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Harry Alan Towers and Mariella Novotny


John Simkin

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Harry Alan Towers was born in London on 19th October, 1920. During the Second World War he joined the Royal Air Force. Later he became programme director for British Forces radio. In 1946 Towers joined forces with his mother, Margaret Miller Towers, to establish a company called Towers of London that sold various syndicated radio shows around the world.

In 1955 Independent Television (ITV) was established as a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the BBC. Later that year Towers began producing television programmes for ITV including The Golden Fleece (1955), The Boy About the Place (1955), Teddy Gang (1956), The Lady Asks for Help (1956), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1956), The Suicide Club (1956), The Little Black Book (1956), The New Adventures of Martin Kane (1957), A Christmas Carol (1958), 24 Hours a Day (1959), Down to the Sea (1959), Gun Rule (1959) and Missing Person (1959).

According to Anthony Summers, Towers was by 1960 "a prosperous film producer working, out of Hollywood and Toronto". Towers was a regular visitor to London and at a party held by American millionaire Huntington Hartford he was introduced by Stephen Ward to Mariella Novotny. She later claimed that "Towers said he could make me into a television model for commercials in America."

In December 1960, Mariella Novotny arrived in New York City. She later told a friend that "I wanted to be famous and show my mother that I could make a go of life myself." Novotny was arrested on 3rd March 1961 by the FBI and was charged with soliciting. Three days later Towers was charged with violation of the White Slave Traffic Act, alleging that he had transported Novotny from England to New York for the purpose of prostitution.

In a statement made to the FBI, Novotny claimed that: "Towers took me to the Great Northern Hotel... The following afternoon Towers brought a prostitution date to me, who paid me $40 to commit a sexual act. Thereafter I entertained prostitution dates regularly and earned approximately $400 a week. I gave Towers about $300 of this money." Novotny added: "Towers was present when prostitution acts were committed." She provided detailed lists of madames and prostitutes who had arranged dates, or gone on threesomes with her - all, she claimed, introduced to her by Towers. Novotny also told the FBI that "Towers was a Soviet agent and that Soviets wanted information for purposes of compromise of prominent individuals."

Towers provided a different interpretation on what happened: "I had an affair with her (Mariella Novotny) and didn't know she was a hooker. Our total involvement was that she joined me in New York and lived with me in a couple of hotels... I got into trouble through my own stupidity.... I was in the other room writing a screenplay. She came rushing into the room - she wasn't living with me then, she'd asked if she could come up to meet somebody - I was busy working when she rushed in naked and said there was a policeman in the other room."

Philip Knightley explains that: "Towers was held in the Manhattan House of Detention on $10,000 bail until his hearing, set down for 7 March... On 15 March Towers's bail was reduced to $5,000 and he was released. He appeared before a grand jury on 12 April on five counts of violating the WSTA. On 25 April he came up before judge Charles M. Metzner and pleaded not guilty to all five charges." Knightley adds that the District Attorney asked that bail be increased to $25,000 because "a large number of influential and wealthy persons involved in this case would like to see the defendant out of the country." The judge refused the request and as a result by the time his trial was due to begin on 16th May 1961, Towers had fled the country. According to a report written by J. Edgar Hoover, Towers was now living in the Soviet Union.

On 31st May 1961 Mariella Novotny boarded the Cunard liner, Queen Mary, using the false name of Mrs R. Tyson. By the time the ship reached Southampton, the British immigration authorities had received word from the FBI that Tyson was really Mariella Novotny and that she was wanted in the United States in a "sex-for-sale" case which involved men in "high elective office in the United States government."

The FBI case against Towers and Novotny was eventually dropped. Novotny returned to running sex parties in London. So many senior politicians attended that she began referring to herself as the "government's Chief Whip". As well as British politicians such as John Profumo and Ernest Marples, foreign leaders such as Willy Brandt and Ayub Khan, attended these parties.

Mandy Rice-Davies later wrote in her autobiography: "In early 1962 I received an offer to make a television commercial in the States. The producer had come to England to find a girl with a British accent, typically British-looking." On 11th July, 1962, Rice-Davies and Christine Keeler, arrived in New York City. They stayed at a hotel on Fire Island. According to Rice-Davies she fell asleep on the beach and was badly sunburnt. She telephoned the studio and told them: "I've had this accident - first-degree sunburn. It will take about a month if I am lucky to get my skin back in order." The women returned to London on 18th July. It later emerged that their movements in America were being monitored by the FBI.

Was this producer Harry Alan Towers? Rice-Davies does not name the producer but it is an interesting fact that Rice-Davies later appeared in a film, Black Venus, that was produced by Towers.

In June, 1963, J. Edgar Hoover produced an internal memo on the Profumo Scandal:

For information. John Profumo was British Minister of War until his recent resignation following disclosure of his relations with Christine Keeler. Stephen Ward, London osteopath, has been arrested in London charged with living on the earnings of Keeler and Marilyn Rice-Davies, prostitutes. Ward's operations reportedly part of a large vice ring involving many people including many prominent people in the U.S. and England including other Ministers of British Cabinet not yet identified. Other individuals involved include Yevgeny Ivanov, aka Eugene Ivanov, former Soviet Naval Attache, London, who patronised Keeler and who reportedly requested Keeler to obtain information from Profumo; Thomas J. Corbally, U.S. citizen engaged in business in Britain, who reportedly gave wild parties in his flat; Michael H. B. Eddowes, British attorney for Keeler, now in the U.S. representing her interests re sale of her story to publications; Horace Dibben, British citizen, in whose residence sex orgies were held is husband of Maria Novotny; Maria Novotny is prostitute who operated in NYC, was arrested on March three, one nine six one, and was victim in white slave case involving her procurer, Alan Towers. She fled to England and has participated in orgies at Ward residence. Alan Towers was in NYC for two years prior to his arrest in above white slave case. He jumped bail and is now a bureau fugitive. He is reportedly now permanently residing behind Iron Curtain. Novotny alleges Towers was a Soviet agent and that Soviets wanted information for purposes of compromise of prominent individuals; Lord Astor of England on whose Cliveden Estate sex orgies reportedly occurred: it was here that Profumo first met Keeler; Douglas Fairbanks, Jnr, movie actor; Earl Felton, American screen writer; and many others also involved.

