Only when Mussolini was thoroughly decisive was Italy badly served. Perhaps this sounds like treachery against a man I still treasure as a friend. Yet it was Mussolini’s powers of compromise which enabled him to represent the Italian people and allow Italy to survive, just as my own similar powers have led to my own survival. One is neither a hypocrite nor a liar if one is by nature a diplomat.
In spite of his firm and necessary aggressiveness at the negotiating table, the Dictator always left doors open for alternatives. Tom Morgan believes that Hitler closed those doors for Mussolini and so initiated Italy’s downfall. Franco, says Tom, had far more sense and kept Spain stable until the present day. Tom bought a house in Spain, which is very pro-American, but he often visits my shop when over here to see his doctor in Harley Street. At least he and I still have our admiration for Il Duce in common. I, of course, understood Mussolini a little better than Morgan. Indeed, one thing Margherita Sarfatti, who perhaps knew her lover better than anyone, said to me was that I brought the man she had admired and respected back to life.
Sarfatti never told me much about her intimate episode with our friend. Yet sometimes, in the middle of making love to Maddy Butter, I would be seized by a chilling thought: could Mussolini and Margherita be discussing me? Might Margherita inadvertently reveal something to alert her protector to the truth? Nothing I could say would be believed by Mussolini. He would see me as her seducer (rather than her whore!). Disgrace would be the least I had to fear! For all his sensitivity, Il Duce was an Italian first. I was well aware how fiercely Italians defended their honour. This caused me to lose a certain spontaneity. Maddy began to complain that I had no time for her. When I explained how I was wearied by cares of state, she seemed satisfied, but some of her old, easy gaiety was lost in those heady first months.
Unfortunately, Margherita still found time for me. I think she was one of those people who feel obliged to keep all lovers, old and new, under their control. When she was in Rome I was often her escort in public, sometimes with Maddy as well, attending an opening of garish modernist art or sharing a box at some screeching contemporary opera. Maddy always complained of the smell. I was tempted to tell her she didn’t know the half of it. I was not at that time Margherita’s only lover, for her ardour, if not her peculiarity, had cooled a little, which was just as well, since I had developed bad headaches in the days when Il Duce was particularly energetic and demanding of my involvement.
One day in the restaurant where I usually met her, Margherita showed me the French and Swiss newspapers. To my amazement they had published shadowy pictures of my Land Leviathan, claiming they had been taken on secret manoeuvres in Libya. I was shocked. I had no doubt the pictures were of my models. They were so poorly reproduced, however, that they could have been the real thing if one did not know better. When I first looked I assumed for a moment that Mussolini had ordered a Leviathan built in secret. But certain features revealed both machines as the models we had installed in the Villa Valentino. The story, of course, was preposterous. Not a nut or bolt of the real thing had yet been made. Even at a most optimistic estimate, the project would take years to complete.
When I got to my office I immediately began enquiries to find out how a photographer could have sneaked through to a room only my staff was allowed to enter under the toughest security. They knew nothing. I was sceptical. I suspected some sort of Bolshevist plot. Brodmann, or even our own OVRA, kept files on everyone and might have spies in my people’s ranks. The photographs had been hastily taken and were not of professional quality. Any Brownie could have been used! I wrote a quick personal note to Il Duce saying I was baffled by this leak.
I waited in some nervousness to hear back from him. He might see this as an indication of disloyalty or un-Fascist laxity on my part. He could strip me of my rank, perhaps even expel me from Italy and consign my inventions to oblivion. Or claim them as his own.
Two days later I heard a familiar sound outside. The Fascist squadristi positioned themselves on both sides of doors flung open to admit the Dictator himself. I expected his expression to be stormy. But he was grinning in his familiar way as the doors closed and we were alone. My stomach turning over, I rose and saluted. He waved me back to my seat with an affable hand, unbuttoning his uniform jacket and loosening his belt.
‘Professore, you are worrying about nothing!’
