from the observer


Desperate Lucan dreamt of fascist coup

Murder mystery earl bought Mein Kampf and listened to Hitler's speeches

Martin Bright, home affairs editor
Sunday January 9, 2005
The Observer

When Lord Lucan walked into the second-hand department of Hatchards bookshop on 15 February 1972, he was already at the end of his tether. His marriage had collapsed, gambling debts were crushing him and he had become convinced Britain was going to the dogs.

In his growing desperation, he had convinced himself that his wife was unfit to bring up his three children and had spent the previous year trying to get her committed to mental institutions. In fact, the 7th Earl of Lucan, who disappeared in November 1974 after the murder of the family nanny, was himself growing increasingly unstable.

New evidence unearthed by The Observer shows just how extreme his politics had become as his mental state deteriorated: when he left Hatchards, the book under his arm was a Thirties translation of Hitler's political testament, Mein Kampf .

The receipt of Lucan's purchase - on account, naturally - shows that his mind was turning to increasingly authoritarian politics. The other book he bought was Grey Wolf, a biography of the Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk, its subtitle An Intimate Study of a Dictator .

The address on the receipt is 46, Lower Belgrave Street, where, two years later, the body of Sandra Rivett, the family's nanny, was found, sparking one of the most celebrated murder mysteries of the 20th century. Police later identified Lucan, who disappeared after the death and has never been found, as the prime suspect.

The book's present owner, writer and collector Phil Baker, says Lucan's reading matter reveals as much about the times he was living through as it does about the state of his mind. 'It's a symptom of Britain's domes tic crisis in the early Seventies; people forget that private armies were being raised and there was even talk of a military coup in Britain,' he said.

The Countess of Lucan confirmed this weekend that Lucan was an extremist in his politics: 'He did have very right-wing views, some might describe them as fascist. I didn't know he was indulging in extremist reading matter in 1972, although I knew he listened to recordings of Hitler's speeches at Nuremburg Rallies.'

She confirmed that she had put the copy of Mein Kampf up for sale by auction a few years ago, which is how it came into the hands of Baker.

Lucan believed Britain had been brought to its knees by the unions and was in need of a strong leader. By the early Seventies he and his friends in the gentlemen's clubs and gambling dens of Mayfair brayed about overthrowing Harold Wilson's Labour government.

There is no suggestion Lucan was in any way anti-Semitic or supported the Final Solution. But he and his associates, who included casino owner and party host John Aspinall, and the tycoon Sir James Goldsmith, were increasingly convinced Britain had fallen victim to a socialist conspir acy. Daily Express journalist Charles Benson, one of Lucan's friends, said: 'He was very right wing and never watered it down in front of liberals. He would talk about hanging and flogging and niggers to get a reaction.'

One biographer, Patrick Marnham, said: 'Seen from the Clermont Club [Lucan's favourite gambling haunt], the country was starting to resemble the less stable years of the Weimar Republic. Sir James Goldsmith began to develop his theory of "the Communist infiltration of the Western media". Over the smoked salmon and lamb cutlets, the talk turned to the pros and cons of a British military coup.'

It may seem difficult to believe now, nearly eight years into the most secure Labour government in British history, but across the country pockets of the traditional ruling class were preparing for military action. General Sir Walter Walker, former commander of allied forces in northern Europe, formed the Concerned Citizens' Vigilante Association to stamp out Communism in Wiltshire, and Colonel David Stirling, founder of the SAS, invited volunteers to join his 'strike-breaking army' to crush the unions.

According to former MI5 officer Peter Wright, a group of his colleagues, including Margaret Thatcher's mentor Airey Neave, began discussing a political coup. According to Wright, they believed that the Labour government had been infiltrated by the KGB and should be overthrown. He also claimed they were backed by a right-wing financier. Goldsmith always denied he put the money behind the group or discussed MI5 matters with former intelligence officers.

To some people at the time, the politics of fascism seemed romantic. David Bowie advocated an 'extreme right-wing government' and said Britain needed a dictator. Andrew Lloyd Webber explained the idea behind his musical, Evita, which celebrated the life of Eva Peron, wife of the Argentinian dictator, by saying: 'We had a government basically overthrown by trade unions. There was serious talk of private armies, and people were really thinking the country was going to nothing. We kept seeing parallels in the story of an attractive extremist.'

At the Clermont, owned by Aspinall until he sold it to Hugh Hefner in 1972, Lucan was known as 'the good furniture' because his presence gave the place a touch of class. But he was a miserable gambler. The sale of the Clermont to the Playboy empire may even have been the final straw for the increasingly indebted peer. Aspinall received £350,000, a small fortune in those days, while Lucan is said to have received an envelope full of his bounced cheques. According to his wife, Veronica, he described himself as 'broken' by the time of his death.

'He faced a certain prison sentence, long-term unemployment and social disgrace,' she said. 'However, the gods decided to smile on him at long last and the luck that so eluded him in life came in death.'

It is not known how close Lucan was to the right-wing plotters of the Seventies. His widow has said that Aspinall and Goldsmith were not intimates, merely 'casino acquaintances'. What is certain is that Lucan's personal collapse, fuelled by a growing gambling addiction, coincided with a drift towards the extreme right of British politics.