THE PRINCESS SPY BY LARRY LOFTIS : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

This book was just so exciting!  The author Larry Loftis did a find job of presenting the authenticity of Aline Griffith (also known as Aline Griffith Dexter) who spied for the OSS, a predecessor to the CIA, during World War II.  A college graduate from a small town in New York who was patriotic and wanted to contribute to the war effort, she became a spy in a coding office in Spain. She managed to do this while also able to hold down a full time job and do a lot of socializing, weaving her life with the upper class and high society of Spain at the time.  

Aline, mixed with the politicians, the bull fighters, the women who ordered luxury clothing from Balenciaga. In the process, she met the man who she eventually married, who came from one of the most prestigious and wealthy families of all in Spain. Though he was simply named Luis Figueroa, as time went on, and his grandfather and father died, he rose to the title of Romanones, as she did. Both Catholic, they married for better or worse and it seems it was mostly for the better. 

On the International Best Dressed list for years, a fashion icon, Aline Griffith, the girl who had graduated from college and become a Hattie Carnegie model in New York, also bore three sons, and did a lot to help the United States and its Allies to win the war in Europe. 

The trouble is that Aline wrote five books in her life, two non- fiction, two memoir, one a novel.  The memoirs and novel were about her days as a spy but she may have changed some things in them to, as they say, protect the innocent, enough so that there was a question about how much truth the books contained.

I confess that I read the all years ago and I loved them. The language was direct and beautifully unique to her and I got a fine feel for her personality and her daring

The author of The Princess Spy knew Aline Griffith had  been accused of making it all up and also questioned if she had ever spied. Before marriage she had told Luis the truth and he laughed it off, so perhaps her femininity and other aspects of her character and behavior threw people off. Perhaps that people could not possibly think she was capable of spying was an excellent cover!

Larry Loftis, the author, used NARA (National Archives) and other sources to verify that yes, Aline really was a spy. Loftis was able to discover the names of the various operatives (spies), and what their code names were, and what code names Aline had given them. He was also able to confirm some of her reportage. Overall, I was a bit disappointed to learn that he did think she had changed so much in her works that they were all fictive. I reason that some of this might have been because her need to protect others but also because what records were kept of the spies by the government was limited. I also know that no memoir or even autobiography is going to cover every moment of a person's life. It's always possible that there was much to be found that was not, maybe because it was destroyed.  And mostly, would any person who spied be willing to tell the whole truth and nothing but?

I want to respect this author, who also wrote another book about a woman who spied, respect for all this effort, but I have to tell you that I still think Aline, Countess of Romanones' books are worth the read. I think she did a fine job of writing them and I would not be surprised if because of those books more women applied to work for the secret services.

Below are just two of her books!

C 2023 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

THE MISTRESS WHISPERER? TOWN AND COUNTRY EXPOSE! and OPINION BY MISSY

TOWN AND COUNTRY MAG : INTELLIGENCE - DIVORCE - MISTRESS INVESTIGATIONS


I was going to excerpt from this article, which I read in the paper copy of February 2018's edition of Town and Country, but if you don't want to subscribe, try your local library for the full text.  In the article PI (or spy) Herman Weisberg is profiled as a "Mistress Whisperer" as part of a larger article about divorce among the wealthiest of us and the way art collections are assets that need to be divvied up.  A photo which appears to be actress Glenn Close in her role as a Mistress Gone Mad, also appears above the article.  The gist of this article is that Weisberg is the one who wealthy men in New York City call to go talk to Mistresses Gone Mad, Mistresses who start threatening they will expose their affairs to the wives, for instance.  He tracts them down and just talks them down from doing the things they are threatening to do to his clients.  Talks sense to them.


I found this article interesting because while certainly there are Mistresses Gone Mad out there, there are mostly a lot of people who took marriage vows who break them and who eventually go their separate ways sadly but without all the uproar.  So much depends on individuals and their personalities, their values, the way they do life.  But Mistresses Gone Mad are to me a stereotype, a furthering of the Home Wrecker stereotype, in which it is The Other Woman who is the problem, not the Husband, not the Wife.  The man who Keeps a Woman, who has access to money to do so without his wife knowing, seems to never take the blame.  If he cheats, it's never his wife who drove him to it.





The film Fatal Attractions was hot and also crazy.  Actor Michael Douglas and actress Glenn Close were the two having the affair.  When I watched this film, I saw a lot wrong in Close's character early on.  It was clear to me she was emotionally unstable and also that she had lied that she was up for a one time experience - no strings.  But predictably enough, Michael Douglas' character is perhaps more stable, but the one who really can have a one time fling.  Maybe his backstory is that he doesn't always or even often have flings, but you suspect he's had, and as the story goes he will go unpunished.  He's the married person and the person with children, more to loose and risk. It is his wife, trying to hold her family with children together, willing to take his confession as an apology, who goes after the mistress and violently. Of course the rabbit boiling in the kitchen pot scene is very threatening. This very successful film is a modern morality tale and it also communicates that what's exciting is the battle of two women for a man.  I feel Close did such a good acting job that it stereotyped her as a person.


