Lord Boothby Cray twins MI5 Tory organised crime sex parties

[TonyGosling]

Long list of those connected
Kray Twins
Cliff Richard

'The Krays And The Pervert Peer':

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcZsPIL20yQ

Lord Boothby and the Krays.

[TonyGosling]

The Spy Files: Lord Boothby's sordid sex parties with Ronnie Kray revealed in MI5 files
Conservative peer, who also had a long-running affair with Harold Macmillan's wife, struck up friendship with gangster in 1960s
Lord Boothby
Lord Boothby Photo: PA
By Tom Morgan, and Tom Whitehead12:01AM BST 23 Oct 2015
A "kinky" Conservative peer prompted fears of a Government downfall over revelations he hunted for rent boys with crime lord Ronnie Kray, MI5 files hidden for 50 years reveal.

Robert Boothby, a hedonistic bisexual who also had a long-running affair with the wife of former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, struck up a friendship with the gangster in the 1960s over their shared taste for young men.

"Boothby is a kinky fellow and likes to meet odd people, and Ronnie obviously wants to meet people of good social standing"
MI5 file
The Home Secretary summoned both the Metropolitan Police commissioner and MI5's Director General amid fears the sordid link between Westminster with the Krays could be as damaging as the Profumo scandal.

Concern over the peer deepened amid claims he was flying out to Moscow for a briefing with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and had been on several trips to Russia over the past decade.

Both Scotland Yard and MI5 monitored Lord Boothby, with one agent concluding in 1964: "Boothby is a kinky fellow and likes to meet odd people, and Ronnie obviously wants to meet people of good social standing, he having the odd background he's got; and, of course, both are queers.”


Documents reveal for the first time how Home Secretary Henry Brooke told security chiefs that the scandal “might develop along the lines” of the Government crisis caused by ex-cabinet minister John Profumo and his affair with 19-year-old Christine Keeler.

Lord Boothby’s former chauffer and lover, Leslie Holt, was among key witnesses approached by security services.

Lord Boothby, Ronnie Kray and Leslie Holt
Lord Boothby, Ronnie Kray and Leslie Holt Photo: Channel 4

A report titled Special Branch says: "Boothby and Kray attended several homosexual parties together, at one of which they were photographed together (in a normal social pose).

"According to Holt there is no improper association between the two, nor is it likely that there would be, as both are 'hunters' of young men."

Lord Boothby, a popular TV presenter and former MP for East Aberdeenshire, had succesully sued for £40,000 damages after his links with Kray were first outed after a Sunday Mirror front page on July 12 1964 headlined: "PEER AND A GANGSTER. YARD INQUIRY."

Professor Christopher Andrew, who was MI5’s official historian, said: “Thereafter the media were scared off pursuing the story by fear of further libel suits.”

Professor Andrew's introduction to the key files


The professor added that the MI5 file proves Lord Boothby’s relations with the Krays “were much closer than he admitted” and “the resulting scandal would have been even more deeply embarrassing than the Profumo affair.”

Ronnie’s relationship with Lord Boothby developed after the Krays, later jailed for life for murder, took control of Esmerelda's West End gambling joint and a cheque stolen from the peer was "passed" through a betting room upstairs.

The Krays turned up at Boothby’s West London home to apologise and tell them the offender “was unlikely to do that sort of thing again”. They later offered the peer a “nice young” chauffer who was “pleasant and fair-haired”.

Lord Boothby's affair with Macmillan's wife Dorothy, formerly Lady Dorothy Cavendish, was had entered MI5 files as far back as 1940. A letter between agents acknowledges "Harold Macmillan therefore is pretty closely concerned".

MI5’s theory was that the Sunday Mirror front page was fed to the newspaper by the Nash family, who were feuding rivals of the Krays.

"If you will forgive me for saying so, you are talking too loud and too much"
Note from undercover agent to Lord Boothby at London restaurant
But whoever tipped off the paper that Ronnie Kray and Boothby, who died in 1986 aged 86, were having an intimate affair "must have confused Ronnie Kray and Leslie Holt", the report says.