Hoover was wrong to claim that Towers was living in the Soviet Union. In fact, he was successfully producing films in London. However, it is this passage that is very interesting: "Ward's operations reportedly part of a large vice ring involving many people including many prominent people in the U.S. and England including other Ministers of British Cabinet not yet identified. Other individuals involved include Yevgeny Ivanov, aka Eugene Ivanov, former Soviet Naval Attache, London, who patronised Keeler and who reportedly requested Keeler to obtain information from Profumo; Thomas J. Corbally, U.S. citizen engaged in business in Britain, who reportedly gave wild parties in his flat... Novotny alleges Towers was a Soviet agent and that Soviets wanted information for purposes of compromise of prominent individuals; Lord Astor of England on whose Cliveden Estate sex orgies reportedly occurred: it was here that Profumo first met Keeler; Douglas Fairbanks, Jnr, movie actor; Earl Felton, American screen writer; and many others also involved." Hoover was obviously being kept in the dark about what was really happening. It was a MI5/CIA honeytrap operation. Both Thomas J. Corbally and Earl Felton were both CIA informants.

Towers was clearly rewarded for the help he gave MI5/CIA. He enjoyed a successful career in movies. Despite being 88 years old he is currently producing Moll Flanders that will be released next year.

For more information on Towers read my page on him. Then compare it to the page provided by Wikipedia:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPYtowers.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Alan_Towers

For his television and movie career see:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0869935/

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Harry Alan Towers was born in London on 19th October, 1920. During the Second World War he joined the Royal Air Force. Later he became programme director for British Forces radio. In 1946 Towers joined forces with his mother, Margaret Miller Towers, to establish a company called Towers of London that sold various syndicated radio shows around the world.

In 1955 Independent Television (ITV) was established as a public service network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the BBC. Later that year Towers began producing television programmes for ITV including The Golden Fleece (1955), The Boy About the Place (1955), Teddy Gang (1956), The Lady Asks for Help (1956), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1956), The Suicide Club (1956), The Little Black Book (1956), The New Adventures of Martin Kane (1957), A Christmas Carol (1958), 24 Hours a Day (1959), Down to the Sea (1959), Gun Rule (1959) and Missing Person (1959).

According to Anthony Summers, Towers was by 1960 "a prosperous film producer working, out of Hollywood and Toronto". Towers was a regular visitor to London and at a party held by American millionaire Huntington Hartford he was introduced by Stephen Ward to Mariella Novotny. She later claimed that "Towers said he could make me into a television model for commercials in America."

***

The following excerpt from a column by Stephen H. SCHEUER appeared on APRIL 27, 1959 in the Troy, New York Record:

Several times in the last few years I've read ambitious announcements from various producers that they were about to launch a series based on the works of Charles Dickens. Now, thanks to an American star, Frederic March, and an imaginative English producer named Harry Alan Towers, the first TV series based on Dickens' stories begins production early next month in London. March will be joined by an impressive roster of English actors, including Ralph Richardson and James Donald, who turned in such a delightful performance in the recent "What Every Woman Knows." Towers has wisely enlisted the services of writer Michael Dyne. Several years ago Dyne wrote a witty drama seen on the Philco Playhouse based on some Dickensian characters, so he seems a fine choice for script editor. Incidentally, there is no truth to the rumor that Mickey Rooney will play David Copperfield!

Interestingly, John Profumo's wife also had a connection to Dickens movies.

The following relates to Mrs. Profumo, Valerie Hobson, formerly an actress in at least two Charles Dickens films--"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" and "Great Expectations".

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...752C1A96E958260

...In 1954 she married Mr. Profumo, a Conservative member of Parliament. He stepped down in disgrace as Secretary of State for War in 1963 after it had become known that he was having an affair with a British call girl, Christine Keeler, who was also involved with a Soviet military attache....Born in Larne in Northern Ireland, Miss Hobson went on to attend the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She began her performing career on the London stage, acted in
some modest British films
, then made some
Hollywood movies for Universal
-- largely forgettable, except for ''The Bride of Frankenstein,'' where she played the baron's wife -- and returned to Britain in the mid-1930's. Her
1939 marriage to Sir Anthony Havelock-Allan
, a baronet who had produced several movies she was in, ended in divorce in 1952. Besides her husband, she is survived by two sons, Mark Havelock-Allan and David Profumo.

-----------------

http://www.tcm.com/thismonth/article/?cid=212762

...David O. Selznick tried to woo Hobson back to Hollywood in 1942 by promising her all sorts of roles, but by then, Hobson had married producer Anthony Havelock-Allan and did not wish to leave him or England.

After the war in Europe ended, Hobson appeared in
her most famous role – Estella in David Lean’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1946),
which was produced by
her husband’s Cineguild Productions
. In Dickens' story, Estella is raised by her twisted aunt to break the heart of Pip (John Mills) and it was not a role that Hobson enjoyed. As Sue Harper wrote in her book Women in British Cinema: “The older Estella (Valerie Hobson) has a frigid composure which was the result of Lean’s direction. Hobson reported that he was ‘cold’ to her: ‘whatever talents I may have had he nullified’. Her demeanor was, Lean said, ‘exactly what’s needed, someone without any heart of feeling at all. Splendid.’ Hobson herself felt that the role was never properly fleshed out in Dickens’ novel but was still disappointed in Lean’s characterization. The part may not have been what she had hoped, but it did elevate her profile and she found her popularity soaring.

