Spying on the Royals (2017) s01e02 Episode Script
Episode 2
In July 1940, while Britain faced the threat of Nazi invasion, the ex-king, Edward VIII, and his wife, the former Wallis Simpson arrived in Lisbon.
They were guests of a Portuguese banker, who was also a known Nazi collaborator.
Secretly watching their every move was a British spy.
What he wrote home contained a shocking allegation.
'Watch them at breakfast, lunch, dinner.
' 'They are very clearly fifth column.
' This report claiming royal treachery was part of a vast surveillance operation against Edward and Wallis.
Now being revealed in documents locked away for nearly eight decades.
The government has always maintained that it does not intercept or tap royal communications.
This episode turns history on its head.
The files reveal how British intelligence came to see the ex-king as a security threat This is really strongly worded stuff for British government archives and files.
.
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and how the rogue royal was even spied on by the FBI on the orders of the President.
You've got a wiretap on the Duke and Duchess' hotel room phone and a microphone in the room.
The greatest royal scandal of the 20th-century can now be seen through a new perspective.
The eyes of those who spied on Edward and Wallis.
It's a secret dossier like no other.
I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility On 11th December, 1936, the day after he abdicated the throne, the ex-king, Edward VIII, left England for the continent.
Without the help and support of the woman I love.
For nearly two years he'd been under special Branch and MI5 surveillance, instigated by his father, George V, and approved by the Prime Minister.
Their main worry had been Edward's relationship with the American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
But Britain's security services also became concerned about his association with fascist sympathisers.
Intelligence historians Dr Rory Cormack and Professor Richard Aldridge and now mining secret files hidden away for nearly 80 years, that reveal how the surveillance operation continued after Edward's abdication.
The first spy was a policeman -- David Storrier -- who accompanied Edward to Europe.
Storrier was the chief inspector assigned to the Duke of Windsor's entourage, and he had an intriguing dual mission.
His primary purpose was to act as bodyguard, spot threats to the Duke's life, but at the same time, he was feeding back intelligence to Scotland Yard.
One early report revealed Storrier's success in embedding himself with the Duke.
'I am surprised to report that I'm being treated 'in an extremely courteous and friendly way.
' 'HRH described me the other evening as "one of the family".
' These letters, we've found in the files.
It's good spy craft, Storrier is trusted by the Duke.
In the weeks and months after the abdication, Storrier reported a worrying change in the former King Emperor.
'HRH is thinner, and more highly strung than usual.
'HRH extremely anxious.
'I notice also that HRH is now more easily irritated by minor details, 'such is the non-arrival on time of things he may have ordered, 'or a temporary breakdown of the weather.
' The core question, actually, for all the surveillance officers, is what's going on in the Duke of Windsor's mind? And it's the fact that he's bored and restless.
There's concern here.
Back home in May, 1937, Edward's younger brother was crowned King George VI.
At his side were his two daughters, including the future Queen Elizabeth II.
Then aged 11.
He smiled for the crowds, but in private admitted he felt he wasn't up to the job.
George VI felt himself completely incapable of taking on the task of becoming king.
He was knock-kneed, he was stammering.
He cried on his mother's shoulder when he was told that the intolerable honour of, of kingship was being thrust upon him.
And it seems the reluctant king began to spy on the brother whose abdication put him on the throne.
The secret files reveal how George might have assisted the surveillance on Edward.
So what we've found is that the Palace are involved in funding the operation.
This internal Metropolitan Police memo from 1937 says the bill will be paid by HM.
His Majesty.
There's no doubt that immediately after the abdication, the king is paying for the surveillance of the Duke of Windsor.
The feud within the royal family begun by Edward's affair with Wallis was about to get much worse.
At the time of Edward's abdication, Wallis had displayed her fury at how she and Edward had been treated.
She was overheard saying -- 'I will return to England and fight this out to the bitter end.
'The coronation will be a flop compared to the story I shall tell 'the British press.
' 'I will publish, in every paper in the world, 'so that the whole world will know my story.
' 'The romance of the century reached full flower at a castle in Mons, France.
'There, the king who abdicated his throne, married the woman he loved.
'The Duke of Windsor and Mrs Wallis Warfield Simpson 'became man and wife.
Six months after giving up his throne, Edward married Wallis.
The new Duchess of Windsor seemed to be enjoying wedding number three.
But things were not quite what they appeared to be.
Edwards describes the real wedding present is hearing that he is going to be made Duke of Windsor, HRH, and Wallis is only going to be Duchess of Windsor, without any royal initials.
And Edward was so furious at that insult to this wonderful woman who was now his wife, which he believed was a matter of the family being vindictive.
Adding insult to injury, none of Edward's relations accepted his invitations to his wedding.
Up till then, he'd cherished the belief that they'd come round.
That an acceptable relationship would be established.
The failure of the Royal family to turn up for his wedding, this total boycott, shocked him and pained him.
Edward's reaction to his family's scorn would come to define the future course of his life.
The disaster can be seen unfolding in Storrier's despatches.
The chief inspector did attend the wedding.
Here he is caught by an unsuspecting news camera.
Storrier even went on honeymoon.
Here he is with Edward and Wallis, going undercover on an Italian beach.
His letters also describe shopping trips to Vienna, rounds of golf and fishing trips.
But in autumn 1937 Storrier reported a shocking development in the Duke and Duchess' travel plans.
'The arrangements for the future, 'though not definitely fixed are as follows' 'Leave here, Tuesday 7th September, 'for Hungary for a few days shooting.
'And to Paris, arriving about 28th September for a stay of a fortnight.
'And to Germany.
' "And to Germany.
" And this may be when alarm bells start to ring.
This must have been electrifying, actually.
There's this fear that the Duke of Windsor, he might not be dangerous in himself, but he might be tricked, deceived, used, by the Nazi party themselves.
It's a concern for Downing Street, it's a concern for the Foreign Office.
It's also a concern for the Palace.
When George VI was informed about Edward and Wallis' trip to Germany, he did not disguise his feelings.
Giving orders that the British Embassy in Berlin should pointedly ignore his brother.
'His Majesty wishes that members of staff should not receive any 'invitations from whatever source, connected with the tour.
' 'The Duke and Duchess of Windsor visit Germany.
'There's a big crowd at the station to catch a glimpse 'of his Royal Highness and the Duchess on their arrival from Paris.
The Duke of Windsor was particularly concerned about the position of his wife.
This is what obsessed him.