During further background checks on Boothby, MI5 interviewed fascist Colin Jordan, a former Wormwood Scrubs inmate, who claimed Boothby went to a “homosexual brothel” on “more than one occasions looking for 'chickens'… understood to be homosexual parlance for young boys”.

Jordan was said to have made a note on "toilet paper" after conversations with fellow inmate John Vassall, a "Russian spy" and "prominent figure in the London homosexual world".

According to the papers, Holt was furious after being sacked by the peer and receiving just £200 of a £2,000 pay off and was threatened by Ronnie to keep the scandal secret.

Security services eventually concluded that the peer’s sexual antics were not a threat to security.

Ronnie Kray and Lord Boothby
Ronnie Kray and Lord Boothby Photo: Channel 4

In an unconnected incident, the files also reveal how Lord Boothby lambasted an MI5 spy who had passed him a not at a restaurant saying: "If you will forgive me for saying so, you are talking too loud and too much."

The Conservative MP fired back a message in March 1939 at London’s Mirabeau restaurant to the secret service operative who was sat at a nearby table.

The message on restaurant notepaper said: "I certainly do not forgive such a piece of unwarranted impertinence.

"I happen to be a minister of the Crown, and I would have you know that we are not yet a Nazi State; that the methods of the Gestapo do not apply in this country; and that there are better ways of serving the country than writing foolish little notes in restaurants."

Historians discuss key findings in The Spy Files


MORE ON THE SPY FILES:
• Seven fascinating details from the latest MI5 declassified files
• How MI5 missed chance to expose Russian agent Kim Philby
• Soviet agent Guy Burgess feared bad press over death threat
• How Philby and Blunt turned on their fellow 'Cambridge' agents
• Spies feared Soviet PR machine was behind Buster Crabb mystery

[TonyGosling]

Robert Boothby, the only son of Sir Robert Tuite Boothby, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 12th February 1900. Boothby was educated at Eton College and at Magdalen College. After leaving university he joined a firm of stockbrokers.
https://spartacus-educational.com/PRboothby.htm

Boothby was also a member of the Conservative Party and eventually East Aberdeenshire selected him as their parliamentary candidate. In 1924 he was elected to the House of Commons.

In 1926 Winston Churchill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed Boothby as his parliamentary private secretary, a post he held for three years.

In 1930 Boothby began a long affair with Dorothy Macmillan, the wife of his parliamentary colleague, Harold Macmillan. It has been claimed that he was the father of Sarah Macmillan. The writer and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy, who is Boothby's cousin, has argued that "to my certain knowledge (Boothby) fathered at least three children by the wives of other men (two by one woman, one by another)." Boothby married Diana Cavendish but the relationship was dissolved two years later.

Robert Boothby and Winston Churchill in 1928
Robert Boothby and Winston Churchill in 1928
Boothby was a frequent visitor to Germany and in 1932 met Adolf Hitler. He was later to record that "I talked with Hitler for over an hour; and it was not long before I detected the unmistakable glint of madness in his eyes." Boothby came out of the meeting convinced that Hitler posed a serious threat to Britain's security.

In October 1933 Boothby made a speech where he warned: "If those of us who believe in freedom refuse to fight for our faith under any circumstances, then assuredly we will succumb to the military forces of Fascism or Communism, and most of the things which seem to make life worth living will be swept away."

Boothby joined a small group in the Conservative Party, including Winston Churchill and Leo Amery, that called for the government to increase spending on defence. In one speech Boothby suggested that the British government was in danger of betraying those soldiers who had been killed during the First World War. "In relation to the facts of the present situation our Air Force is pitifully inadequate. If we are strong and resolute, and if we pursue a wise and constructive foreign policy, we can still save the world from war. But if we simply drift along, never taking the lead, and exposing the heart of our Empire to an attack which might pulverize it in a few hours, then everything that makes life worth living will be swept away, and then indeed we shall have finally broken faith with those who lie dead in the fields of Flanders."
In January 1938 Boothby became the first person in public life to demand the introduction of compulsory national service. He followed this with a campaign to persuade Neville Chamberlain and his Conservative government to increase the frontline strength of the Royal Air Force from 1700 to 3500. However, both these suggestions were rejected by Chamberlain.