Hobson followed up this success with her turn as Edith D'Ascoyne in Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Rocking Horse Winner (1950). In 1954, at the age of only 37, she made her final film Knave of Hearts (1954). She also made her last appearance as an actress in that year when her career went full circle and she starred in The King and I opposite Herbert Lom, at the Drury Lane Theatre - the same theater where her career began. As her obituary in the Daily Telegraph noted, “She remarked then that she was unlikely in a lifetime to be offered as good a part and it was therefore an opportune moment for a last bow.”

Hobson’s personal life was full of tragedy. Her first son, Simon was born in 1944 with Downs Syndrome, which left Hobson, in her own words, in a near “zombie” state in which she rarely spoke for a year. By 1952 her marriage to Anthony Havelock-Allan had broken up due to his affairs, including one with actress Kay Kendall. Hobson would eventually marry cabinet minister John Profumo, but later in her life admitted “I never really loved Jack. I married him as a safe haven for myself and my children.” Her marriage to Profumo took a dramatic turn in 1963 when he was caught having an affair with call girl Mandy Rice-Davies. After lying about the affair to the House of Commons, Profumo resigned. He and Hobson would remain married, devoting themselves to charities for children with Downs Syndrome (Hobson cared for her son until his death at 46) and helping to fund leprosy workers.

Valerie Hobson passed away on November 21, 1998 from a heart attack at the age of 81. She was survived by her two sons, Mark Havelock-Allan and David Profumo, and her husband.

by Lorraine LoBianco

SOURCES:

Encyclopedia of British Cinema by Brian McFarlane Screen World Presents the Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors by Barry Monush

Women in British Cinema by Sue Harper

The Internet Movie Database

And the following relates to Mrs. Profumo's first husband:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituari...-bt-601377.html

Sir Anthony Havelock-Allan Bt

Producer of 'Brief Encounter' and 'In Which We Serve'

Tuesday, 14 January 2003

Anthony James Allan Havelock-Allan, film producer: born Darlington, Co. Durham, 28 February 1904; Chairman, British Film Academy 1952; Chairman of Council, Society of Film and Television Arts 1962, 1963; succeeded 1975 as fourth Bt;
married 1939 Valerie Hobson
(died 1998; one son, and one son deceased; marriage dissolved 1952), 1979 Sara Ruiz de Villafranca; died London 11 January 2003.

The film producer in fiction, and all too often in life, is characterised as philistine and crook – usually both. A lovable producer would be a contradiction in terms. However, that is the only fitting description for the extraordinary Anthony Havelock-Allan. He was tall and distinguished, very intelligent and amusing. He had such command of language and such enthusiasm that his answer to a simple question could be memorable. He was an aristocrat, he lived to a great age, had one of the proudest names in British cinema and he remained – despite increasing deafness – approachable, incredibly knowledgeable and lovable.

He was born in 1904 at Blackwell Manor, near Darlington, into a
family of Liberal MPs and military men.
His great-grandfather General Sir Henry Havelock occupies one of the controversial plinths in Trafalgar Square. In the 19th century four brothers distinguished themselves in military service – one, William, a hero of the Peninsular War, was at Waterloo. His grandfather Lt-Gen Sir Henry Havelock, who won the VC in India, added the Allan in 1878 on inheriting the family's estates.

Anthony Havelock-Allan was also destined for the Army, but he fell in love with the theatre from his first trip to a pantomime in Newcastle at the age of five. When musical comedies became popular, he remembered being taken to see Gertie Millar in Our Miss Gibbs at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, and the thrill that came from the curtains opening and the dazzling flood of light. In 1911, the family came south and Anthony was sent to a famous day school in Sloane Street, Mr Gibbs', where Anthony Asquith, the future film director, and son of the Liberal prime minister, was a couple of years his senior.

After 18 months, he was sent to a prep school in Potters Bar in Hertfordshire, North Hall School. The First World War broke out and he recalled the pupils being rushed in their pyjamas to the cellar during an air-raid, and then being allowed to watch the first Zeppelin shot down over Britain plunging in flames on nearby Cuffley. (The aviator, Lt Leefe Robinson, won the VC.) In 1917, he went to
Charterhouse
(which he hated), from where, it was assumed, he would enter the Army.

In the 1920s, Havelock-Allan played minor roles with the Windsor Strollers. But he did not consider the theatre as a career. His brother had entered the Scots Guards and, now that the war was over, was finding military life highly congenial, living in London, with a box at the opera, and running two racehorses. Nobody thought Anthony would pass the exam and, since one member of the family had to earn some money, all thoughts of the Army were abandoned. He got a job with Garrard's, the Crown Jewellers, and went to Chelsea Polytechnic to study gemmology. At dinner one evening, he described the work to the young lady seated next to him. "She telephoned the hostess afterwards and complained indignantly, 'Do you know, that young man is in trade!' "

He continued in trade as Artists' and Recording Manager for the Brunswick Gramophone Company in London – meeting Ravel and Stravinsky – and in the late Twenties went to Berlin ("a wonderful sort of Sin City") as managing director of Vox AG. He returned to London to work in the Stock Exchange, just as the country embarked on the biggest slump in its history. He got a job on the Evening Standard, where he created an entirely new form of classified advertising for estate agents which is now in general use. He sold beauty preparations and even worked at Ciro's night-club, booking their cabaret acts.