So he wanted her to occupy royal status.
And Hitler's Germany was delighted to oblige.
When she went there she was greeted as HRH.
And she got the absolute royal treatment.
Edward and Wallis arrived in Berlin on 11th October, 1937.
They were not accompanied by Storrier.
The British government's only contact with them was sketchy reports from agents on the ground in Germany.
'The Duke of Windsor duly arrived and is carrying out his programme 'according to plan.
' 'HRH and the Duchess received a warm reception from a large crowd 'at the station.
One of Hitler's ADCs is being present.
' 'And he was yesterday the guest of Dr Goebbels -- 'Minister of Propaganda.
' These reports are the best they can do by way of surveillance.
There's a lot of detail.
But it's not meaningful detail.
They know who Windsor is meeting with, but they don't know what is being said.
That's what's worrying them.
'On 22nd October the Duke and Duchess, after a brief stay 'in Munich, went to Berchtesgaden, where they had tea with Herr Hitler.
' I wouldn't say that he was a flag-waving Nazi, but he was interested .
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and I think he was, at least in some degree, sympathetic.
And endless photographs taken, you know, all that sort of stuff.
You have to believe that they were flirting with Nazism, but that was a dangerous way to behave.
'The Duke sent Herr Hitler a telegram expressing his thanks 'for all his attention and hospitality 'and received a cordial reply.
' This is quite a striking dispatch from Berlin.
And it shows the main danger of the Duke of Windsor roaming at-large throughout Europe.
The government start to realise that it might be a problem to have a royal who's not quite a royal, but he is a royal, and you start to get a sense that they don't quite know what to do with him, how best to control him.
After the trip to Germany, Edward at last seemed to settle down to married life with Wallis.
They moved into a palatial villa in the South of France.
But the documents investigated by Professor Richard Aldridge and Doctor Rory Cormack show the British establishment kept a close eye on the Windsors.
In December 1937, the British ambassador in Paris, Sir Eric Phipps, a highly experienced diplomat, considered one report about Edward so significant that he passed it on to London.
His informant was a well-connected former diplomat, Lord William Tyrrell.
'Tyrrell, who has been staying here, told a member of my staff the following astonishing story.
Some time ago, a special correspondent of the Daily Herald came over to interview the Duke of Windsor.
Tyrrell was shown the account of this interview, in which it was stated that His Royal Highness said that if the Labour Party wished, and were in a position to offer it, he would be prepared to be President of the English Republic.
The President of the English Republic.
Really one could not imagine a more dangerous phrase.
Phipps reported that Arthur Greenwood, the deputy Labour leader, was asked to intervene with The Daily Herald.
'Tyrrell urged Greenwood to have this left out of any published account of this interview, as he was so shocked and horrified.
' So the general public never heard the allegation that Edward had offered to help dethrone his brother and become president.
But many in the government knew the story.
It's addressed to the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden.
So this probably would have resonated, not only at a high level but quite broadly, through the senior echelons of British government.
And they are taking it seriously.
In 1937, London realises the Duke of Windsor is unpredictable.
And if in the wrong company at the wrong moment, could do almost anything.
On the 3rd of September 1939 came war.
It was time for all Britons to stand together.
Even squabbling royals.
Edward at last agreed to come home.
'To the quiet rest of England's countryside, 'we welcome back the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
'One of the newspaper men calls out "It's nice to see you back sir.
" 'And the Duke turns around with a smiling "Thank you, it's nice to be back.
" But the Duke and Duchess's first visit to Britain since their marriage was a disaster.
Of course, the trouble was the wives.
Queen Elizabeth made it clear she would have no truck with, what she always called 'that woman' at all.
After just three weeks, Edward and Wallis hurried back to France.
They were still there in May 1940 when the Germans attacked and France fell.
The Duke and Duchess fled south.
After two weeks on the dusty roads of southern Europe, a travel-worn Edward reached the safety of Portugal.
From here, he hoped to board a flight for Britain.
But back in London, the King met with the new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
And tried to prevent the return of his brother.
He told Churchill 'I did not see what job he could have in this country, and that she would not be safe here.
' The morning after the king and Churchill met, the Duke of Windsor arrived at the British Embassy in Lisbon.
He was handed a telegram from Churchill.
It informed the Duke that he was not coming home to Britain, instead, Churchill offered him a job abroad.
'I am authorised by the King and the Cabinet to offer you the appointment of governor and commander in chief of the Bahamas.
' Please let me know, without delay, whether this proposal is satisfactory to Your Royal Highness.
' 'Personally, I feel it is the best I can do in the grievous situation in which we all stand.
At any rate, I have done my best.
' Churchill has always been a supporter of the Duke.
And Churchill is under pressure to get him as far away as possible.
So where better than a small little isolated colony out in the Caribbean? The Bahamas were one of the sleepiest outposts of the British Empire.
The Duke and Duchess were being sent into exile.
He deplored what he saw as his exile to the Bahamas.
He felt that he had been unfairly treated and he felt it was a totally unworthy job for him.
He did once say to my mother, once you've been a King-Emperor, it's a bit of a come-down to be governor of the Bahamas.
And I mean, he must have felt something like that, I mean, wouldn't anyone really? But that was the only, governing the Bahamas, you see, was the only job that George VI, his brother would ever give him.
But Edward had ideas of his own.
Instead, he and Wallis lingered in a seaside resort just north of Lisbon.
It was a very nice place to stay.
It's July, playing golf, socialising, etc with the elite of Portugal.
Going to a casino, it's a very nice way to spend summer while the world around you is falling to pieces.
In Portugal, the surveillance operation against Edward and Wallis was reactivated.
In 1940, the country was officially neutral.
But it was leaning towards Germany Which had an espionage network of hundreds of agents all over the country.
Here it would be easy for the Duke of Windsor, a man who had shaken hands with Hitler, to fall under German influence.
Security services want more intelligence.
They want to know what he's doing, who he's talking to and what his intentions actually are.
We start to see a change in the operation, where it moves from a family crisis to a security issue.
The spectacular villa where Edward and Wallis stayed was owned by a very wealthy Portuguese called Ricardo Espirito Santa Silva.
British intelligence soon put together a file on him.
'Senor Espirito Santa is very pro-German.
Politically, he is a crook.
He is handling very large sums in banknotes and securities from Germany.
These monies are almost certainly German loot from captive countries.
' MI6 are starting to realise that Santa Silva not only has pro-German tendencies but might even be a German agent.
