Rogue Agent by James Crossland review: the Fettes-educated spy accused of trying to kill Lenin

In this highly readable biography of secret agent Robert Bruce Lockhart, James Crossland unravels a fascinating life, writes Vin Arthey

James Crossland | D Armitage

Anstruther-born, Fettes-educated Robert Bruce Lockhart was proud to be a Scot - indeed, he once declared “There is no drop of English blood in my veins.” He was a rubber planter, diplomat, banker, rascal, propagandist and confidant of the great, the good and the not-so-good. How is it, then, that this is the first biography of him?

The man wrote six memoirs and ten other non-fiction books; he kept diaries and notebooks all his life; he wrote and broadcast for the BBC and he was a columnist for the Daily Express. His correspondence and government documents in which he appears are to be found in at least five archives across the UK and the USA.

James Crossland has consulted all these sources and sifted them to identify the key moments and achievements of Lockhart’s life, and his contributions to history.

Despite an earlier, senior diplomatic role in Moscow, it was Lockhart’s 1917 appointment as Britain’s “Agent” in revolutionary Russia that got his name known.

Acquainted with Lenin and Trotsky, he attempted to keep Russia in the First World War. When this became unlikely the records Crossland has analysed suggest that he conspired with Sidney “Ace of Spies” Reilly and two members of the Latvian Rifle Brigade to overthrow the Bolshevik leadership.

The Latvians, it turned out, were part of a sophisticated deception game. Outplayed, Reilly disappeared and Lockhart - accused by the Russians of having tried and failed to assassinate Lenin - got away to assume a low-profile diplomatic role in Czechoslovakia before becoming a protégé of Lord Beaverbrook, all the while remaining a bon viveur and enjoying a racy private life, material of course for his gossip columns.

Detail from the cover of Rogue Agent, by James Crossland | E&T books

During the 1930s he kept an eye on both Fascist and Communist sympathisers. Indeed, he was sometimes assumed to be one or the other but when war was declared Anthony Eden, one of his occasional dining companions, put him forward to head up the Political Warfare Executive.

Here, using the false personalities and disinformation techniques he had been the victim of in Moscow, he managed an effective propaganda campaign against Hitler and the Nazis. When the war ended, he took up his writing once more (ten of his 16 books were published after 1945) and developed a career in broadcasting.

Crossland has unravelled a fascinating life and created a crisp, readable narrative. It is impossible not to keep the pages turning. He adds a poignancy, too, to the rogue Lockhart’s love life. Moura Budberg, a Russian aristocrat and possible double agent who had an affair with Lockhart in Moscow and always loved him, (”my baby boy”), settled in London in 1929. When Lockhart died, she did not attend the funeral but convened a private ceremony at the Russian Orthodox cathedral in Knightsbridge where she stood alone in the nave, head bowed, while the priest prayed and the choir sang.

Rogue Agent: From Secret Plots to Psychological Warfare, the Untold Story of Robert Bruce Lockhart, by James Crossland, Elliott and Thompson, £25