He picked up one of the newspaper cuttings from my desk. ‘Who could tell anything from this? Does it matter how those photos came to be in the foreign press? Enough that they are believed. The newspapers are doing our work for us! Don’t you see it? Even before we have built our first machine, the world is alarmed, wondering where, how, what — when? Eh? Meanwhile, the machines will soon be in production and those who believe the pictures to be fakes will be shown to be fools, so we win on every level.’
Il Duce had a knack of calming my worst fears. ‘Professore, you are living in the Dark Ages. This is the world of modern communications when the truth can be tailored according to need. Let’s say someone on your staff required a little pocket money and gave the press these pictures. It has done no harm. Of course, you will make sure it doesn’t happen again. But as long as the world is mystified, we are strong.’
My relief was considerable. I would keep my job! Mussolini continued. I must think of him as the star of a cinema film, he told me. The whole art of the film is to suspend disbelief, win authority for the director without being obvious. The director does not succeed by drawing attention to himself or his own skills. He draws attention to his star, his script, his sets.
‘Now since in this case I am both director and star, I have to make careful distinctions. I have to delegate, of course. I have to rely on experts. You, Professor Peters, are one of my experts. As your admission to the Fascist Inner Council shows, your worth is thoroughly recognised. Once our machines are in full production you will get all credit for your work. We shall put your name on everything. The Peters Land Cruiser. The Peters Long Range Flying Boat. The Peters Jointed Aircraft Carrier. Meanwhile, the state requires that Mussolini’s is the only name associated with our projects. Now that there has been a little scandal, we can reveal a few other details, perhaps let another vague photo or two be published. These will serve to keep the world guessing. Of course I understand your concern and appreciate your position, which is why the Popolo d’ltalia has asked to run a series of interviews with you, concentrating on your many achievements in America. As we speak, the Italian Academy is considering inviting you to join its distinguished company. I learned today, and this is strictly between us, that you are to receive the Fascist Eagle First Class. Your efforts are not going unrewarded. Your salary, I understand, is also to rise in accordance with your new position.’
But none of these honours, none of these rewards meant as much to me as knowing that Il Duce was not displeased with me. I was close to tears.
‘My Duce,’ I said, ‘I live to serve you and the Italian nation.’
That was all he needed to hear. Again his manly lips split into a boyish grin, his massive hands spread wide. If the desk had not been between us, I know he would have embraced me.
‘Come,’ he said, heading for the door into our ‘secret’ room. ‘Let’s have a look at the monsters which are making the French and the Swiss wet their knickers.’ And we were again at play.
I speak, of course, with a certain levity. I came to understand how my Chief used these exercises for many purposes. First, they relaxed him. Far more than the women who were brought every afternoon to his office, our machines of the future took his mind off the cares of the present. He could lose himself in his dream. Second, they enabled him to plan. His instincts were perfect at this time. As far as the world was concerned our weapons were so terrible, so effective, the chances of them being used were slim. My Land Leviathan would guard the boundaries of the New Roman Empire. My huge Flying Wings would carry passengers as easily as bombs. My jointed floating Aircraft Battle Stations could be alw
ays ready to launch my superfast skyfleet into the skies. Such weapons meant peace, not war - a peaceful, secure Italy, firmly established within her natural imperial borders, threatening no one and unthreatenable. That was all the average Italian longed for. Look at Things to Come, which Korda made in 1936, if you want see a vision of the clean, predictable, decent future we hoped to achieve. In that wonderful film, which also owed something to my ideas, men of refined education and of the very best character take charge of the world and put it right. This was all Fascism wished for. Yet I do not believe H. G. Wells ever claimed to be a Fascist.