And you can imagine the panic that would cause in Whitehall.
London assigned the Windsor case to the most senior intelligence officer in Portugal, David Eccles.
David Eccles is the representative of the special operations executive.
The most James Bond type organisation Britain has in 1940.
But Eccles faced a problem.
British agents couldn't intercept the Duke's mail, which required access to the Portuguese postal depot.
Nor could they tap phone calls without access to Portugal's telecommunications network.
It would have been very difficult for them to implement technical operations.
So they were reliant on the human side of things.
In a letter home to his wife, Eccles wrote that while the Duke was in Lisbon.
'I shall watch him at breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a critical eye.
' And what Eccles reported still makes shocking reading today.
One of his dispatches back to his spy boss at HQ has been found in the archives.
Written in a hurried scrawl, it says 'I had some conversation today with the Duke and Duchess.
They reckon we pushed France into a war she didn't want, and that the French Armistice was the best possible thing they could do.
They are very clearly fifth column.
This is really strongly worded stuff for British government archives and files.
Fifth column means that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were working essentially for the Nazi Party.
And aiding a Nazi invasion of Britain.
It is a serious accusation and this makes its way around senior circles in London.
And it's pretty damning actually.
But as Eccles got to know the Duke and Duchess better, he began to moderate his views.
Regarding the Windsors less as committed Nazis, but rather as frivolous chancers.
'By heaven, when they turn their united charm on, it's hard to resist.
They are the arch beachcombers of the world.
' Intelligence experts see Edward's behaviour in Lisbon as the rogue royal throwing his weight around.
He was disgruntled.
He was angry with the Royal family.
He wanted to make a point.
Look, I'm important, and perhaps you should consider giving me a better job than the one you're offering.
But he was a man playing a very dangerous game.
This is July 1940.
This is the moment when Britain thinks it's about to be invaded.
This is perhaps the most dangerous moment.
Because, in that context, what would the Germans do with, or to, the Duke of Windsor? Almost anything is possible.
Three days after the Eccles accusation, MI6 received intelligence about the Nazis' plans for Edward.
What's absolutely fascinating about this document is the seniority of those discussing it.
This is C, which is the codename for the chief of MI6, Stewart Menzies.
And he is writing to the most senior official in the Foreign Office just three days after Eccles's dispatch.
That's not to say everything reported here is true but it was taken sufficiently seriously to drag in the most senior people in the secret state.
'A new source has reported as follows Germans expect assistance from Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Latter desiring, at any price, to become Queen.
' 'Germans propose to form opposition government under Duke of Windsor.
' These are serious allegations.
That he could be used by the Nazi party to head an opposition government and to really undermine the British war effort.
Soon after this intelligence arrived in London, the Windsors troublemaking in Lisbon was brought to an abrupt end.
The Duke was forced to accept Churchill's offer of the Bahamas governorship.
He responded, ultimately, to Churchill's insistence that he should go as governor of the Bahamas, largely, I think, because Churchill had threatened him with court-martial if he didn't do as he was told.
Edward and Wallis left war-torn Europe on the 1st of August 1940.
London hoped the rogue royal could do no harm in the Bahamas.
They couldn't have been more wrong.
On the 17th of August, 1940, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor arrived in the Bahamas, where he was taking up the post of governor.
Back in Britain, the Blitz was shattering cities and claiming thousands of lives.
Buckingham Palace was bombed, but the Duke's brother, King George, stayed put.
The Duchess was not finding the Caribbean to her taste and described the Bahamas as Edward's Elba.
He was equally contemptuous.
I very much doubt that the British government has it in mind, at the present, that my official activities should extend beyond the confines of the Bahama Islands.
Professor Richard Aldrich and Dr Rory Cormac followed the trail across the Atlantic.
And in the archives in Washington, DC, the historians have uncovered more evidence about the espionage operation.
Some of the American suspicions about the Windsors still raise eyebrows today.
This is a fabulous document.
This is an FBI document from the 19th of October, 1940.
'In the course of my duties, I noticed that the Duchess of Windsor was violently pro-German.
On a subsequent date, I noticed that her clothes were sent to New York for dry cleaning.
' 'The possibility arises that the transferring of messages through the clothes was taking place.
' There is a little bit of an obsession with tradecraft on the part of Secret Service officers, but the fact that they think this is something that the Duchess of Windsor might possibly be doing is very interesting.
It suggests that she has the, if you like, the tradecraft of the spy.
The absence of any follow-up in the FBI files suggests the Duchess was innocent .
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and that the dossiers reveal more about the FBI than the Windsors.
It's a fascinating insight into the way the FBI have begun to perceive the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Originally a crime-fighting organisation, the FBI had only recently moved into the murky world of espionage.
In 1940, it was run as a personal fiefdom by its founder J Edgar Hoover.
He was a political animal.
I had an old friend that would work with Hoover for years and years and years.
He called Hoover the best tap dancer in Washington.
A few months after the Duke and Duchess arrived in the Bahamas, an FBI agent sent Hoover a summary of what the British had on them.
It contained an unsubstantiated allegation that the Duchess had been passing intelligence to the enemy.
'British Secret Service established conclusively, because of their high official position, the Duchess was obtaining a variety of information concerning the British government official activities which she was passing on to the Germans.
' He is reporting what British intelligence sources are telling him.
British intelligence services are telling the FBI what they want the FBI to know and they, in fact, may be engaging in hyperbole here in order to ramp up the, dare I say, importance, significance of this.
Back across the Atlantic, Edward's brother George VI was having a good war.
He and the Queen stuck it out in London.
And by the end of the Blitz in spring 1941, they'd become a symbol of British defiance.
'King George and Queen Elizabeth become the Royal symbols 'of British resistance, going among the people inspecting relief work.
That April, the Duke and Duchess made a short trip across the blue waters of the Caribbean to Miami, Florida.
'Florida gets another chance to see the popular Royal couple.
A busy schedule has been arranged for the Windsors by their American friends.
' They spent five days here at the exclusive Everglades Club in the millionaire's playground of Palm Beach.
The purpose of the Duke's trip was to live it up in Palm Beach.
Lots of sort of golfing matches and cocktail parties.
They were playboy and a playgirl.
That was what they really enjoyed and that was what they indulged in.
However, Washington saw risks in the visit.
An order was conveyed to Hoover from the Attorney General's Office to mount a surveillance operation against the Windsors.
It stated it was 'the President's desire that this be done.
