Randolph reported from the German elections in July 1932. Randolph encouraged his father to try to meet Adolf Hitler in summer 1932 whilst he was retracing the Duke of Marlborough's march to Blenheim (Winston was writing the Duke's life at the time); the meeting fell through at the last minute as Hitler excused himself. At Lady Diana Cooper's fortieth birthday party in Venice that year a woman was deliberately burned on her hand with a cigarette by a thwarted lover, and Randolph sprang to her defence. Randolph had an affair with Doris Castlerosse in 1932, causing a near fight with her husband. She later claimed to have had an affair with his father Winston in the mid 1930s, although Winston's biographer Andrew Roberts believes the latter claim unlikely to be true.