STALKING ERROL FLYNN, THE SPY BEHIND THE SILVER SCREEN

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000201950002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 18, 2010
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: March 18, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

I STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201950002-4
ANTICLE
PI4R=
THE WASHINGTON POST
0,21 FA&
(- )t7
18 March 1980
3I:a1Mhg1701 Flynn,
~luncliI'te i'i1ver Jcreen
By Cynthia Gorney
The book was done, typed and pack-
aged, and 'a seamy document it was-
under. oath that he had spied for the
Nazis.
Higham read the transcript quickly
and decided to call Ladislas Farago.
Farago is a popular. writer, whose
books include "The Game of the
Foxes" and "Patton: Ordeal and Tri-
umph"--and he knew an enormous
amount about espionage, and kept vo-
luminous files filled with names.
Higham reached Farago by tele-
phone. Did he know anything about
Nazis and Errol Flynn?
"Freddy McEvoy," Farago said. Mc-
Evoy, a green-eyed Australian playboy
who looked very much like Flynn, was
one of the central characters in Hig-
ham's book. There was a picture of
him lounging on the deck of Flynn's
yacht. Higham had thought of him as
Flynn's-closest friend. Now Farago
told him that McEvoy was a rabidly
anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizer-that
some years before he drowned in a
storm off the coast of Morocco, Mc-
Evoy had been part of a clandestine
international clique working for the
Third Reich.
Higham called London. He asked
his British researcher to find Willi
Frischauer, a retired journalist who
lived in London and whom Higham
considered one of the leading Euro-
pean authorities on espionage.
The researcher reached Frischauer I
at .home. What. Frischauer said, ac-
cording to Higham, was this: He said
the territory was quite dangerous. He
said the researcher should come to his
home the following morning to talk.
He said, "There are people that won't
like this found out. Be careful. Tell
Mr. Higham to be careful."
He said, "I do know for a fact -that
Errol Flynn was a Nazi agent."
Charles Higham went to bed. that
evening and stared out into- the dark-
, & He did not sleep. In the morning
operating, he says now, on the, blind
instinct of an experienced biographer
lip h.Wok the train from Los Angeles
shington, went straight to the,
nai,Archives, and found the files
tpntain. the names of suspected
hcolumn" subsersivesbrought to
sW Cention of the State Department
during World War I.I.
i'' te'found Erben's name.
, , He found McEvoy's name.
"And I found cards," Higham says,
"on Errol Flynn." "Possible Subver-
sive Activities," read the cards.
h Higham 'had spent `the, last 24
months of . his life researching this bi-
ography, interviewing, traveling,- tele-
phoning, writing,` rewriting, trapped;,'
in the strange symbiosis of the biogra
;pher'and_his subject. His advance was
tsed'up. The idea of another year's
;:work,-made him feel physically ill. He
"Shad'no idea how classified documents
t be stored, how to explore them,
'Siow to declassiily them.
* He:.though of dropping- the whole
He thought of the vast array of ap-
,,balling details he had already learned
;about the breathtaking Mr. Flynn-
4ie:,violent sex, the kleptomania, the
ca'ual and boisterous cruelty. By tho'.
r time he had finished the book, Hig-'
'ham believed himself considerably be-
yond surprises on the subject of Errol
Flynn.
The documents he requested began
arriving in December 1978- fat ma-
nila envelopes filled with State Depart-
ment - memoranda, passport applica-
tions,, consular, reports; FBI reports,
Coast Guard reports, military intelli-
gence reports. Higham read and in-
terviewed, and pieced together what
he could.
He says he got hold of Erben's Nazi
membership card : and certificte of
Aryan ancestry. He says he learned
from government documents that
while Erben was working in Florida, at
a- Civilian Conservation. Corps camp,
he made photographs of training meth-
ods and camp layouts, and spoke
openly of his Nazism: He says-he
learned that-when a warrant was is-
sued for -Erben's arrest, on charges
that Erben -left the United States ille
gally during. a citizenship revocation
trial, Errol Flynn -hid Erben aboard
his yacht and helped get. the, German
doctor into Mexico.
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tify-as a prosecution witness in'the-:
Shanghai trial, but that he never said.
Errol Flynn raping women, Errol
'Flynn buying, boys for the night.
Errol Flynn stealing jewelry and
dropping a piranha into his dinner
hostess' fish tank and working so
drunk he had to be wired. to the castle
battlements. Almost from thesfirst in-
terviews, Charles Higham had under
stood,that he was writing about an es-
sentially amoral man-"frozen in that
fascist period of first puberty," he.
wrote in the introduction, "when the
human male. feels his oats. and is
ready to try anything.
Higham had worked two full years
on his Flynn biography. He had cho-
sen a title, perused the photographs,
sat through the minor motion pit-,
tures,.stared over and over at the fa-
mous Flynn profile-the - delicate
mustache, the aquiline nose, the
clean strong are of the matinee idol's
jawline in scenes from "Captain
Blood" to. "The Adventures of Robin
Hood."
But something nagged.
It began with a single telephone
call. Higham still needed some .photo-
graphs of Flynn's early childhood, and
he phoned for help to the Los Angeles
.writer who, had ghosted Flynn's auto-
biography. The writer obliged..
Then the writer mentioned that an
Errol Flynn buff had called him with
an odd tip; perhaps Higham would be
interested. It seemed this Flynn ad
miter had found an old newspaper ar-
ticle that said Dr. H. F. Erben, whom
Higham knew, only as an eccentric.
Austrian doctor: who had befriended,
Flynn in New Guinea and remained a
close. companion for many years, had
turned state's evidence`at a 1946 Nazi
espionage trial held in Shanghai.