' The FBI is taking his visit to Palm Beach incredibly seriously.
The head of the FBI, Hoover himself, is drawn in and they try and do a complete surveillance operation on the Duke's party.
'Assignment of an FBI agent to exercise discreet observations in connection with the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Miami, April 18 to April 21.
' The agent brought in backup disguised as a local policeman.
But there is a problem.
The Duke was already being watched by someone else.
'The Secret Service and a Sergeant Holder of the Scotland Yard Police are acting as bodyguards.
This makes it impossible to get within 100 yards of the Duke for surveillance purposes.
' One of the fabulous things about these documents is they show that these different types of surveillance are tripping over each other, and one type of surveillance prevents another surveillance officer from getting close enough to find out what's really going on.
The full extent of the FBI operation in Palm Beach has never been revealed until now.
One memo refers to something that caught the eye of former FBI man Raymond Batvinis.
An agent claimed that he 'has all communications covered.
' That's a euphemism for he has a wiretap on phone.
He has an microphone in the room.
This is perfectly consistent with the protocols and the tradecraft of the Bureau.
These techniques would have been used against gang bosses and criminal kingpins.
They're being used against the Duke of Windsor, so it just shows again the increase in the surveillance operation, all the way up to bugging the Duke himself.
What we have here is transatlantic surveillance operation and we have a wraparound 24/7 surveillance, including bugs in the room.
This is a quite extraordinary surveillance operation.
What the FBI heard in their operation isn't known.
Any tapes and transcripts have been destroyed.
The Duke and Duchess returned to the Bahamas, where they were out of reach of FBI bugs.
But the Windsors were still being closely watched and the surveillance operation was about to make a shocking discovery.
In the late spring of 1941, the Duke of Windsor became an important figure in the most critical issue of the war.
Britain seemed to be facing defeat.
The British Army was being outfought in the Mediterranean.
The Royal Navy was losing the Battle of the Atlantic to U-boat wolf packs.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill believed his only hope lay in an alliance with the United States.
Churchill was absolutely adamant that the only way that Britain could win the war was to drag America in, and he was quite specific about this, and anything that impeded this would be a very serious matter.
Many in the US wanted to isolate their country from what they saw as Britain's doomed fight.
And Churchill knew that the Duke had the ear of influential Americans.
The letters between Churchill and the Duke are all about, 'Please, sir, do not give any countenance to isolationist opinion in America.
The policy of the Government is to get America on board and you must support that policy.
' Churchill feared that the situation was so finely balanced that even a few wrong words at the Duke's dinner table could cost Britain the war.
But what has never been revealed, until now, is how an American spy had already infiltrated the Duke's social circle.
In 1941, the FBI received a visit from an intriguing figure called William Rhinelander Stewart.
William Rhinelander Stewart was an American.
He was a very, very wealthy man.
These are people who would spend their summer months in upstate New York or Maine, they would winter down at Palm Beach in Florida.
He would be routinely in the society columns.
He had strong connections with the elite.
Stewart told the FBI that he had met the Duke and Duchess at a cocktail party.
That had led to games of golf with Edward .
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and he was now prepared to spy on his so-called friend, the Duke.
'Stewart said he felt he might be in a position to help us if we were interested in knowing what was going on as far as the Duke was concerned.
' Hoover's notations can still be seen on the document.
- Hoover wrote: - 'He ought to maintain his contact, even visiting Nassau from time to time.
' Hoover's saying, 'Let's push this guy a little bit, let's use him as a source.
' But this memo is only half the story.
Stewart was a member of a secret society of wealthy Americans called The Room.
The Room was in a townhouse on Park Avenue where a group of very ultra-wealthy New Yorkers would come and serve as an informal intelligence gathering for the president of the United States, Franklin D Roosevelt.
So, in summer, 1941, when Stewart sat down to dinner with Edward and Wallis, he wasn't just spying for the FBI.
He reported the Windsors' dinner party chitchat direct to President Roosevelt, who held the fate of Britain in his hands.
And what Edward was saying was political dynamite.
80 years later, it is possible to listen in on Edward, thanks to the spy craft of postal censorship.
Postal censorship is one of the oldest forms of intelligence collection and quite simply, it is someone intercepting a letter, opening it, reading it and making a copy.
And it's very, very important during the Second World War.
One of the ways that Britain leverages its imperial power is to use the choke point through which communications are flowing.
So, hundreds of thousands of letters are moving around the world and they are largely moving through points of British control and Britain has tens of thousands of people opening these letters and looking for intelligence.
This is a blanket postal surveillance.
Everything is being opened.
In Bermuda, the British had a vast censorship operation.
There were about 1,200 operatives opening letters and relaying their contents to London.
Very few of these intercepts have ever been released to the public.
But one about the Duke has been unearthed by Dr Cormac and Professor Aldrich.
This is an intercepted letter between someone in New York and Middlesex and it has been intercepted by the censor and passed on to the Government to analyse it.
The letter was from Frazier Jelke, an influential American businessman, to an associate in Britain.
'Jelke mentions dining at Government House and meeting the Duke and Duchess intimately on a number of other occasions.
' What is fabulous about this censorship report, it is a report by someone quite important who has been to dinner with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and is astonished by what they say.
'Writer states that I was amazed to be told by each of them, personally and separately, they were opposed to America entering the war as it was too late to do any good.
' Churchill had repeatedly asked Edward to argue against isolationism because without an alliance with America, Britain could not win the war.
This remarkable evidence shows the Duke doing the exact opposite.
If the Duke of Windsor, so close to Florida, is spreading isolationism and defeatism, that is massively detrimental to Britain's cause and that is an important line to have crossed.
The Windsor family feud had become a fault line at the heart of the British establishment.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor imploring important Americans not to join the war on Britain's side.
Frankly, it's astonishing.
It is close to treachery, actually.
And difficult to describe as anything other than anti-British.
I ask that the Congress declare, that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
In December, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and brought America into the war.
The Windsors remained in the Bahamas, but they were now no more than an irritant.
The espionage operation against them was scaled down.
When peace came, their secret service file was shut and they lived out their days in France in isolated splendour.
But the discoveries made by Dr Rory Cormac and Professor Richard Aldrich reveal, during the war, just how much trouble the rogue royals stirred up.
The Duke of Windsor was a constitutional anomaly.
These were very turbulent years.
To have someone of such high profile having meetings, planning things away from the British government was problematic to say the least.