Boothby returned to office in 1940 when Winston Churchill appointed him as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Ministry of Food. Boothby worked under Lord Woolton and was given responsibility for devising the National Milk Scheme, which provided milk for children and nursing mothers during the Second World War.

In 1941 Boothby was forced to resign after a Select Committee published a critical report of his behaviour before the war. The committee pointed out that Boothby had made a speech where he advocated the distribution of seized Czechoslovakian assets to Czech citizens living in Britain. It was claimed that this broke the rules of the House of Commons as Boothby had not disclosed that he had a financial interest in this policy.

After resigning from office Boothby joined the Royal Air Force. After completing his training as a pilot officer he became Adjutant of Number 9 Bomber Squadron at Honington with the rank of Flight Lieutenant.

In 1948 Boothby became an original member of the Council of United Europe and was a British delegate to its consultative assembly (1949-54). Boothby was knighted in 1953 and raised to the peerage in 1958. He was also Rector of the University of St Andrews (1958-61) and Chairman of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1961-63).

Boothby was bi-sexual and although he kept his homosexual activity a secret, he did campaign for a change in the law. In his autobiography he comments on a speech he made to the Hardwicke Society: "I said that the present law regarding homosexuality was iniquitous, and that the clause in the Act which made indecency between consenting male adults in private a crime should be removed from the Statute Book."

Boothby sent a copy of his speech to the Home Secretary, David Maxwell-Fyfe. He replied: "I am not going down to history as the man who made sodomy legal." However, he did establish a committee to look into the issue that was chaired by John Wolfenden.

Lord Boothby attended sex parties with Tom Driberg in London. He also began an affair with gangster Ronnie Kray. Boothby was on holiday with Colin Coote, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, when on 12 July 1964, the Sunday Mirror published a front page lead story under the headline: "Peer and a gangster: Yard probe." The newspaper claimed police were investigating an alleged homosexual relationship between a "prominent peer and a leading thug in the London underworld", who is alleged to be involved in a West End protection racket.

The following week the newspaper said it had a picture of the peer and the gangster sitting on a sofa. Rumours soon began circulating that the peer was Boothby and the gangster was Ronnie Kray. Stories also circulated that Harold Wilson and Cecil King, the chairman of the International Publishing Corporation were conspiring in an attempt to overthrow the Conservative government led by Alec Douglas -Home. Boothby's friend, Colin Coote used his contacts in the media to discover what was going on.

As journalist John Pearson pointed out: "By doing nothing he (Boothby) would tacitly accept the Sunday Mirror's accusations. On the other hand, to sue for libel would mean facing lengthy and expensive court proceedings which could ruin him financially - apart from whatever revelations the Sunday Mirror could produce to support its story." Boothby was then approached by two leading Labour Party figures, Gerald Gardiner, QC and solicitor Arnold Goodman. They offered to represent Lord Boothby in any libel case against the newspaper. Goodman was Wilson's "Mr Fixit" and Gardiner was later that year to become the new prime-minister's Lord Chancellor.

Boothby now wrote a letter to The Times and argued that the Sunday Mirror had been referring to him and that he intended to sue this newspaper for libel. He claimed that he had only met Kray three times. However, this had been public events in 1964 (there were published photographs of these meetings and so they could not be denied). When the case came to court, the newspaper decided not to reveal the compromising photograph. Unwilling to defend their story, Lord Boothby was awarded £40,000 and the editor of the newspaper was sacked. This resulted in other newspapers not touching the story. Scotland Yard was also ordered to drop their investigation into Boothby and Ronnie Kray.

The rumours about Boothby's homosexuality continued to circulate and in 1967 he decided to marry Wanda Sanna. According to friends, the relationship was platonic.