In 1933 he entered the film industry, thanks to his friend Richard Norton (later Lord Grantley). The American producer Joseph Schenck told Norton that he would give him a star, a story and an American director if he would make a picture to launch Jack Buchanan in America. Norton agreed, and invited Havelock-Allan to join the project as his assistant and as his casting director, adding, "I'm sure this is the right business for you – you'll love it."

He couldn't have started with a finer example of film-industry madness. Schenck had sold them a story he couldn't get anybody to make in America. It was a musical comedy set in the Great War and at one point during a story conference a writer described a scene in which Buchanan is behind the lines, dressed as a seal, juggling for the Germans. The American director sensibly picked up the phone and booked his passage home.

Norton decided to abandon that one and to make
Brewster's Millions
, an old standby. They needed an exceptionally strong-minded director capable of controlling Buchanan, so he and Havelock-Allan cast from photographs, choosing the man with the toughest face. He proved to be about as tough as Casper Milquetoast and Buchanan had the film made as he wanted it. It proved a most enjoyable job, however, since Havelock-Allan was required to find a group of young women to become the British equivalent of the Goldwyn Girls. During the production, he met a young film editor called
David Lean
who would have a profound effect on his career.

Havelock-Allan spent two years producing what were known as Quota Quickies. These often despised little pictures were churned out by American companies – in this case Paramount – to meet the new government quotas. They usually cost £6,000, ran to six reels and had to be made in six days. They gave British cinema an even worse reputation than it already had, but provided excellent training for directors such as Michael Powell and cameramen such as Ronald Neame. "Oh, I've never had greater fun in my life," said Havelock-Allan:

I worked with a lot of nice actors who went on to become famous – Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Margaret Rutherford . . . Quota Quickies were a wonderful nursery for actors. I made 23 of them in two years, made a profit with them, made one or two not bad ones that actually became second features, instead of being shown to the charwomen at 10 o'clock in the morning.

Havelock-Allan's name enters the history books when he joined
Two Cities Films
with the energetic Italian Filippo Del Giudice. He wanted a prestige production and despatched Havelock-Allan to convince Noël Coward. Alas, Coward felt uneasy about the cinema, and it was not until Lord Louis Mountbatten was nearly killed when his ship, the Kelly, was sunk off Crete, that he expressed any enthusiasm. Coward agreed to produce a picture about this incident, to star in it, to write it and to direct it. But he needed a trained technician to help him. David Lean was chosen. Havelock-Allan became associate producer, although he actually produced the film. He also worked on the script, and one of his ideas caused an outcry.

I had been one of those who, from 1936, thought war inevitable. When, in January 1939, the
Daily Express
published the headline "No War This Year", I was outraged by it. Everybody I knew was, in a sense, pro-war and ready to go – war was inevitable, it had to be fought. And I remembered that and I thought, "What a good idea. Let that newspaper be in the bilge, with the bottles and muck being swept away as the keel of this ship takes the water to fight Hitler."

Noël Coward had so much confidence in "his little darlings" that he eventually left them to get on with the film. Havelock-Allan realised that Lean was an exceptional director: "He approached his craft as a Jesuit approaches his religion."
In Which We Serve
(1942) made the reputations of everyone involved in it. Almost every member of the cast became stars, and Havelock-Allan, Lean and the cameraman Ronald Neame formed Cineguild Productions. Cineguild would become one of the handful of British film companies that discerning audiences grew to respect.

When the company was asked by the
Ministry of Information to produce a propaganda film
, David Lean did not want to direct it, so Havelock-Allan directed From the the Four Corners (1941) himself.
Later, Cineguild produced other propaganda films for use by the Allies in liberated French towns
. These were directed by Lean and produced by Havelock-Allan, but neither had the slightest memory of them until faced with documentary evidence. They were far too busy with their Noël Coward adaptations, such as
This Happy Breed
(1944), voted the most popular British film of the year, and
Blithe Spirit
(1945), which delighted audiences but gravely disappointed its author. Undeterred, Coward gave them another chance with
Brief Encounter
(1945), an adaptation of a one-act play which was scripted by the Cineguild team, and which won them an Oscar. This delicate and very middle-class story of unconsummated passion was previewed for a cinema full of sailors near Chatham dockyards and by the end the audience was nearly hysterical. Lean wanted to burn the negative, but, once it found the audience it was designed for, it became perhaps the best-loved British film of its time. Havelock-Allan said,

Curiously enough, we thought the only place it would be received well would be in France, because there was a 1937 French film called L'Orage directed by Marc Allegret which was not unlike ours. But the French distributors said, "Oh no, it is nothing. We don't want it at all." The film went to Cannes, where it won the Critics' Prize.

The name Marc Allegret stayed in Havelock-Allan's memory and after he had worked on the script of
Great Expectations
(1946) with Lean and Neame, and been executive producer on
Oliver Twist
(1948), he began setting up a film starring
his wife, the actress Valerie Hobson
, Blanche Fury. He hired Allegret to direct it. "I thought I could make a film of
The Wicked Lady
type, but without the Barbara Cartland flavour. I did, but the public didn't like it enough."

Cineguild broke up in 1949 and Havelock-Allan formed Constellation Films, an independent production company financed by the Rank Organisation. Among the films he produced were
Never Take No for an Answer
(1951), the Paul Gallico story of a small boy so concerned about his sick donkey that he travels to Rome to consult the Pope. Again, he used a French director – Maurice Cloche, who had made the Oscar-winning Monsieur Vincent (1947). This enabled him to shoot in the Vatican – the first commercial film to do so.

Havelock-Allan formed a partnership with another brilliant director,
Anthony Asquith
, and produced
Young Lovers
(1954) with Odile Versois and
Orders to Kill
(1958) which featured the great silent actress Lillian Gish. In 1968, he produced Franco Zeffirelli's
Romeo and Juliet.