It is the unique constitutional position of an abdicated monarch.
How do you tell an ex-King to behave themselves? And will they listen?
They were guests of a Portuguese banker, who was also a known Nazi collaborator.
Secretly watching their every move was a British spy.
What he wrote home contained a shocking allegation.
'Watch them at breakfast, lunch, dinner.
' 'They are very clearly fifth column.
' This report claiming royal treachery was part of a vast surveillance operation against Edward and Wallis.
Now being revealed in documents locked away for nearly eight decades.
The government has always maintained that it does not intercept or tap royal communications.
This episode turns history on its head.
The files reveal how British intelligence came to see the ex-king as a security threat This is really strongly worded stuff for British government archives and files.
.
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and how the rogue royal was even spied on by the FBI on the orders of the President.
You've got a wiretap on the Duke and Duchess' hotel room phone and a microphone in the room.
The greatest royal scandal of the 20th-century can now be seen through a new perspective.
The eyes of those who spied on Edward and Wallis.
It's a secret dossier like no other.
I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility On 11th December, 1936, the day after he abdicated the throne, the ex-king, Edward VIII, left England for the continent.
Without the help and support of the woman I love.
For nearly two years he'd been under special Branch and MI5 surveillance, instigated by his father, George V, and approved by the Prime Minister.
Their main worry had been Edward's relationship with the American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
But Britain's security services also became concerned about his association with fascist sympathisers.
Intelligence historians Dr Rory Cormack and Professor Richard Aldridge and now mining secret files hidden away for nearly 80 years, that reveal how the surveillance operation continued after Edward's abdication.
The first spy was a policeman -- David Storrier -- who accompanied Edward to Europe.
Storrier was the chief inspector assigned to the Duke of Windsor's entourage, and he had an intriguing dual mission.
His primary purpose was to act as bodyguard, spot threats to the Duke's life, but at the same time, he was feeding back intelligence to Scotland Yard.
One early report revealed Storrier's success in embedding himself with the Duke.
'I am surprised to report that I'm being treated 'in an extremely courteous and friendly way.
' 'HRH described me the other evening as "one of the family".
' These letters, we've found in the files.
It's good spy craft, Storrier is trusted by the Duke.
In the weeks and months after the abdication, Storrier reported a worrying change in the former King Emperor.
'HRH is thinner, and more highly strung than usual.
'HRH extremely anxious.
'I notice also that HRH is now more easily irritated by minor details, 'such is the non-arrival on time of things he may have ordered, 'or a temporary breakdown of the weather.
' The core question, actually, for all the surveillance officers, is what's going on in the Duke of Windsor's mind? And it's the fact that he's bored and restless.
There's concern here.
Back home in May, 1937, Edward's younger brother was crowned King George VI.
At his side were his two daughters, including the future Queen Elizabeth II.
Then aged 11.
He smiled for the crowds, but in private admitted he felt he wasn't up to the job.
George VI felt himself completely incapable of taking on the task of becoming king.
He was knock-kneed, he was stammering.
He cried on his mother's shoulder when he was told that the intolerable honour of, of kingship was being thrust upon him.
And it seems the reluctant king began to spy on the brother whose abdication put him on the throne.
The secret files reveal how George might have assisted the surveillance on Edward.
So what we've found is that the Palace are involved in funding the operation.
This internal Metropolitan Police memo from 1937 says the bill will be paid by HM.
His Majesty.
There's no doubt that immediately after the abdication, the king is paying for the surveillance of the Duke of Windsor.
The feud within the royal family begun by Edward's affair with Wallis was about to get much worse.
At the time of Edward's abdication, Wallis had displayed her fury at how she and Edward had been treated.
She was overheard saying -- 'I will return to England and fight this out to the bitter end.
'The coronation will be a flop compared to the story I shall tell 'the British press.
' 'I will publish, in every paper in the world, 'so that the whole world will know my story.
' 'The romance of the century reached full flower at a castle in Mons, France.
'There, the king who abdicated his throne, married the woman he loved.
'The Duke of Windsor and Mrs Wallis Warfield Simpson 'became man and wife.
Six months after giving up his throne, Edward married Wallis.
The new Duchess of Windsor seemed to be enjoying wedding number three.
But things were not quite what they appeared to be.
Edwards describes the real wedding present is hearing that he is going to be made Duke of Windsor, HRH, and Wallis is only going to be Duchess of Windsor, without any royal initials.
And Edward was so furious at that insult to this wonderful woman who was now his wife, which he believed was a matter of the family being vindictive.
Adding insult to injury, none of Edward's relations accepted his invitations to his wedding.
Up till then, he'd cherished the belief that they'd come round.
That an acceptable relationship would be established.
The failure of the Royal family to turn up for his wedding, this total boycott, shocked him and pained him.
Edward's reaction to his family's scorn would come to define the future course of his life.
The disaster can be seen unfolding in Storrier's despatches.
The chief inspector did attend the wedding.
Here he is caught by an unsuspecting news camera.
Storrier even went on honeymoon.
Here he is with Edward and Wallis, going undercover on an Italian beach.
His letters also describe shopping trips to Vienna, rounds of golf and fishing trips.
But in autumn 1937 Storrier reported a shocking development in the Duke and Duchess' travel plans.
'The arrangements for the future, 'though not definitely fixed are as follows' 'Leave here, Tuesday 7th September, 'for Hungary for a few days shooting.
'And to Paris, arriving about 28th September for a stay of a fortnight.
'And to Germany.
' "And to Germany.
" And this may be when alarm bells start to ring.
This must have been electrifying, actually.
There's this fear that the Duke of Windsor, he might not be dangerous in himself, but he might be tricked, deceived, used, by the Nazi party themselves.
It's a concern for Downing Street, it's a concern for the Foreign Office.
It's also a concern for the Palace.
When George VI was informed about Edward and Wallis' trip to Germany, he did not disguise his feelings.
Giving orders that the British Embassy in Berlin should pointedly ignore his brother.
'His Majesty wishes that members of staff should not receive any 'invitations from whatever source, connected with the tour.
' 'The Duke and Duchess of Windsor visit Germany.
'There's a big crowd at the station to catch a glimpse 'of his Royal Highness and the Duchess on their arrival from Paris.
The Duke of Windsor was particularly concerned about the position of his wife.
This is what obsessed him.
So he wanted her to occupy royal status.
And Hitler's Germany was delighted to oblige.
When she went there she was greeted as HRH.