Only when Mussolini, pressured by other powers, brought his plans forward did things begin to go wrong. Where once whole towns had swarmed to cheer him, soon he was lucky to find the stationmaster still on duty when his train came in. The same happened to Hitler. Their people put them in power because they wanted the secure stability of peace, not the uncertainties and privations of war. If Hitler and Mussolini had not set their feet on that inescapable course — admittedly because they were terrified of Stalin — the world would be a very different place today. There would have been no abolition of National Service, for instance, and therefore no hippies. My cities would rise into the skies. My city would be called Roma and she would bring Law, Justice, Order and Probity to the world. My ship is called Byzantium, the spiritual heart of our faith and our idealism. My ship is called Leviathan. She crushes the cities of the enemy. She swallows them. She shits them. They are called Carthage. They are called Jerusalem. Meyn Schiff ist The Sword. She flies in defence of all that is holy, all that is noble, all our history. Meyn Schiff ist Der Heym. Meyn Schiff ist Der Heym.
Sometimes when overtired I felt I was involved in a vast Hollywood epic in which the star really was Mussolini and in which the people of Italy played the extras. Much of his work was designed to create the illusion. He believed the reality would follow.
Cynics have said there were resources only for the illusion, none for the reality. I know better. If Mussolini had stuck to his true course and been a little stricter with some of his antagonists, such as the Jews and the Catholics, he or his son would be in power today. He was foolish to be so accommodating to Hitler. I speak as a neutral, judging Hitler neither way, but there was an element of instability in the Führer’s make-up I never detected in Il Duce. Hitler was misadvised from the outset. If he had known what was going on in his own higher echelons he would have made a cleansing of the stables much sooner. As it was, he cleansed the wrong stables of the wrong elements. Röhm was a rough diamond, but he was heart and soul for the Nazi cause.
Margherita Sarfatti believed sincerely that if she had been beside him, Il Duce would not have made the mistakes he did. Yet others believe she was his worst mistake!
The Albanians have a saying: There are three things you should never trust. A dead viper, a wounded boar and a Jew turned Catholic.
Margherita argued that the worst mistake her lover made was to achieve reconciliation with the Vatican. Once he let the Jesuits back into the corridors of power, Italy was lost. In spite of her opinion, Margherita, of course, took the expedient of converting while the ink was still wet on the agreement. Signora Mussolini, it was said, never accepted the Church. Her Romagnan relatives must have wept when they learned about the pact. They felt betrayed. The worst crime Mussolini ever committed — again at the instigation of the Roman bishops - was the attempted Catholicisation of conquered territories which had been Orthodox for centuries! That is no way to win friends. Mussolini lost many friends in the Balkans. Those who say he was responsible for the murder of King Alexander of Yugoslavia cannot know history! That territory was a battleground for centuries. Christians fought Moslems, Serbs fought Croats, fascists fought communists. They know nothing else but contention.
Many claim nationalism to be an essential element of fascism and so it is. That is why there are so few international fascist organisations in comparison to the communists. But Italy’s form of nationalism and Spain’s form of nationalism are very different, say, to the kind of small-minded nationalism one hears so often in the UK. I cannot tell you the number of times I have been insulted. ‘Jew’ is their favourite, of course, but there are many others. I tell them my blood is pure. It is Slavic blood, Russian blood, the finest blood in the world. The only blood, I point out, which Hitler feared. Save for his own, of course.
To be honest, I was not over-employed as Il Duce’s Minister for Overseas Development. I arrived at eleven, knowing the Duce to be a late riser, and lunched nearby from two until four. In case Mussolini should require me, I was never very far away from the office. Similar routines were followed by all the other ministers and officials. The rest of my time was spent occasionally servicing La Sarfatti, taking tea with Maddy, chatting on the telephone with acquaintances and so on. Occasionally I would give an interview to the foreign or domestic press.