Boothby made frequent appearances on television and radio and wrote several books including The New Economy (1943), I Fight to Live (1947), My Yesterday, Your Tomorrow (1962) and Boothby: Recollections of a Rebel (1978).

Lord Boothby died on 16th July 1986.

[TonyGosling]

Lords of the Underworld - Documentary about Lord Boothby and Ronnie Kray

Link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGKfAi2ACRc

Secret History documentary about the relationship between Lord Boothby and Ronnie Kray

[TonyGosling]

Lord Bixexual Boothby?
https://spartacus-educational.com/PRboothby.htm

Robert Boothby, the only son of Sir Robert Tuite Boothby, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 12th February 1900. Boothby was educated at Eton College and at Magdalen College. After leaving university he joined a firm of stockbrokers.

Boothby was also a member of the Conservative Party and eventually East Aberdeenshire selected him as their parliamentary candidate. In 1924 he was elected to the House of Commons.

In 1926 Winston Churchill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed Boothby as his parliamentary private secretary, a post he held for three years.

In 1930 Boothby began a long affair with Dorothy Macmillan, the wife of his parliamentary colleague, Harold Macmillan. It has been claimed that he was the father of Sarah Macmillan. The writer and broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy, who is Boothby's cousin, has argued that "to my certain knowledge (Boothby) fathered at least three children by the wives of other men (two by one woman, one by another)." Boothby married Diana Cavendish but the relationship was dissolved two years later.

Robert Boothby and Winston Churchill in 1928
Robert Boothby and Winston Churchill in 1928
Boothby was a frequent visitor to Germany and in 1932 met Adolf Hitler. He was later to record that "I talked with Hitler for over an hour; and it was not long before I detected the unmistakable glint of madness in his eyes." Boothby came out of the meeting convinced that Hitler posed a serious threat to Britain's security.

In October 1933 Boothby made a speech where he warned: "If those of us who believe in freedom refuse to fight for our faith under any circumstances, then assuredly we will succumb to the military forces of Fascism or Communism, and most of the things which seem to make life worth living will be swept away."


Boothby joined a small group in the Conservative Party, including Winston Churchill and Leo Amery, that called for the government to increase spending on defence. In one speech Boothby suggested that the British government was in danger of betraying those soldiers who had been killed during the First World War. "In relation to the facts of the present situation our Air Force is pitifully inadequate. If we are strong and resolute, and if we pursue a wise and constructive foreign policy, we can still save the world from war. But if we simply drift along, never taking the lead, and exposing the heart of our Empire to an attack which might pulverize it in a few hours, then everything that makes life worth living will be swept away, and then indeed we shall have finally broken faith with those who lie dead in the fields of Flanders."
In January 1938 Boothby became the first person in public life to demand the introduction of compulsory national service. He followed this with a campaign to persuade Neville Chamberlain and his Conservative government to increase the frontline strength of the Royal Air Force from 1700 to 3500. However, both these suggestions were rejected by Chamberlain.

Boothby returned to office in 1940 when Winston Churchill appointed him as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Ministry of Food. Boothby worked under Lord Woolton and was given responsibility for devising the National Milk Scheme, which provided milk for children and nursing mothers during the Second World War.

In 1941 Boothby was forced to resign after a Select Committee published a critical report of his behaviour before the war. The committee pointed out that Boothby had made a speech where he advocated the distribution of seized Czechoslovakian assets to Czech citizens living in Britain. It was claimed that this broke the rules of the House of Commons as Boothby had not disclosed that he had a financial interest in this policy.

After resigning from office Boothby joined the Royal Air Force. After completing his training as a pilot officer he became Adjutant of Number 9 Bomber Squadron at Honington with the rank of Flight Lieutenant.

In 1948 Boothby became an original member of the Council of United Europe and was a British delegate to its consultative assembly (1949-54). Boothby was knighted in 1953 and raised to the peerage in 1958. He was also Rector of the University of St Andrews (1958-61) and Chairman of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1961-63).