And she got the absolute royal treatment.
Edward and Wallis arrived in Berlin on 11th October, 1937.
They were not accompanied by Storrier.
The British government's only contact with them was sketchy reports from agents on the ground in Germany.
'The Duke of Windsor duly arrived and is carrying out his programme 'according to plan.
' 'HRH and the Duchess received a warm reception from a large crowd 'at the station.
One of Hitler's ADCs is being present.
' 'And he was yesterday the guest of Dr Goebbels -- 'Minister of Propaganda.
' These reports are the best they can do by way of surveillance.
There's a lot of detail.
But it's not meaningful detail.
They know who Windsor is meeting with, but they don't know what is being said.
That's what's worrying them.
'On 22nd October the Duke and Duchess, after a brief stay 'in Munich, went to Berchtesgaden, where they had tea with Herr Hitler.
' I wouldn't say that he was a flag-waving Nazi, but he was interested .
.
and I think he was, at least in some degree, sympathetic.
And endless photographs taken, you know, all that sort of stuff.
You have to believe that they were flirting with Nazism, but that was a dangerous way to behave.
'The Duke sent Herr Hitler a telegram expressing his thanks 'for all his attention and hospitality 'and received a cordial reply.
' This is quite a striking dispatch from Berlin.
And it shows the main danger of the Duke of Windsor roaming at-large throughout Europe.
The government start to realise that it might be a problem to have a royal who's not quite a royal, but he is a royal, and you start to get a sense that they don't quite know what to do with him, how best to control him.
After the trip to Germany, Edward at last seemed to settle down to married life with Wallis.
They moved into a palatial villa in the South of France.
But the documents investigated by Professor Richard Aldridge and Doctor Rory Cormack show the British establishment kept a close eye on the Windsors.
In December 1937, the British ambassador in Paris, Sir Eric Phipps, a highly experienced diplomat, considered one report about Edward so significant that he passed it on to London.
His informant was a well-connected former diplomat, Lord William Tyrrell.
'Tyrrell, who has been staying here, told a member of my staff the following astonishing story.
Some time ago, a special correspondent of the Daily Herald came over to interview the Duke of Windsor.
Tyrrell was shown the account of this interview, in which it was stated that His Royal Highness said that if the Labour Party wished, and were in a position to offer it, he would be prepared to be President of the English Republic.
The President of the English Republic.
Really one could not imagine a more dangerous phrase.
Phipps reported that Arthur Greenwood, the deputy Labour leader, was asked to intervene with The Daily Herald.
'Tyrrell urged Greenwood to have this left out of any published account of this interview, as he was so shocked and horrified.
' So the general public never heard the allegation that Edward had offered to help dethrone his brother and become president.
But many in the government knew the story.
It's addressed to the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden.
So this probably would have resonated, not only at a high level but quite broadly, through the senior echelons of British government.
And they are taking it seriously.
In 1937, London realises the Duke of Windsor is unpredictable.
And if in the wrong company at the wrong moment, could do almost anything.
On the 3rd of September 1939 came war.
It was time for all Britons to stand together.
Even squabbling royals.
Edward at last agreed to come home.
'To the quiet rest of England's countryside, 'we welcome back the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
'One of the newspaper men calls out "It's nice to see you back sir.
" 'And the Duke turns around with a smiling "Thank you, it's nice to be back.
" But the Duke and Duchess's first visit to Britain since their marriage was a disaster.
Of course, the trouble was the wives.
Queen Elizabeth made it clear she would have no truck with, what she always called 'that woman' at all.
After just three weeks, Edward and Wallis hurried back to France.
They were still there in May 1940 when the Germans attacked and France fell.
The Duke and Duchess fled south.
After two weeks on the dusty roads of southern Europe, a travel-worn Edward reached the safety of Portugal.
From here, he hoped to board a flight for Britain.
But back in London, the King met with the new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
And tried to prevent the return of his brother.
He told Churchill 'I did not see what job he could have in this country, and that she would not be safe here.
' The morning after the king and Churchill met, the Duke of Windsor arrived at the British Embassy in Lisbon.
He was handed a telegram from Churchill.
It informed the Duke that he was not coming home to Britain, instead, Churchill offered him a job abroad.
'I am authorised by the King and the Cabinet to offer you the appointment of governor and commander in chief of the Bahamas.
' Please let me know, without delay, whether this proposal is satisfactory to Your Royal Highness.
' 'Personally, I feel it is the best I can do in the grievous situation in which we all stand.
At any rate, I have done my best.
' Churchill has always been a supporter of the Duke.
And Churchill is under pressure to get him as far away as possible.
So where better than a small little isolated colony out in the Caribbean? The Bahamas were one of the sleepiest outposts of the British Empire.
The Duke and Duchess were being sent into exile.
He deplored what he saw as his exile to the Bahamas.
He felt that he had been unfairly treated and he felt it was a totally unworthy job for him.
He did once say to my mother, once you've been a King-Emperor, it's a bit of a come-down to be governor of the Bahamas.
And I mean, he must have felt something like that, I mean, wouldn't anyone really? But that was the only, governing the Bahamas, you see, was the only job that George VI, his brother would ever give him.
But Edward had ideas of his own.
Instead, he and Wallis lingered in a seaside resort just north of Lisbon.
It was a very nice place to stay.
It's July, playing golf, socialising, etc with the elite of Portugal.
Going to a casino, it's a very nice way to spend summer while the world around you is falling to pieces.
In Portugal, the surveillance operation against Edward and Wallis was reactivated.
In 1940, the country was officially neutral.
But it was leaning towards Germany Which had an espionage network of hundreds of agents all over the country.
Here it would be easy for the Duke of Windsor, a man who had shaken hands with Hitler, to fall under German influence.
Security services want more intelligence.
They want to know what he's doing, who he's talking to and what his intentions actually are.
We start to see a change in the operation, where it moves from a family crisis to a security issue.
The spectacular villa where Edward and Wallis stayed was owned by a very wealthy Portuguese called Ricardo Espirito Santa Silva.
British intelligence soon put together a file on him.
'Senor Espirito Santa is very pro-German.
Politically, he is a crook.
He is handling very large sums in banknotes and securities from Germany.
These monies are almost certainly German loot from captive countries.
' MI6 are starting to realise that Santa Silva not only has pro-German tendencies but might even be a German agent.
And you can imagine the panic that would cause in Whitehall.
London assigned the Windsor case to the most senior intelligence officer in Portugal, David Eccles.
