WEST GERMANY: RETURN OF THE 'SCOUNDREL'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00001R000200150002-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 15, 1999
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: September 30, 1963
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

STATINTTP 3 0 196
Approved For Release 1999/09/07 : C
from sudden Highland cloudbursts like
any other young family caught in the
rain. But last week, what one London
daily paper joyously banner-headlined
as the BEST-KEPT SECRET was finally out:
Queen Elizabeth is expecting again.
The baby watchers, aware that Eliza-
beth's three previous pregnancies had
been proclaimed somewhere around the
fourth month, reckoned that February
would probably mark the birthday. At
37, gynecologists assured the public,
Elizabeth was at a blooming time of life
for the blessed event. If the new child
is a boy, he will be third in line to the
British throne, after Prince Charles, 14,
and 3-year-old Prince Andrew; if a girl,
fourth in line behind 13-year-old Prin-
cess Anne.
Inevitably, the notion of four young-
sters in the royal household stirred Fleet
Street's sob sisters. "I don't expect that
the Queen will be buying another pram
for the new baby," cooed Edith Teague
of the Evening News. "Instead she will
have all the joy of bringing out again
the same one from the palace storage
rooms that she used for Anne and An-
drew." Leslie G. Pine, onetime editor
of Burke's Peerage, solemnly added that
in Britain "there's no doubt that the
big family is on its way back." But the
Queen's New Year baby will hardly
make a record royal brood. Her grand-
father, George V, had six; so did great-
great-grandfather Edward VII, and
great-great-grandmother Victoria had
nine children.
-On the same day that Britons were
let in on the royal secret, the Belgian
people learned sad news about their
Queen Fabiola. A terse communique
from the palace revealed that "the
hopes which were raised by recent re-
ports concerning the state of the Queen
are unhappily no longer founded." It
was the childless, 35-year-old Fabiola's
third miscarriage since her marriage to
King Baudouin in December 1960 and
it leaves Baudouin's younger brother,
Prince Albert of Liege, still heir to the
Belgian throne.
WEST GERMANY:
Return of the `Scoundrel'
The tall man with the scholarly stoop
to his shoulders spooned up thick bean
soup and washed it down with Ru-
manian red wine. Leaning forward, he
spoke in a voice just barely loud enough
to be heard above the lunchtime din at
Munich's Klein Bugharest restaurant. "I
have been working on this case ever
since I got out of jail," he confided.
"Above all I must clear my name. When
Konrad Adenauer goes, then I will have
my chance ...
The words, and their portent of a
sensational rerun of Germany's most sen-
Queen Elizabeth:
sational postwar espionage trial, came
from 53-year-old Dr. Otto John. He was
the "scoundrel"-as Chancellor Konrad
Adenauer called him-who disappeared
into East Germany in 1954 while head
of a West German counterintelligence
system-the OPC, or Office for the Pro-
tection of the Constitution. Seventeen
months later he resurfaced in West Ber-
lin, was tried for treason, and imprisoned
from 1956 through 1958.
Antics: Deeply tanned and at ease,
John last week looked like a different
man from the baggy-eyed, emotionally
distraught "master spy" whose last
months in high office were marked by
dark intrigues, interagency feuds, and
bouts of drunkenness. Many who fol-
lowed his antics then were certain that
Adenauer, who had been pressured by
the British into making John a sort of
German J. Edgar Hoover, would soon
sack him. The Chancellor refrained, and
was outraged when John gave press in-
terviews in East Berlin "exposing" Nazis
still in the Adenauer government.
. Yet John's story then-and now-re-
mains virtually the same. Violently anti-
Nazi, he was in on the plot to assassinate
Adolf Hitler on July 20, 1944, in which
his older brother, Hans, was brutally
tortured and executed. All ex-Nazis
were barred from his OPC, unlike the
rival Federal Intelligence Service run
by U.S.-sponsored Reinhard Gehlen. As
for defecting, he claimed he had been
drugged and then kidnaped from the
apartment of a Dr. Wolfgang Wohlge-
mueth and that later he "cooperated"
with the Communists only to allay sus-
picion until he could escape.
Known in Berlin's nightclubs as
"Wowo, the little wolf," Wohlgemueth
did take John over the border-only a
day after the OPC chief burst into bitter
tears at a tenth-anniversary ceremony
honoring those executed in the July 20
assassination plot. Wohlgemueth then
returned briefly before heading east
himself with one of several mistresses
and the formula for a magic "cancer
cure." Back in Berlin now, he denies
influencing John in any way.
Other witnesses, John claimed, would
clear his name. Three were East Ger-
man refugees, including his onetime se-
curity guard. Moreover, a key witness,
who testified that John admitted defect-
ing voluntarily, has vanished after being
charged with perjury. Application for a
new trial is to be made on Oct. 4-
shortly before Adenauer retires as Chan-
cellor in favor of Minister of Economics
Ludwig Erhard, who John believes has
no personal enmity against him.
If a retrial is granted, which is likely,
John's attorney will be former army Maj.
Fabian von Schlabrendorff who helped
lead the Paris uprising in 1944 which
was timed to coincide with the July 20
attempt on Hitler's life. A tiny, select
group known as "Former Twentieth of
July" men will pay the court costs.
Paris-Mateh
Comrades in Arms: Decked out in blue berets and leopard battle
dress, a company of French Alpine troops, integrated with a German
detachment, paraded through Coblenz, West Germany, last week.