Boothby was bi-sexual and although he kept his homosexual activity a secret, he did campaign for a change in the law. In his autobiography he comments on a speech he made to the Hardwicke Society: "I said that the present law regarding homosexuality was iniquitous, and that the clause in the Act which made indecency between consenting male adults in private a crime should be removed from the Statute Book."

Boothby sent a copy of his speech to the Home Secretary, David Maxwell-Fyfe. He replied: "I am not going down to history as the man who made sodomy legal." However, he did establish a committee to look into the issue that was chaired by John Wolfenden.

Lord Boothby attended sex parties with Tom Driberg in London. He also began an affair with gangster Ronnie Kray. Boothby was on holiday with Colin Coote, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, when on 12 July 1964, the Sunday Mirror published a front page lead story under the headline: "Peer and a gangster: Yard probe." The newspaper claimed police were investigating an alleged homosexual relationship between a "prominent peer and a leading thug in the London underworld", who is alleged to be involved in a West End protection racket.

The following week the newspaper said it had a picture of the peer and the gangster sitting on a sofa. Rumours soon began circulating that the peer was Boothby and the gangster was Ronnie Kray. Stories also circulated that Harold Wilson and Cecil King, the chairman of the International Publishing Corporation were conspiring in an attempt to overthrow the Conservative government led by Alec Douglas -Home. Boothby's friend, Colin Coote used his contacts in the media to discover what was going on.

As journalist John Pearson pointed out: "By doing nothing he (Boothby) would tacitly accept the Sunday Mirror's accusations. On the other hand, to sue for libel would mean facing lengthy and expensive court proceedings which could ruin him financially - apart from whatever revelations the Sunday Mirror could produce to support its story." Boothby was then approached by two leading Labour Party figures, Gerald Gardiner, QC and solicitor Arnold Goodman. They offered to represent Lord Boothby in any libel case against the newspaper. Goodman was Wilson's "Mr Fixit" and Gardiner was later that year to become the new prime-minister's Lord Chancellor.

Boothby now wrote a letter to The Times and argued that the Sunday Mirror had been referring to him and that he intended to sue this newspaper for libel. He claimed that he had only met Kray three times. However, this had been public events in 1964 (there were published photographs of these meetings and so they could not be denied). When the case came to court, the newspaper decided not to reveal the compromising photograph. Unwilling to defend their story, Lord Boothby was awarded £40,000 and the editor of the newspaper was sacked. This resulted in other newspapers not touching the story. Scotland Yard was also ordered to drop their investigation into Boothby and Ronnie Kray.

The rumours about Boothby's homosexuality continued to circulate and in 1967 he decided to marry Wanda Sanna. According to friends, the relationship was platonic.

Boothby made frequent appearances on television and radio and wrote several books including The New Economy (1943), I Fight to Live (1947), My Yesterday, Your Tomorrow (1962) and Boothby: Recollections of a Rebel (1978).

[TonyGosling]

The Spy Files: Lord Boothby's sordid sex parties with Ronnie Kray revealed in MI5 files
Conservative peer, who also had a long-running affair with Harold Macmillan's wife, struck up friendship with gangster in 1960s
Lord Boothby
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11948323/lord-boothby-sex-part ies-ronnie-kray-mi5-documents.html

By Tom Morgan, and Tom Whitehead12:01AM BST 23 Oct 2015
A "kinky" Conservative peer prompted fears of a Government downfall over revelations he hunted for rent boys with crime lord Ronnie Kray, MI5 files hidden for 50 years reveal.

Robert Boothby, a hedonistic bisexual who also had a long-running affair with the wife of former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, struck up a friendship with the gangster in the 1960s over their shared taste for young men.

"Boothby is a kinky fellow and likes to meet odd people, and Ronnie obviously wants to meet people of good social standing"
MI5 file
The Home Secretary summoned both the Metropolitan Police commissioner and MI5's Director General amid fears the sordid link between Westminster with the Krays could be as damaging as the Profumo scandal.

Concern over the peer deepened amid claims he was flying out to Moscow for a briefing with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and had been on several trips to Russia over the past decade.