David Eccles is the representative of the special operations executive.
The most James Bond type organisation Britain has in 1940.
But Eccles faced a problem.
British agents couldn't intercept the Duke's mail, which required access to the Portuguese postal depot.
Nor could they tap phone calls without access to Portugal's telecommunications network.
It would have been very difficult for them to implement technical operations.
So they were reliant on the human side of things.
In a letter home to his wife, Eccles wrote that while the Duke was in Lisbon.
'I shall watch him at breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a critical eye.
' And what Eccles reported still makes shocking reading today.
One of his dispatches back to his spy boss at HQ has been found in the archives.
Written in a hurried scrawl, it says 'I had some conversation today with the Duke and Duchess.
They reckon we pushed France into a war she didn't want, and that the French Armistice was the best possible thing they could do.
They are very clearly fifth column.
This is really strongly worded stuff for British government archives and files.
Fifth column means that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were working essentially for the Nazi Party.
And aiding a Nazi invasion of Britain.
It is a serious accusation and this makes its way around senior circles in London.
And it's pretty damning actually.
But as Eccles got to know the Duke and Duchess better, he began to moderate his views.
Regarding the Windsors less as committed Nazis, but rather as frivolous chancers.
'By heaven, when they turn their united charm on, it's hard to resist.
They are the arch beachcombers of the world.
' Intelligence experts see Edward's behaviour in Lisbon as the rogue royal throwing his weight around.
He was disgruntled.
He was angry with the Royal family.
He wanted to make a point.
Look, I'm important, and perhaps you should consider giving me a better job than the one you're offering.
But he was a man playing a very dangerous game.
This is July 1940.
This is the moment when Britain thinks it's about to be invaded.
This is perhaps the most dangerous moment.
Because, in that context, what would the Germans do with, or to, the Duke of Windsor? Almost anything is possible.
Three days after the Eccles accusation, MI6 received intelligence about the Nazis' plans for Edward.
What's absolutely fascinating about this document is the seniority of those discussing it.
This is C, which is the codename for the chief of MI6, Stewart Menzies.
And he is writing to the most senior official in the Foreign Office just three days after Eccles's dispatch.
That's not to say everything reported here is true but it was taken sufficiently seriously to drag in the most senior people in the secret state.
'A new source has reported as follows Germans expect assistance from Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Latter desiring, at any price, to become Queen.
' 'Germans propose to form opposition government under Duke of Windsor.
' These are serious allegations.
That he could be used by the Nazi party to head an opposition government and to really undermine the British war effort.
Soon after this intelligence arrived in London, the Windsors troublemaking in Lisbon was brought to an abrupt end.
The Duke was forced to accept Churchill's offer of the Bahamas governorship.
He responded, ultimately, to Churchill's insistence that he should go as governor of the Bahamas, largely, I think, because Churchill had threatened him with court-martial if he didn't do as he was told.
Edward and Wallis left war-torn Europe on the 1st of August 1940.
London hoped the rogue royal could do no harm in the Bahamas.
They couldn't have been more wrong.
On the 17th of August, 1940, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor arrived in the Bahamas, where he was taking up the post of governor.
Back in Britain, the Blitz was shattering cities and claiming thousands of lives.
Buckingham Palace was bombed, but the Duke's brother, King George, stayed put.
The Duchess was not finding the Caribbean to her taste and described the Bahamas as Edward's Elba.
He was equally contemptuous.
I very much doubt that the British government has it in mind, at the present, that my official activities should extend beyond the confines of the Bahama Islands.
Professor Richard Aldrich and Dr Rory Cormac followed the trail across the Atlantic.
And in the archives in Washington, DC, the historians have uncovered more evidence about the espionage operation.
Some of the American suspicions about the Windsors still raise eyebrows today.
This is a fabulous document.
This is an FBI document from the 19th of October, 1940.
'In the course of my duties, I noticed that the Duchess of Windsor was violently pro-German.
On a subsequent date, I noticed that her clothes were sent to New York for dry cleaning.
' 'The possibility arises that the transferring of messages through the clothes was taking place.
' There is a little bit of an obsession with tradecraft on the part of Secret Service officers, but the fact that they think this is something that the Duchess of Windsor might possibly be doing is very interesting.
It suggests that she has the, if you like, the tradecraft of the spy.
The absence of any follow-up in the FBI files suggests the Duchess was innocent .
.
and that the dossiers reveal more about the FBI than the Windsors.
It's a fascinating insight into the way the FBI have begun to perceive the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Originally a crime-fighting organisation, the FBI had only recently moved into the murky world of espionage.
In 1940, it was run as a personal fiefdom by its founder J Edgar Hoover.
He was a political animal.
I had an old friend that would work with Hoover for years and years and years.
He called Hoover the best tap dancer in Washington.
A few months after the Duke and Duchess arrived in the Bahamas, an FBI agent sent Hoover a summary of what the British had on them.
It contained an unsubstantiated allegation that the Duchess had been passing intelligence to the enemy.
'British Secret Service established conclusively, because of their high official position, the Duchess was obtaining a variety of information concerning the British government official activities which she was passing on to the Germans.
' He is reporting what British intelligence sources are telling him.
British intelligence services are telling the FBI what they want the FBI to know and they, in fact, may be engaging in hyperbole here in order to ramp up the, dare I say, importance, significance of this.
Back across the Atlantic, Edward's brother George VI was having a good war.
He and the Queen stuck it out in London.
And by the end of the Blitz in spring 1941, they'd become a symbol of British defiance.
'King George and Queen Elizabeth become the Royal symbols 'of British resistance, going among the people inspecting relief work.
That April, the Duke and Duchess made a short trip across the blue waters of the Caribbean to Miami, Florida.
'Florida gets another chance to see the popular Royal couple.
A busy schedule has been arranged for the Windsors by their American friends.
' They spent five days here at the exclusive Everglades Club in the millionaire's playground of Palm Beach.
The purpose of the Duke's trip was to live it up in Palm Beach.
Lots of sort of golfing matches and cocktail parties.
They were playboy and a playgirl.
That was what they really enjoyed and that was what they indulged in.
However, Washington saw risks in the visit.
An order was conveyed to Hoover from the Attorney General's Office to mount a surveillance operation against the Windsors.
It stated it was 'the President's desire that this be done.
' The FBI is taking his visit to Palm Beach incredibly seriously.
The head of the FBI, Hoover himself, is drawn in and they try and do a complete surveillance operation on the Duke's party.