Higham was curious, and a little un-
easy. He got' hold of the Shanghai
trial transcript.; Under oath, on, the
stand, the mysterious Dr. Erben had;
discussed In'-detail his role in the,
Mexico City branch of the Abwehr,
the German military intelligence, com-
mand that asked Erben to found the
Shanghai Nazi spyring..Erben, in a
recent interview -in Vienna for ABG
news program- "20/20,,"_ said he did tea- ??
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In his interview -for "20/20," Erben
acknowledged, speaking English, that
he had joined the Nazi party, but "not
to join as an active political. member."
Nazi membership was necessary. for
his continued status a an academic,
he aid. To the charge that he involv-
ed Flynn in Nazi spying activities, Er-
ben replied, "Utterly impossible . .
neither snaring Errol Flynn. a friend
of mine, not brain-washing Errol
Flynn, a friend of mine. was ever at-
tempted or ever considered."
A dim memory surfaced now, some-
thing the late producer Robert Lord
had told Higham nearly 10 years be-
fore. It had to do with Lord's picture
"Dive Bomber," filmed in Hawaii in
1941. Lord had been adamant that
Higham not tape-record or write down
his statement,. but as Higham, dug
back he believed he could reconstruct
almost verbatim what the producer
had told him. ..
In his book, he writes that this Is
what he heard:
Lord: "I do not want. this statement
published until after I'm dead. In: our
advance prints of the picture, before
it 'was released, we used most of Er-
rol's land and air. shots of Pearl Har-
bor at his suggestion in a special,
semi-documentary presentation - -.oi'
America's power in the Pacific. An ad.
vance print was sent to our represent-
atives in Japan In the normal course
of events in the late summer of 1941
" Higham says Lord was in naval in-
telligence, and felt the Japanese had
studied those films as a planning aid
before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Lord: "It's also shocking to think In
retrospect .that again at Errol's sug-
gestion, we showed every detail of the
San Diego Naval Base and the entire
structure of the Enterprise. I believe
,the Japanese kept the film under
study for years in case of a possible
assault on California." .
Higham had to find Erben.
"Obviously, if he was still alive, he
was my number one target," Higham
says. "I had a burning, consuming de-
sire to expose this man . I hate
Nazis with all, my soul. Writing; this
book for me had been. an adventure
the first time. round. It was a mission
the second time round. A mission of
exposure of my enemy."
. Higham had one of his researchers,
check for Erben's name in past Ameri-
can Medical Association directories.
He found it. Erben. was listed as an
absentee member in Vienna.
_"So I called Vienna," Higham says.
"No reply. I called again. No reply; So
I had 'my service. calling day and
night, for three weeks, all through the
night, with instructions to call me .no
matter when, if they got through.
Nothing happened. One morning at
9:00, I got out of bed, and I had an
overpowering impulse to call Vienna
-and I did. And a woman answered.
My heart almost stopped:"
.The woman, speaking English, told
Higham she was Erben's sister. Erbep
was out of the country, High am says
she said. He had moved to a leper col-
ony in Sagada, in the Philippines, a
wild and isolated place in the moun-
tains where the doctor was at work on
field research in leprosy..
There was no way Higham could
reach the place himself, he decided
the terrain' was treacherous, and
prone to violent storms. He asked the
Philippine consulate to suggest relia-
.ble journalists who might make the
trip for him, with a- tape recorder and
a set of questions, and when Higham
had his names he'stuck a pin into the
list at random to make his selection.
The man - he had chosen, Higham
says, had grown up in Sagada.
And he knew Erben. He knew him
very well.
The Philippine reporter talked to
Erben at some length, Higham says, -
asking questions that made no refer-
""ence to espionage. It helped to have a
third party, Higham thought; he had.
learned from a former intelligence of-
ficer that in a situation like this, the
interviewer ought to look as innocent
as possible.
"Ile taught me counterintelligence
techniques," Higham says. "He taught
me, for instance, that you never dis-
close to your subject what you know
- that by seeming to be ignorant, you
find out more than they intended you
-to know. Because the one thing that's
:;significant of all Nazi agents is their
contempt, especially for the English.
And he would have a double contempt
for me, because he would see me as a
lightweight, showbiz writer who was
'lucky enough to find him. in the wilds
'of the Philippines."
There was a great deal Higham
needed to know about Erben,.but one
'of the, most important points of all
was Erben's apparently, illegal flight
to Mexico during the trial to revoke
his citizenship. If Higham could prove
that Flynn helped him go, he believed
It would help establish beyond a
doubt that actor and German Nazi to-'
z gether; knowingly, conspired' against'
'the Allies.
So the Philippine reporter inno
.cently asked Erben when he had last
seen Errol Flynn. _
"The answer, was exactly what I'd'
hoped for--.'When Errol Flynn drove
me Into Mexico, in November, 1940,'."
Higham says. "Tht was it It was fab-
ulous. It was on tape."
When an FBI I
agent was 'recently asked by !a re
porter about: the Nazi spying allega- {
trans, ~?: the agent asked plaintively,
-"Next you're going to ? tell me that
'Joh'n Wayne was a KGB agent?"
Higham believes that if FBI men
had had their wits about them during
World War 11,'-Flynn would have. been
arrested as-.a. Nazi subversive. "The
FBI was not an intelligence organiza-
tian, and ,.their agents were not
trained in intelligence techniques," he
writes in his book. "They failed to co-
ordinate their investigations with
-those of the' State Department, -and
even `when they tried, they. often.
found :their, complaints-blocked.. They
also failed-.to=correlate with.. military
'and naval intelligence :-.'.Had British
intelligence been in charge of the
Flymatter,`. there is .no question
;.the'Y.would.:have, succeeded in.arrest ,
EXCLisi'1` it
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/18: CIA-RDP90-00552R000201950002-4