Anthony Havelock-Allan had married Valerie Hobson in 1939.
The marriage ended in 1952.
They remained friends, however, and Hobson always spoke of his "great elegance of mind".
In 1979, he married Sara, the daughter of the Ambassador to Chile and to Brazil, and this marriage was a great success.

At the end of his career, Havelock-Allan was reunited with David Lean for
Ryan's Daughter
(1970), a film savaged by the critics but which has won for itself a wide following thanks to its release on video. Havelock-Allan, with typical modesty, described himself as "a passenger" on that film. He knew that David Lean had no time for producers and said, "As a producer, I don't think he ever liked me. He only liked me as a friend." However, Lean remembered his old partner with warmth.

I wish one could talk to more people like you could talk to Tony . . . He's very nice and completely trustworthy. That's rare in a person, let alone a producer.

At the time of his death, Havelock-Allan had been working on an autobiography.
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Scarlet Pimpernell 1955

"An exceptionally competent production, the result of a rewarding collaboration between actor Marius Goring and producer Harry Alan Towers,"

and

"...earlier film versions of this historical romance (Alexander Korda's 1935 version with Leslie Howard*..." who also made pimpernell smith in 1941 about smuggling intellectuals from NAZI germany.

"Educated at Perse School Cambridge and at several European universities, Marius Goring,..."

was

"adept at suggesting foreigners, ..... sometimes actual Nazi swine (as in Pastor Hall, 1940; I Was Monty's Double, 1958)."

and

"during World War II, having joined the Army in 1940, was appointed supervisor of BBC radio productions broadcasting to Germany."

*Leslie Howard ..."BBC radio broadcasts in which he castigated Nazism and defended democracy and human rights were very effective propaganda weapons for the British. Howard even caught the notice of Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who is said to have referred to him as "the most dangerous propagandist in the British service." Sadly, on June 1, 1943 the Nazis hunted him down over neutral airspace in the Bay of Biscayne and shot down Flight 777,..." because Churchill ordered his own plane sabotaged and Howard and his friend who were considered good doubles for Churchill and his bodyguard took off on that fateful day.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/481158/ et.c.

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  • 5 months later...

Interesting article about Towers and Novotny that appeared in Lobster Magazine by Stephen Dorrel in November 1983:

http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/

Maria Novotny knew little of her own background: it wasn't until this year that her husband learned her real name. Maria Stella Novotny was born on the 9th of May 1941 in Prague. Her father was brother to the President of Czechoslovakia, and they lived in the Royal palace until she was 6 years old, when the Soviet Union moved in. Because the President supported the Communists, this family tie would explain why Eddowes thought she had been chosen to destroy Kennedy. But what Eddowes didn't know was that Maria's father was actively anti-Communist. Although opposed to each other politically, the brothers remained friends, the President warning Maria's father that the Soviets were liable to arrest him, and advising him to leave the country. Instead, he joined the underground, making arrangements for Maria to leave the country with the family agent, called Rutter.

They escaped in a railway truck hiding under some corn, crossing the border into Austria. Unfortunately they ended up in the Soviet sector where they were put in a displaced persons camp.

In 1948 Maria was released, apparently through the efforts of a Mrs Capes, who had known her father when he was in England, studying at university. How this was achieved is not known, but Maria was brought to England where she lived as the daughter of Mrs Capes. When she became a teenager she went into modelling and was determined to make it into a successful career.

When only 18 she met Horace 'Hod' Dibden, then aged 57, at the Black Sheep Club in Piccadilly, which he helped run. An expert on English antiques and furniture, he had many friends on the London scene, including Stephen Ward, who he had known since the war; and, interestingly, Michael Eddowes, who had given up his solicitor's practice and become the owner of a chain of restaurants. Hod and Eddowes had known each other for twenty years.

Hod and Maria were married in January 1960. The marriage was conditional on her being allowed to carry on her own life. She appears to have been a highly intelligent, very beautiful young girl, determined to get on in the world, hoping to use Hod's contacts and money to climb the social ladder. In her personal account she claims to have been a virgin at the time, and, in reality, rather turned off by sexual relations. To her, sex was a 'game' designed to shock other people: she took her pleasure watching the reactions of people to situations she had organised. After the honeymoon they were regulars on the night club scene. One particular party in February 1960, given by an American millionaire, Huntingdon Hartford, was a turning point.

Among the guests were Stephen Ward and a more 'sinister' man, Harry Alan Towers, who claimed to be a film producer and owner of a modelling agency. Maria and Towers didn't meet at the party, but Towers must have recognised her: four days later a letter arrived suggesting a meeting at Claridges to discuss some possible modelling work. The letter was actually signed by Tower's mother, Margaret, who Novotny claims had an extraordinary influence over him, and from whom he took his instructions. At the meeting Towers was brisk to the point of rudeness. He told her that he could make her a top television model doing commercials in America. Although she didn't like Towers, she found it difficult to turn down the contract, which offered upwards of $50,000 a year.

Over the next days the contract was sorted out and Maria was introduced to some of Towers' friends, one of whom tried to have sex with her in Paris. Towers, over the next year, made no sexual advances towards Maria but didn't mind pushing his friends on her. She signed to Towers' modelling agency and he gave her a large deposit. The day she left for New York Stephen Ward went to a dinner party with her at which he made some sketches of her. Maria claimed that Ward and Towers knew each other. To Eddowes this provided a link between the Kennedy and Profumo episodes. Hod also thought that Ward and Towers knew each other at this time.

Towers flew ahead a few days earlier and met Maria at what became Kennedy Airport. Almost immediately they were arguing with each other, and Maria became doubly suspicious of him when he told her to sign a hotel register as Maria Novotny. Up til then she had been known as Maria Chapman, Hod's family name. Towers insisted that while she was in America she should use Novotny. What else, she thought, did Towers know of her background?

