The Waterbury Democrat., 1944-06-27

Slpeu around WaShington Tor couple of years, usually with the kicker on the end that Roosevelt and Churchill made secret pact to rule the world, because Church. ills mother was an American wo- man and Churchill and Roosevelt saw eye to eye on so many matters. The story is that Tyler Kent, young code clerk in the American embassy in London, made copies of this ex- change of messages, long before the United States was involved in the war and while Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty under Prime Minister Chamberlain Kent is sup posed to have shown the messages to member of Parliament named Captain A. H. M. Ramsay and to a Russian woman, after which all three were given secret trial and sentenced to prison.
 TRUE IN ESSENCE,
 BUT DISTORTED
 There is basis for the story, but in repeated tellings and elaborations 1t has been warped out of all pro- portions. There is Tyler Kent who was a code clerk in the American embassy during Joe Kennedy's an1- bassadorship, and this Kent was sentenced to seven years imprison- ment, in November, 1940. His mother is in Washington and she has labored four years unceasingly for the release of her boy. He was, however, convicted of larceny of an embassy document and of com municating information of value to the enemy-presumably Germany.
 At about the same time Kent was arrested, British authorities also took into custody one Anna Wolkof. She was a White Russian girl, whose father had been an admiral in the l Czar's navy Somehow, with his wife and daughter, the admiral had made his way to England, where he open- ed up little restaurant in South Kensington, catering to the London University students. It was there, presumably, that Anna met Kent.
 Like many White Russians, Anna had ideas for opening a little. dress shop. She was about 40 and not particularly good looking. Definitely she was not the glamorous syp type. She tried to get everyone to back her in the dress shop venture and finally did open a little place of Bond street. This dressmaker's es- tablishment and her fathers res- taurant were her centers of activity. At the same time Kent was given his seven-year sentence, Anna Wolkof got 10 years. Her father who received & shorter sentence, was re- leased from internment last Janu- ary. British sentiment against the Wolkofs ran particularly high be- cause they had found asylum in England and then turned around and worked for the Germans.
 NATURE OF DOCUMENT
 A MYSTERY
 Just what Anna Wolkofs connec- tions were with the Germans was ] never revealed, nor was 1t ever re- vealed definitely what 1t was that Tyler Kent gave her or showed her or communicated to her. Closest guess in the London press at the time was that Kent, as code clerk of the embassy, had access to Ambas- sador Kennedy's reports to Pres ident Roosevelt on Prime Minister Chamberlain's attitude toward war and peace in Europe. It is of course possible that Kent gave the material to Ramsay and that he gave 1t to Anna Wolkof
 Captain Ramsay's part in the whole affair is even more clouded than Tyler Rents or the Wolkof woman's. While he is technically held in prison for violating the De- fense of the Realm act, and while there have been proposals to expel him from membership in Parlia- ment, 1t has been stated on the floor of the House Of Commons when his case recetnly came up for debate that "he ought rather to be in mental institution than in a crim- inal place of detention"
 The whole affair is another one of those cases that will probably have to await the end of the war for clarification. But as ammunition for an American political campaign, 1t is pretty thin stuff.