'Assignment of an FBI agent to exercise discreet observations in connection with the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Miami, April 18 to April 21.
' The agent brought in backup disguised as a local policeman.
But there is a problem.
The Duke was already being watched by someone else.
'The Secret Service and a Sergeant Holder of the Scotland Yard Police are acting as bodyguards.
This makes it impossible to get within 100 yards of the Duke for surveillance purposes.
' One of the fabulous things about these documents is they show that these different types of surveillance are tripping over each other, and one type of surveillance prevents another surveillance officer from getting close enough to find out what's really going on.
The full extent of the FBI operation in Palm Beach has never been revealed until now.
One memo refers to something that caught the eye of former FBI man Raymond Batvinis.
An agent claimed that he 'has all communications covered.
' That's a euphemism for he has a wiretap on phone.
He has an microphone in the room.
This is perfectly consistent with the protocols and the tradecraft of the Bureau.
These techniques would have been used against gang bosses and criminal kingpins.
They're being used against the Duke of Windsor, so it just shows again the increase in the surveillance operation, all the way up to bugging the Duke himself.
What we have here is transatlantic surveillance operation and we have a wraparound 24/7 surveillance, including bugs in the room.
This is a quite extraordinary surveillance operation.
What the FBI heard in their operation isn't known.
Any tapes and transcripts have been destroyed.
The Duke and Duchess returned to the Bahamas, where they were out of reach of FBI bugs.
But the Windsors were still being closely watched and the surveillance operation was about to make a shocking discovery.
In the late spring of 1941, the Duke of Windsor became an important figure in the most critical issue of the war.
Britain seemed to be facing defeat.
The British Army was being outfought in the Mediterranean.
The Royal Navy was losing the Battle of the Atlantic to U-boat wolf packs.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill believed his only hope lay in an alliance with the United States.
Churchill was absolutely adamant that the only way that Britain could win the war was to drag America in, and he was quite specific about this, and anything that impeded this would be a very serious matter.
Many in the US wanted to isolate their country from what they saw as Britain's doomed fight.
And Churchill knew that the Duke had the ear of influential Americans.
The letters between Churchill and the Duke are all about, 'Please, sir, do not give any countenance to isolationist opinion in America.
The policy of the Government is to get America on board and you must support that policy.
' Churchill feared that the situation was so finely balanced that even a few wrong words at the Duke's dinner table could cost Britain the war.
But what has never been revealed, until now, is how an American spy had already infiltrated the Duke's social circle.
In 1941, the FBI received a visit from an intriguing figure called William Rhinelander Stewart.
William Rhinelander Stewart was an American.
He was a very, very wealthy man.
These are people who would spend their summer months in upstate New York or Maine, they would winter down at Palm Beach in Florida.
He would be routinely in the society columns.
He had strong connections with the elite.
Stewart told the FBI that he had met the Duke and Duchess at a cocktail party.
That had led to games of golf with Edward .
.
and he was now prepared to spy on his so-called friend, the Duke.
'Stewart said he felt he might be in a position to help us if we were interested in knowing what was going on as far as the Duke was concerned.
' Hoover's notations can still be seen on the document.
- Hoover wrote: - 'He ought to maintain his contact, even visiting Nassau from time to time.
' Hoover's saying, 'Let's push this guy a little bit, let's use him as a source.
' But this memo is only half the story.
Stewart was a member of a secret society of wealthy Americans called The Room.
The Room was in a townhouse on Park Avenue where a group of very ultra-wealthy New Yorkers would come and serve as an informal intelligence gathering for the president of the United States, Franklin D Roosevelt.
So, in summer, 1941, when Stewart sat down to dinner with Edward and Wallis, he wasn't just spying for the FBI.
He reported the Windsors' dinner party chitchat direct to President Roosevelt, who held the fate of Britain in his hands.
And what Edward was saying was political dynamite.
80 years later, it is possible to listen in on Edward, thanks to the spy craft of postal censorship.
Postal censorship is one of the oldest forms of intelligence collection and quite simply, it is someone intercepting a letter, opening it, reading it and making a copy.
And it's very, very important during the Second World War.
One of the ways that Britain leverages its imperial power is to use the choke point through which communications are flowing.
So, hundreds of thousands of letters are moving around the world and they are largely moving through points of British control and Britain has tens of thousands of people opening these letters and looking for intelligence.
This is a blanket postal surveillance.
Everything is being opened.
In Bermuda, the British had a vast censorship operation.
There were about 1,200 operatives opening letters and relaying their contents to London.
Very few of these intercepts have ever been released to the public.
But one about the Duke has been unearthed by Dr Cormac and Professor Aldrich.
This is an intercepted letter between someone in New York and Middlesex and it has been intercepted by the censor and passed on to the Government to analyse it.
The letter was from Frazier Jelke, an influential American businessman, to an associate in Britain.
'Jelke mentions dining at Government House and meeting the Duke and Duchess intimately on a number of other occasions.
' What is fabulous about this censorship report, it is a report by someone quite important who has been to dinner with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and is astonished by what they say.
'Writer states that I was amazed to be told by each of them, personally and separately, they were opposed to America entering the war as it was too late to do any good.
' Churchill had repeatedly asked Edward to argue against isolationism because without an alliance with America, Britain could not win the war.
This remarkable evidence shows the Duke doing the exact opposite.
If the Duke of Windsor, so close to Florida, is spreading isolationism and defeatism, that is massively detrimental to Britain's cause and that is an important line to have crossed.
The Windsor family feud had become a fault line at the heart of the British establishment.
The Duke and Duchess of Windsor imploring important Americans not to join the war on Britain's side.
Frankly, it's astonishing.
It is close to treachery, actually.
And difficult to describe as anything other than anti-British.
I ask that the Congress declare, that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
In December, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and brought America into the war.
The Windsors remained in the Bahamas, but they were now no more than an irritant.
The espionage operation against them was scaled down.
When peace came, their secret service file was shut and they lived out their days in France in isolated splendour.
But the discoveries made by Dr Rory Cormac and Professor Richard Aldrich reveal, during the war, just how much trouble the rogue royals stirred up.
The Duke of Windsor was a constitutional anomaly.
These were very turbulent years.
To have someone of such high profile having meetings, planning things away from the British government was problematic to say the least.
It is the unique constitutional position of an abdicated monarch.
How do you tell an ex-King to behave themselves? And will they listen?