At first her modelling career went well and they went to the usual round of parties. But it seems that modelling offers were the result of her sleeping with television producers. After two weeks Towers arranged a lunch for her with Peter Lawford, the brother-in-law of President John Kennedy. Towers claimed that it would do her modelling career good if she got to know Kennedy. Maria didn't see the connection at the time; it was only later that she realised that Towers had engineered the meeting for other purposes. On reflection, it spelt blackmail to Maria and Eddowes.

Unknown to her at the time she was scheduled to be the replacement for Simone McQueen, a TV weather forecaster, who had just finished with Kennedy. Lawford took her to parties and she briefly met Kennedy at one and arranged to meet him again. They were more intimate at a party where the singer, Vic Damone, was the host. She was introduced to Kennedy and almost immediately shown into a bedroom where she went to bed with him. They weren't gone very long before there was a commotion in the main room. Damone's Asian girlfriend had made an unsuccessful suicide attempt and had been found in the bathroom with her wrists slashed. The apartment quickly emptied, Kennedy disappearing with a bodyguard and his associates.

The incident was hushed up. The quick departure may have had something to do with the fact that, according to Maria, one of J. Edgar Hoover' s men was known to attend these parties. Word would have quickly reached Hoover who would have no doubt added it to his files on the Kennedy brothers.

Maria continued to see Kennedy and his brother, Robert, though I doubt that there is much truth in the published accounts of her relationship with Robert. Her own account rarely mentions him - or, for that matter, the sensational claims of her involvement with UN officials. The latter appears to have involved Towers' other girls.

At the end of the year Hod arrived in New York to buy antiques. At this time Maria had had enough of Towers. Her modelling career was nowhere in sight. She decided to leave Towers and move into Hod's apartment near the UN building. Towers was extremely angry and determined to make her stay in his flat. But as he was commuting between London and New York at this time, he had little real control over her. She moved in with Hod.

During this period when Towers would later be accused of running a vice-ring at the UN building, he was in constant touch with his mother - and one other person, Leslie Chateris.

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  • 3 months later...
  • 8 months later...
Harry Alan Towers has died. Another man who will not be able to tell what he knows.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPYtowers.htm

Probably not the ideal location to post this, but.....

I hope no one will think I am attempting to create a linkage between the call girl ring, ie The Profumu Scandal, and an area which, it appears to have no relationship with. But, the Kennedy family's history of linkage to Great Britain, especially Joe Kennedy's tenure as US Ambassador to England, during the period when Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister, and the rather well known "Cliveden Set," makes me wonder what was going on in those circles during the MacMillan Era.

Ther are those who believe, the British either had advance knowledge or possible involvement in the Kennedy assassination, and while there are a multitude of British issues which seem to provide a convergence of persons, prior to the era of the JFK administration; SOE William Stephenson, as an example, as well as the Skybolt Missile controversy which led to a meeting between JFK and PM Harold McMillan in Nassau, in the Bahamas, during the Kennedy Administration, on 19 December 1962.

Carroll Quigley mentions in his epic Tragedy and Hope, the Roundtable Groups. See Page 950.

In that section Quigley states that the Round-Table Groups were semi-secret discussion and lobbying groups organized by Lionel Curtis, Philip H. Kerr aka Lord Lothian and Sir William S Marris circa 1908-1911.

The Astor family was somewhat connected to this group by virtue of the fact that Lord Robert H. Brand, was the brother-in-law of Lady Astor. Several books claim, accurately I believe that Vincent Astor helped FDR in relationship to ONI operations in New York back during the old days.

According to Quigley, Lord Brand died in August 1963.

I would be interested to know under what circumstances his death took place, ie old-age, declining health et cetera.

Otherwise, I find that historically the Cliveden Set is scarcely mentioned in the context of the early 1960's, at least in mainstream books;

I find it rather hard to believe this group had ceased to exist. I suppose I suspect that there were some individuals, at least in the Roundtable Groups who knew a lot of things before they happened.

Edited by Robert Howard
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  • 4 weeks later...

hobson, Mariella Novotny ,towers...b

I decided to bring another aspect of British history of the early 1960's into the picture, to show that perhaps the cast of characters in the Profumo Scandal, may indeed

be drawn a little too tight. Although, it is difficult to place it in context, the following information may contribute to this thread in one way or another.

It might be worth a moment to backtrack, and point out that for a person in the CIA to graduate to Chief Of Station in London, was about as good as it gets.

Among those whom have held the COS/ London title, were Winston Scott, Chester Cooper, Frank Wisner, Archie Roosevelt, Cleveland Cram, Bronson Tweedy, Cord Meyer and Edward Proctor.

See page 16, The Wilson Plot - David Leigh, Pantheon Books - 1988

Hugh Gaitskell, a high ranking member of the Labour Party, although he never became Prime Minister, was certainly an interesting figure, and to some persons, he was never more interesting than when he passed into eternity on June 18, 1963.

Those familiar with the manner in which he died from lupus, more than likely know that there were persons within the British and America government's, that briefly entertained the theory that the KGB had murdered Gaitskell, ostensibly using some exotic chemical which would mimic the manifestations of lupus, or a extracted version of lupus itself,

The KGB theory idea's main proponent was Arthur Martin, but Martin dropped the theory after being told by a virus specialists at the British Medical Association that "it was impossible that a Lupus poison might have been developed."

Although the theory went nowhere, there were three men in that time period, who seemingly could not let go of this idea, and others just as outlandish.

One of them was James Jesus Angleton, the head of counterintelligence for the CIA, the other was MI-5's Peter Wright.