They were fellow trainees during an exercise in Franco-German
military cooperation. Most of them were born as World War II ended.
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Christina on the griddle at Radcliffe: A smorgasbord of questions
Junior Miss: Will she be dating any
Harvard men? Sweden's blond, buxom,
bespectacled Princess CHRISTINA, 20,
laughed and said: "Probably. I haven't
met any yet." Harvard Yard is right
down the street, an easy walk from the
Radcliffe dormitories in Cambridge. But
Christina had been on campus only half
an hour, and she was still sampling a
smorgasbord of press-conference ques-
tions. Yes, she does the twist. No, she
won't mind making her own bed.
Clothes? "Oh, I have taken mostly skirts
and blouses and, yes, a few blue jeans."
Enrolling last week as a Radcliffe junior
bent on studying music, literature, and
history of art, the Princess signed in
sans title as Christina Bernadotte. By
the weekend, she was just "Chris" to
fellow residents of Holmes Hall-fifteen
of whom share a bathroom with her.
-Britain's tall, slim, elegant Prince WIL-
LIAM, 21-year-old cousin of the Queen,
.arrived in Palo Alto, Calif., to plunge
into graduate courses at Stanford. Sub-
jects: economics, business, political sci-
ence. Newsmen were to accompany
William on a tour of the Stanford cam-
pus this week. After that, said a spokes-
man at the British Consulate in San
Francisco, "Prince William just wants
to blend in with the landscape, as
would any other student."
hunt and Pique: Typewriter heiress
GAMBLE (Gambi) BENEDICT, 22, had
been pictured as living the happy life
in Switzerland with husband ANDR
PORUMBEANU, 37. Gambi's grandmother,
who tried to block her 1960 marriage
to Rumanian-born playboy Porumbeanu,
is now dead. Supposedly, the ex-deb
and the ex-chauffeur were content with
their two small children, their 26-room
villa in Erlenbach, and a $2,500-a-month
court allowance from Gambi's inherit-
ance, which may net her $20 million
when tax problems are straightened out.
But was it all an idyl rumor? It seemed
so last week when Gambi filed for a
Swiss divorce. Andre', who bills himself
as an "economist," was doing the town
in New York City when the news came.
He hustled back to Switzerland, but
Gambi was in hiding with the children.
Her lawyer described the divorce
grounds as "misconduct," adding dis-
creetly: "That word is a legal term
chosen to cover up the details."
This Above All: To be, or not to be
-that was the question. Welshman
RICHARD BURTON gave an actor's answer
that mast follow, as the night the day:
yes, he will be Hamlet.in a Broadway
production opening next March. Will it
be a hit, a very palpable hit? 'Tis a
consummation devoutly to be wish'd by
Associated Press
Gambi: Was the idyl just a rumor?
producer ALEXANDER H. COHEN. Obvi-
ously, director JOHN GIELCUD believes
that the play's the thing-not the cos-
tumes. His "Hamlet" will be performed
in rehearsal clothes, meaning anything
that suits the actors (for the apparel
oft proclaims the man). For instance,
said Cohen, "Richard may wear a trench
coat in some of the scenes, or one of
his suede sweaters." Seasoned Shake-
spearean Burton-longest-running of all
the Hamlets who played London's late
Old Vic-reacted to the assignment in
a rhapsody of words: "I'm in love with
Hamlet, with Shakespeare, with Giel-
gud, but most of all with Broadway."
Boola Boo: Scratched from a Novem-
ber speaking date before the Yale Po-
litical Union-a student group-was
Gov. GEORGE C. WALLACE of Alabama.
The Political Union advised Wallace: "It
has been made clear to us that your
presence here would severely impair the
relations between Yale and the New
Haven Negro community." Among those
making it clearest was New Haven
Mayor RICHARD C. LEE, up for a sixth
term in a city election which falls the
day after Wallace was to have spoken.
Lee wired Wallace: "You are officially
unwelcome in our community." The Yale
Daily News thought it an outrage that
any voice should be suppressed, even a
white supremacist's, and Wallace him-
self was certain that the Political Union
would resent interference with "its cher-
ished tradition of presenting the views
of all." As for Lee's telegram, Wallace
deemed it "offensive and not represent-
ative of a responsible public official."
Grecian Return: After a Caesarean
delivery and the death of her premature
baby last month, First Lady JACQUELINE
KENNEDY got doctor's orders to take it
easy for the rest of the year. But the
doctor didn't tell her to stay in one
place. Having summered in Hyannis Port
and Newport, the First Lady was due
back in Washington this week-and not
for long. In early October she will fly to
Greece for a two-week holiday with sis-
ter LEE and brother-in-law STANISLAS
RADZIWILL, who have rented a villa out-
side Athens, near a beach.
Boxer Rebellion: Stepping off a plane
in his hometown of Denver, heavyweight
champion SONNY LISTON growled: "I'm
ashamed to say I'm in America." Liston's
friends interpreted it as his way of com-
menting on the bomb deaths in Birming-
ham. All right, but what brought him
back from England in such a rush?
"That's getting just plain nosy," the
fighter told newsmen. By then, various
explanations were in print. One version
had Liston walking out on a European
tour after a row with a British boxing
official. Reason for Sonny's wrath, ac-
50 Newsweek
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