careful testing had revealed that a measured amount of “broth” would stupefy a
mouse into a period of muscular weakness in which it would lie prone –
stoned, almost – for less than an hour. Then creature would recover and eat.
Lynch had calibrated the test so that an early death could be read as the
result of “pathogenic bacteria”; in other words, evidence of the assassin’s
hand.
A second test involved the mice breathing in the smoke from the suspect
cigars. Here a single gram of the cigar was burnt steadily for 25-30
minutes; the smoke was drawn through a glass tube in which sat a mouse,
which stoically endured a small degree of carbon dioxide poisoning – smoking
for England.
The tests elicited a number of results, including two dead mice. Autopsies,
however, revealed not an assassin’s hand but food poisoning already present
in the mouse stock.
To conclude his experiments, Lynch placed slices of cigar under his own
tongue. He reported to Rothschild: “I am satisfied that the exhibits
examined are toxicologically and bacteriologically normal.”
Churchill himself could have given the doctor this news six weeks ago. He had
disregarded all the warnings and had decided to test the safety of the
cigars himself.
If they had contained poison, his actions would have cost the country not only
his own life but the lives of the defence committee of ministers and
military chiefs running the war.
On the evening of September 19, the day the cigars were delivered to Downing
Street from the Red Cross, the members of the defence committee were in a
deadlocked debate about what military assistance should be provided to the
Russians. The service ministers and chiefs of staff had insisted that they
could not spare even a rowing boat or rifle without weakening Britain’s own
efforts, But Churchill made it clear that a straight refusal was not an
option.
The debate dragged on. The prime minister vowed to keep everyone at the table
all night. He paused, however, for a two-hour dinner with Clem-mie, his
wife; and afterwards he ushered the committee into a small anteroom to the
left of Downing Street’s hall and proudly displayed his new cigar collection.
“See, this came for me today. I have had some difficulty getting this through
customs,” he said, pulling out bundles of long Romeo y Julieta, H Upmann and
Por Larranaga.
Lord Balfour, then undersecretary of state for air, later recalled: “Turning
to the waiting ministers, he addressed us thus, ‘Gentlemen, I am now going
to try an experiment. Maybe it will result in joy. Maybe it will end in
grief. I am about to give you each one of these magnificent cigars.’
“He paused, then continued with Churchillian effect, ‘It may well be that
these each contain some deadly poison.’ He went on, alluding to the possible
act of poisoning the entire defence committee: ‘It may well be that within
days I shall follow sadly the long line of coffins up the aisle of
Westminster Abbey. Reviled by the populace, as the man who has out Borgiaed
Borgia’.”
Each committee member returned to the cabinet room contentedly puffing a rare
Havana cigar. As the room clouded up, so tempers calmed down. Otto von
Bismarck, founder of Germany, against which they were now embattled, once
said: “A cigar is a sort of diversion: as the blue smoke curls upwards, the
eye involuntarily follows it; the effect is soothing, one feels better
tempered, and more inclined to make concessions.”
Balfour recalled: “In half an hour we had settled all we had argued about for
hours. Russian aid was safe and firm.” And nobody died.
This was not end the of the story. In late October a batch of cigars from
admirers in Brazil was tested before being reluctantly passed for
consumption. Rothschild was still troubled by what he saw as a needless
risk. He suggested exchanging gifts of cigars for a safe batch from a London
store.
This idea was supported, in poetical form, in a note to Churchill by Sir John
Martin, another private secretary: A breath could make them, as a breath
unmade; But the Prime Minister, their country’s pride, If once destroyed can
never be supplied Churchill replied tersely: “If these cigars are not
thought safe for me, they are not safe for anyone and had better be
destroyed.”
Ultimately, a memo was prepared to resolve the gift problem. It read: “1.
Where the senders are reputable and the cigars are good, the prime minister
would accept the cigars (and would pay the duty if from abroad). “2. Where
the senders are reputable but the cigars are not fit to smoke, cigars could
be sent to hospitals but the prime minister should not pay the duty. “3.
Where the cigars have only been sent for purposes of advertisement or some
similar object they should not be accepted (unless in special cases, they
should not be sent back to the owners if abroad; they might be sent to
hospitals here).”
In the war’s closing stages, Churchill was informed that the Cuban ambassador
had another 3,000 cigars to present to him. At the ceremony it was
discovered that 700 were missing, however, which greatly vexed Churchill. He
did not take kindly to the “liberation” of his private supply.
Instructing the Cuban ambassador to provide details of the chain of delivery
so that an investigation could be launched and the culprits caught,
Churchill insisted that he be personally informed of the outcome.
Two weeks later, feeling the wheels of justice were grinding too slowly, he
called on Inspector Thompson to quicken the pace. Customs and Excise replied
with a detailed explanation that appeared to point the finger of suspicion
away from Blighty towards Cuba.
A final report was sent to Churchill on May 7, the day before victory over
Germany was declared. It concluded: “If you wish the inquiries to proceed
further, it will be necessary to bring in the police, and if their
investigation is to be worthwhile it will be necessary for them to
investigate everything, including what happened while the cigars were at the
Cuban embassy.”
For the sake of relations with Cuba, the matter of Churchill’s missing cigars
was quietly dropped.
© Stephen McGinty 2007
Extracted from Churchill’s Cigar by Stephen McGinty published by Macmil-lan
£12.99. Copies can be ordered for £11.69 including postage from The Sunday
Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585