Some of Italy’s most prestigious magazines ran long articles on me and my exploits. I still have a few of the cuttings. They tended to be vague about my present position, saying that I was in charge of a number of top-secret projects. I knew, of course, that Brodmann and his friends in Moscow were noting all this. I considered asking the Chief for a bodyguard. However, I would have had to make too many explanations, since he believed me to be a Russian-born American. All the leading Fascists were no doubt targets for Bolshevik assassins. I had to hope that our own OVRA were doing their job behind the scenes. Sometimes I thought that I had noted a car following me and hoped it was only a discreet bodyguard.
What if it were Brodmann, armed with a silent gas-gun, stalking me? I am a man of sanguine patience and sanity. I rarely let such fantasies gain the upper hand, but sometimes the effort to sustain common sense can be considerable.
Official functions actually came to be some of the least boring duties. The whole world came to Italy to see how Mussolini’s Fascism was performing. Once again I was introduced to Marion Davies when she came to Rome with William Randolph Hearst. She did not recognise me in my uniform or my beard. She was a pretty, agreeable woman, a little inclined to gush. ‘When you come to America, Professor,’ she said, ‘you must give me or Mr Hearst a call. If there’s anything you need, just ask. I hope you’ll have time to stay with us at San Simeon.’
I had no particular dislike for the woman, but this was the second time she had issued such empty invitations. I think it was a habit with her. She had no real power of her own, of course. She either forgot to relay these invitations to Hearst or demurred when he objected. I don’t know. That said, Miss Davies was a far better actress than Anita Loos gave her credit for, but much of that talent was probably reserved for private life. She hid behind her blonde curls and long eyelashes like a panther behind a curtain of foliage.
Hearst himself, almost as elephantine as my old backer, the turncoat Hever, simply breathed and grunted at me and uttered some platitudes about America needing a taste of Fascist discipline and so on. Their goodwill was flattering, of course, but they had no real idea of the weight of responsibility we bore. I met Corinne Sweet again and several stars whom I had known as bit players. All were familiar with my films and rather extravagant in their praise. I think some of them were simply astonished that a professor and member of the Italian Academy, a minister of the state, could also have been a successful film actor.
Much of their response was of what I called the ‘talking dog’ variety. That is, they didn’t actually listen to my words. They were merely amazed that an actor could talk at all. My experience made me invaluable at receptions where these actors and actresses were entertained. Maddy and I went to them all. And because we went everywhere, we were invited everywhere else. It became second nature to get home from the office at about six, relax a little with Maddy, change into a fresh uniform, or civilian evening clothes if appropriate, and be off out again to a reception. At one of these I met the poet Pound, a fierce, sickly, unkempt little man with no sense of humour and a tendency to create causes from the mo
st casual material. I also met Marshal Petain, Zaharoff, the armaments king and Sir Anthony Eden, the dapper dandy and famous lover of Princess Margaret. For all that Hitler was an enormous admirer of Mussolini, there were relatively few German visitors in those first months, though this was to change.
I met Karl Nertz and Isolde von Koln, the dancing team, who were part of a visiting troupe. They knew Seryozha, though not well. He was now in Berlin, but they were not sure what he was doing. They had seen him at the fashionable bohemian Café Schmetterling about two days before they left Germany. Full of admiration for what Mussolini was doing, they feared Germany still faced some form of civil war. ‘It is almost inevitable,’ he said. ‘The fighting between the Nazis and the Sozies has become epidemic.’
Mussolini, although he gave a little help to them and the occasional encouraging nod, did not really take the Nazis seriously. He thought they aped the crudest of his ideas. He had not yet been alerted to the dangers of International Zionism. He believed Hitler and all his people were homosexual and always referred to the future Führer as ‘that garrulous little German rouge boy’.
Mussolini was sometimes as susceptible to believing antagonistic propaganda as anyone. The only Nazi he had any time for at all was Göring, whom he described as an officer and a flying hero. They had met briefly, once or twice, I think. Hitler habitually used his friend Göring for diplomatic missions. Göring also knew Margherita. She had helped him buy modern paintings through her various friends in the gallery world. He had also bought a few old masters. She had no great respect for his taste.