If you are a wealthy married man risking an affair or actually Keeping a Mistress, which isn't the same thing, you need to think it through before you ever have to hire a PI or spy to talk to your Mistress Gone Mad!  Have you entered into this extramarital relationship to help you get through a divorce or maintain a marriage?  Have you done your best to end your relationship without the rancor?  Or does it excite you to have two (or more) women fighting over you? Have you been fair to her financially?


By my way of thinking, if you've been Keeping a Mistress, and the break off or your divorce is going to impoverish her, that is not fair of a wealthy man.  I think you should provide her enough money to continue to pay her rent for a year and you should also set it up with your attorney to pay for her education, if that will help her towards financial independence.
Divorce occurs in California as a Community Property State when two people divide all assets in half.  In some states there are other considerations.  One of my friends experienced moving to another state with her long term husband who - it took her years to realize it - was willing to lie and set the whole thing up and put in a couple years elsewhere - so he would not have to split their assets in half.  She found herself calling him to ask him to pay for her reeducation since the move meant leaving a long term job she loved and not having the retirement she would have if she stayed.  A couple years later he moved back to California and was soon married to someone who I believe was his Other Woman years before.  The focus here is on Community Property, and I've heard of wives who hire experts to track down assets they didn't know about.  But wealthy men, hear me out.  If half of all you own has always been yours, use your half for Keeping a Mistress, if you must.
To the Mistresses out there who are deeply in love with the wealthy man who Keeps them, and who have taken themselves out of the "available" pool, perhaps given up jobs or careers to be available to travel, and so on, please try not to be the Mistress Gone Mad though you are heartbroken and stressed.
You've made many decisions and choices, small and large, along the way, so own up to it.


That is All For Now!
Missy


C 2018 All Rights Reserved

MATA HARI - TANTALIZING COURTESAN AND SPY - EXECUTED 1917 : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH OCTOBER 2013

MATA HARI 

August 7, 1876 to October 15th 1917 - Executed by firing squad for spying.

She started life in the Netherlands in a family rich enough to send her to exclusive schools as Margaretha Geertruida Zelle.  Then the family went bankrupt and broke up. 

At 18 she answered a newspaper ad placed by a man twenty years older than her and looking for a wife, Dutch Colonial Army Captain Rudolf MacLeod.  She married him and went to live in the Dutch West Indies and reentered the upper class. The couple moved to Java and she had a son and daughter. It wasn't a happy marriage.  MacLeod drank, was abusive, and he kept a concubine, which was common and legal in the Dutch West Indies at the time.

She left him and she came back.

She learned about the local arts and culture and in 1897, when she wrote to her family back in the Netherlands, she said she had a new name, an artist name, Mata Hari.  The name translates from the Sanskrit language as "eye of the sun." 

A couple years later both of her children became seriously ill.  Rumors were that they had contracted syphilis or been poisoned by one of Captain MacLeod's enemies!  Her son died and her daughter survived, though this daughter later died at only 21 years old. Finally Margaretha left Rudolf for good. Custody battles and divorce followed in 1906. 

But, before she officially divorced, Mata Hari went to Paris and began to dance exotically.  Like Isadora Duncan and other dancers in the early 20th century, she looked away from ballet and European formal or folk dance to dance inspired by other cultures.  Her inspiration was the sacred dance of the Hindus. 

Mata Hari created a new past for herself by promoting herself as having been born Hindu - Javanese and said she'd been studying sacred dance from an early age.  While there is a long tradition of sacred dancers in Hindu temples, they are always dressed modestly.  Not Mata Hari.

She was photographed many times appearing nude or scantily dressed and her husband used these against her in his custody battle to keep their daughter.  She was considered to be flirtatious, promiscuous, and to be an exhibitionist.  By today's standards her act might seem tame because her movements were not obscene.  She was said to be graceful as a lioness.  She wore skin colored body stockings and jeweled bras, which never came off, and elaborate headpieces.  It was that she slowly undressed until she wore only these things that made her presentation questionable.

On March 13, 1905 she debut her act in Paris at a museum of Asian art that exists to this day and is well respected, The Guimet Museum (Musée National des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet or Musée Guimet), which has one of the largest Asian collections outside of Asia.  Thus her dance was seen as high class and artistic, removed from the more raw sensuality of French dance hall girls.  The museum had been founded by a millionaire, Emile Etienne Guimet, an industrialist.  The museum which would later be attacked for having pillaged treasure from Asia to fill its exhibits.  Mati Hari became his long time mistress.

Imitators sprung up, and she began to gain weight. Mata Hari had started late for a dancer and near age 40, she danced for the last time in public.  She became more famous for being a courtesan, seductress, and  a bohemian, free-spirited and artistic.   Now she had multiple liaisons with powerful men and traveled Europe...

I'll leave you with this much and get to the SPYING in a near future post!