Trotsky's war
Sir: I greatly enjoyed Mr Kendall's ad- mirable article on Trotsky and the Trot- skyists (16 April). I would however query one of his facts. He says that Trotsky served as a war correspondent for the Tsarist press before he became generalissimo of the Rus- sian Army in 1918.
For at least part of 1916 and 1917 I believe that Trotsky was in the States, leading the Russian revolutionary group Whose headquarters were at 63 West 107th Street. His organisation was financed by the Germans. His personal cover was that of an electrician in the Fox Film Studios.
When the revolution broke out, Trotsky did everything possible to get to Russia. He managed to get on a ship in Halifax, but the Canadians, warned by British Intelligence, took him off the ship and interned him. Kerensky sent a telegram to President Wilson asking him to use his influence with the British to allow Trotsky to go to Russia. Because the Americans had only recently come into the war, the Foreign Office, to show good will, freed Trotsky and sent him on his way to Russia.
If this is true, there is a certain irony that at roughly the same time as the German General Staff was sending Lenin in a seal- ed tram across Germany to the Finland Sta- tion, the Foreign Office was sending Trot- sky back to Russia across the Atlantic!
My source for this is Sir Arthur Willert, the Times's correspondent in Washington in the first World War, in his book The Road to Safety published in 1952 by Derek Verschoyle.
John Bruce Lockhart
The Reform Club, Pall Mall, London SW1
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