Both Scotland Yard and MI5 monitored Lord Boothby, with one agent concluding in 1964: "Boothby is a kinky fellow and likes to meet odd people, and Ronnie obviously wants to meet people of good social standing, he having the odd background he's got; and, of course, both are queers.”


Documents reveal for the first time how Home Secretary Henry Brooke told security chiefs that the scandal “might develop along the lines” of the Government crisis caused by ex-cabinet minister John Profumo and his affair with 19-year-old Christine Keeler.

Lord Boothby’s former chauffer and lover, Leslie Holt, was among key witnesses approached by security services.

Lord Boothby, Ronnie Kray and Leslie Holt
Lord Boothby, Ronnie Kray and Leslie Holt Photo: Channel 4

A report titled Special Branch says: "Boothby and Kray attended several homosexual parties together, at one of which they were photographed together (in a normal social pose).

"According to Holt there is no improper association between the two, nor is it likely that there would be, as both are 'hunters' of young men."

Lord Boothby, a popular TV presenter and former MP for East Aberdeenshire, had succesully sued for £40,000 damages after his links with Kray were first outed after a Sunday Mirror front page on July 12 1964 headlined: "PEER AND A GANGSTER. YARD INQUIRY."

Professor Christopher Andrew, who was MI5’s official historian, said: “Thereafter the media were scared off pursuing the story by fear of further libel suits.”

Professor Andrew's introduction to the key files


The professor added that the MI5 file proves Lord Boothby’s relations with the Krays “were much closer than he admitted” and “the resulting scandal would have been even more deeply embarrassing than the Profumo affair.”

Ronnie’s relationship with Lord Boothby developed after the Krays, later jailed for life for murder, took control of Esmerelda's West End gambling joint and a cheque stolen from the peer was "passed" through a betting room upstairs.

The Krays turned up at Boothby’s West London home to apologise and tell them the offender “was unlikely to do that sort of thing again”. They later offered the peer a “nice young” chauffer who was “pleasant and fair-haired”.

Lord Boothby's affair with Macmillan's wife Dorothy, formerly Lady Dorothy Cavendish, was had entered MI5 files as far back as 1940. A letter between agents acknowledges "Harold Macmillan therefore is pretty closely concerned".

MI5’s theory was that the Sunday Mirror front page was fed to the newspaper by the Nash family, who were feuding rivals of the Krays.

"If you will forgive me for saying so, you are talking too loud and too much"
Note from undercover agent to Lord Boothby at London restaurant
But whoever tipped off the paper that Ronnie Kray and Boothby, who died in 1986 aged 86, were having an intimate affair "must have confused Ronnie Kray and Leslie Holt", the report says.

During further background checks on Boothby, MI5 interviewed fascist Colin Jordan, a former Wormwood Scrubs inmate, who claimed Boothby went to a “homosexual brothel” on “more than one occasions looking for 'chickens'… understood to be homosexual parlance for young boys”.

Jordan was said to have made a note on "toilet paper" after conversations with fellow inmate John Vassall, a "Russian spy" and "prominent figure in the London homosexual world".

According to the papers, Holt was furious after being sacked by the peer and receiving just £200 of a £2,000 pay off and was threatened by Ronnie to keep the scandal secret.

Security services eventually concluded that the peer’s sexual antics were not a threat to security.

Ronnie Kray and Lord Boothby
Ronnie Kray and Lord Boothby Photo: Channel 4

In an unconnected incident, the files also reveal how Lord Boothby lambasted an MI5 spy who had passed him a not at a restaurant saying: "If you will forgive me for saying so, you are talking too loud and too much."

The Conservative MP fired back a message in March 1939 at London’s Mirabeau restaurant to the secret service operative who was sat at a nearby table.

The message on restaurant notepaper said: "I certainly do not forgive such a piece of unwarranted impertinence.

"I happen to be a minister of the Crown, and I would have you know that we are not yet a Nazi State; that the methods of the Gestapo do not apply in this country; and that there are better ways of serving the country than writing foolish little notes in restaurants."