Anatoly Golytsin, also seemed intent on exploiting his belief that Averill Harriman was a Soviet spy, which dwarfed in comparison to his belief that Harold Wilson, one year away from becoming Prime Minister, was also a KGB plant.

Like a virus, eventually this sort of talk resulted "at the behest of some eight to ten agency counterintelligence officers," in CIA Director, John McCone visiting President Kennedy and informing him of Wilson's connections to "international socialism."

According to author David Leigh, President Kennedy did not take such talk very seriously, and advised McCone, "If you have specific proof, you pursue leads. In the meantime, as President of the U.S., I will deal with Wilson if he becomes Prime Minister in the U.K. And let's hear nothing about it until something crops up."

Leigh, ends this section of his book by mentioning QJWIN, and the Lumumba assassination, in which a fatal virus, designed to mimic a tropical disease was flown in for him [QJWIN] in the diplomatic pouch, accompanied by syringe, mask and surgical gloves.

Perhaps, I am reading too much into his writing, but the manner in which Leigh mentions QJWIN, in my mind seems to be an effort on his part to imply that if Gaitskell's death was, in fact murder, maybe the answer was in the opposite direction from the KGB.

If, as one CIA agent said "assassination was the ambience of the time," referring to the early 1960's, intrigue and skullduggery were certainly not out of place, either.

Edited by Robert Howard
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[/i]Leigh, ends this section of his book by mentioning QJWIN, and the Lumumba assassination, in which a fatal virus, designed to mimic a tropical disease was flown in for him [QJWIN] in the diplomatic pouch, accompanied by syringe, mask and surgical gloves.

Perhaps, I am reading too much into his writing, but the manner in which Leigh mentions QJWIN, in my mind seems to be an effort on his part to imply that if Gaitskell's death was, in fact murder, maybe the answer was in the opposite direction from the KGB.

If, as one CIA agent said "assassination was the ambience of the time," referring to the early 1960's, intrigue and skullduggery were certainly not out of place, either.

Interesting post. I used to teach David Leigh's son when the family lived in Brighton. He is still a top journalist working for the Guardian.

It is true that some members of MI5 and the CIA thought that Wilson was a Soviet spy. He was definitely the most left-wing PM that Britain has had, although he moved to the right once he was in power. The claims that he was a Soviet spy was daft and that is now recognized by historians. It was just an attempt to undermine Wilson when he was in power. The British establishment always react in this way to the election of a Labour prime minister.

According to the CIA they paid large sums to the right-wing of the Labour Party after their landslide victory in 1945. Gaitskell, who was not a socialist, received some of this money. It was Gaitskill, probably under orders from the CIA, who was responsible for undermining the NHS that resulted in Wilson and Bevan resigning from the government. I cannot see what motive the CIA had for killing Gaitskell. I suppose the KGB might have done it in order to create panic in the CIA.

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When I first discovered that after the assassination there was an extortion attempt made upon Marie Tippit, the wife of deceased Dallas Policeman J.D. Tippit,

I felt that electric feeling, especially when the extortion attempt was made by someone in Europe, soon all my excitement went out, like air escaping from a balloon.

The person responsible for the extortion attempt's name was Alwin Wolfgang, what ties him into the Profumo Scandal, was that he allegedly sent a letter to Scotland Yard

concerning the affair, when it was all said and done, Wolfgang was stated to be mentally unstable,and someone who had a reputation for inserting himself into matters of intrigue.

The FBI has a document on the Profumo affair with the word BOWTIE, which was the FBI code name for the case involving Christine Keeler and John Profumo.

The question is, were Alwin Wolfgang, and his extortion attempt and BOWTIE synonymous

http://www.maryferre...1&relPageId=188

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Brian Freemantle, who is more known in mainstream circles as a spy novelist ala John LeCarre, but also has written about the CIA and the International Drug Trade, alleged

in the book, about the latter, entitled The Fix, that Lady Isabella Frankau, who died in May 1967 was connected to a drug network that was at worst on the periphery of

social circle that included Stephen Ward.

I am not familiar enough with Freemantle's work, or Lady Frankau to have an opinion about the issue, but thought someone might know more about the veracity of the claims.

From what I have read, it doesn't seem that far-fetched. On an unrelated note,? Julia Frankau, according to the

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia, was a British author and novelist born in Dublin, Ireland, July 30, 1864. Julia Frankau was educated by Madame Paul Lafargue, daughter of Karl Marx. Writing under the pseudonym "Frank Danby," she has achieved conspicuous success as a novelist. Her first work, "Doctor Phillips: A Maida Vale Idyll," a story of Jewish life in the West End of London, was published in 1887, and created quite a sensation by its realistic treatment. It was followed by "Babes in Bohemia" (London, 1889) and "Pigs in Clover" (ib. 1903), also with Jewish characters. Under her own name Julia Frankau issued, in 1900, an elaborate treatise on color-printing entitled "Eighteenth Century Color-Plates," and, in 1902, "The Life and Works of John Raphael Smith."

Edited by Robert Howard
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  • 10 months later...

Posted Yesterday, 04:20 AM

PART 1

The Posthumous Assassination of JFK
Judith Exner, Mary Meyer, and Other Daggers
http://educationforu...showtopic=12188
-------------------------------
The links between the John F. Kennedy assassination and the Profumo Scandal
http://educationforu...=+stephen+ward
-------------------------------
Robert Howard, on 23 Jan 2014 - 2:12 PM, said:

It was entirely by chance, but I discovered that in Peter Dale Scott's - Deep Politics & The Death of JFK, pps. 367-68

footnote to section from page 230 HOOVER, BOBBY BAKERAND THE ELLEN ROMETSCH STORY, he elaborated

on the similarity between the former and the Profumo Scandal.

Below is the footnote in its entirety.

Some miscellaneous speculations: Owen, it will be recalled, was with Ruby's stripper friend Candy Barr in 1957,

just before she was arrested. Both Lester May, her attorney in that case and his brother-in-law Gordon McLendon

(whom Ruby listed as one of his six closest friends 20 WH 39) were busy in 1971 in the mob effort to secure the

release of Jimmy Hoffa (Sheridan, Hoffa 503-04; Moldea, Hoffa Wars, 280). So was Carlos Marcello associate

D'Alton Smith, brother-in-law of Nofio Pecora, the head of Marcello's call-girl operations whom Ruby phoned in

October 1963. In 1970 Smith would be indicted as part of a securities-fraud network, along with Charles Tourine,

Ruby's friend Maurice "Frenchy" Medelvine, Mike McLaney and Sam Benton of the McLaney arms cache on

Lake Ponchartrain (Scott, Crime & Cover-up, 46). Bobby Baker was approached about the million-dollar bail-out

of Hoffa as well (Baker Wheeling and Dealing, 17).

Bedford Wynne entertained his girls, and his friend George Owen, at his home in the Maple Terrace Apartments.

This was also the womanizing friend George DeMohrenschildt (WCD 7:135), and at one time of Ruby's friend

Lewis McWillie (WCD 84.86). Could Ruby and McWillie have moved in such "higher" circles by their ability to

supply women, drugs and gambling? McWillie told the House Committee that he ran "stag parties" at the

Cipango Club for Dallas gamblers Ivy Miller, and Earl Dalton, although he explained that the stag parties

featured dice games at which "they let their wives come too" (5 AH 66). Jim Marrs writes that the Four

Deuces in Fort Worth, which McWillie managed for the "gentleman gambler" W. C. Kirkwood was "in

an area noted for its taverns and its prostitution. It was here, under the protective eye of off-duty policemen,

that men like H. L. Hunt, Clint Murchison (sic) and others joined [speaker] Sam Rayburn and his protege

[Lyndon] Johnson for hours of Kirkwood-provided hospitality." (Marrs, 292) One last detail to support the

Washington policeman's theory that the mob, and more specifically, Nesline, has been behind sexual

corruption in high places for a long time. Mandy Rice-Davies, the number-two woman in the Ward-Keeler

sex ring that compromised both Profumo and Kennedy, established mob contacts when she moved to Israel.

There she met Herbert Itkin, the mob-FBI-CIA double agent who had testified in the Teamster kickback trial,

where his CIA control Mario Brod had testified successfully for the defense.

Had she known the mob before the Profumo story broke? At least one of Ward's women, Mariella Novotny,

(who had slept with Kennedy), had worked in London strip joints like the Club Pigalle and the Black Sheep

(Summers and Dorrill, Honeytrap, 96). Meyer Lansky and Dino Cellini also had interests in London clubs,

which may explain why Lansky and Nesline were spotted there in 1962. ( restrictions on Gambling till post assassination > the payoff ,GAAL)

It is safe to say that the mob was involved in the post-assassination cover-up, beginning with Ruby's murder

of Oswald in the Dallas police basement. But it is clear that many of those involved in the pre-assassination

sexual intrigues, including Rosselli, Guy Richards, Michael Eddowes and, above all, Bedford Wynne, were

involved in the post-assassination story as well.

===============================================================
GAAL

Weston interview Gaal http://educationforu...17035&hl=lansky

=

You mention the British using Lansky to achieve their globalist dreams. How did they get Lansky on their side?

We have to go back, way back, to 1928, to explain this British-Lansky connection. In China, there were three large triads, or gangs, exporting narcotics. Originally, the Kuo Ming Tang and Chiang Kai Shek supported these people. At the same time they were also fighting a prolonged war with the Communists. So for publicity reasons, and to get them back on the good side with the Americans who could help them in the war against the Communists, the KMT publicly went against the triads. At the same time, they made a secret deal with one of these gangs. There was some financial gain to having this narcotics export into the Far East and America, but where they were located were mostly Chinese areas and they wanted to expand and make more money. The book by Douglas Valentine indicates that a State Department man was involved in the Chinese narcotics trade. Apparently, he and other State Department people thought that helping the KMT with the drug trade was a good thing in stopping the spread of communism. Of course, they soon realized it would not be good if American diplomats and officials were caught with loads of narcotics. So they asked themselves, “Can’t we get someone else to do the job?” That is why they reached out to Lansky to be a major drug distributor. This was in the 1930s. So he was in contact with elites possibly before World War II. There is a story that he was called in to help the ONI and the OSS to protect ports in New York and help with the invasion of Sicily. Well, that’s the cover story, because he was possibly in contact with these people before the war. Before World War II and the creation of the OSS and the CIA, ONI was our major intelligence organization, and very likely they knew about Lansky and what he was doing before the war. That just makes sense.

So Lansky was an operative for the ONI, but it is possible that he was more of an operative for the British. This would explain why he helped Castro, which on the surface appears to be against his own interests. But something else was occurring at the same time. He was in contact with the very elites and owners of the Bahamas. Now someone could say that he was just setting that up as a safety valve. But the deeper view is that he knew that Castro was going to win. That’s what his masters, the British, wanted. The British helped him set up his operations in the Bahamas. By the way, in 1961 the British changed their laws on casinos and gambling and by 1964 Lansky had a casino in London. Isn't that amazing? =
=================================

Were the British that anti-Castro ?? http://art88.hubpage...and-Castro-1961

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(Stephen Ward MI5 and Michael Eddowes MI6 both providing women to elites)

conclusion

JFK sleeping around with MI6 ladies via mob....but Dulles spread false rumor Russian ladies for help in assassination from select others.....Dulles,"its our duty to stop him."(Gaal)

Edited by Steven Gaal
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