Authorities in the US destroyed FBI dossiers on Lord Mountbatten at the request of the British Government after the discovery of a wartime file accusing the royal of being a paedophile, his biographer has claimed.
Writing for MailOnline, Andrew Lownie expanded on his 2019 discovery of a Second World War-era file which contained the claim that the Earl was a ‘homosexual with a lusting for young boys.’
When he made a request to the FBI for other files the agency held on Mountbatten, he was told they had been destroyed ‘after you asked for them’.
Dr Lownie, the author of The Mountbattens: their Lives & Loves, claimed this had been ‘clearly’ carried out at the ‘request of the British Government’.
The historian also lamented the ‘absurd’ difficulty faced by biographers in getting access to royal archives in the UK after finding that files on King Edward VIII and his American wife Wallis Simpson were ‘mysteriously’ withdrawn from public view.
Authorities in the US destroyed FBI dossiers on Lord Mountbatten at the request of the British Government after the discovery of a wartime file accusing the royal of being a paedophile, his biographer has claimed
He claimed that files on Edward and Wallis which had been available in the National Archives for more than two decades, including ones related to Mrs Simpson’s affair with a used car salesman, have been removed in recent years.
Earl Mountbatten, who was assassinated by the IRA in 1979, served as head of the Royal Navy and had been Viceroy of India when the country became independent from Britain in 1947.
He was a well-known figure in Britain thanks to his close relationship with the Queen, Prince Philip and King Charles, when he was the Prince of Wales.
The FBI file on him, which emerged in 2019, also claimed that his alleged penchant for young men made him ‘an unfit man to direct any sort of military operations’.
The file was obtained after a freedom of information request by Dr Lownie.
Agents began compiling the document in February 1944, shortly after Mountbatten became supreme allied commander of southeast Asia
Following his appointment, the FBI interviewed Elizabeth de la Poer Beresford, Baroness Decies, about another matter, and she brought up Mountbatten.
The file read: ‘She states that in these circles Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife are considered persons of extremely low morals.
‘She stated that Lord Louis Mountbatten was known to be a homosexual with a perversion for young boys.
‘In Lady Decies’ opinion he is an unfit man to direct any sort of military operations because of this condition.
‘She stated further that his wife Lady Mountbatten was considered equally erratic.’
The document was signed by EE Conroy, head of the FBI’s New York field office, who wrote that she ‘appears to have no special motive in making the above statements’.
Dr Lownie says in his article for MailOnline: ‘After I discovered a wartime FBI file which claimed Mountbatten was “a homosexual with a perversion for young boys”, I requested other listed files held on him, only to be told they had been destroyed.
Earl Mountbatten, who was assassinated by the IRA in 1979, served as head of the Royal Navy and had been Viceroy of India when the country became independent from Britain in 1947. Above: Earl Mountbatten of Burma and his wife Edwina
‘When I asked when that destruction had taken place, the American authorities candidly admitted, “After you had asked for them”.
‘Clearly this had been at the request of the British Government, previously unaware that such damaging material existed.’
He adds: ‘Even though we now have a rule mandating the government to deposit historical records with the National Archive after 20 years, I found that no files on Mountbatten’s 1979 could be found either in Irish or British archives.
‘The Irish Garda claimed it was still ‘an active investigation’, even though the bomb maker had been convicted, served a sentence and was released under the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.’
Dr Lownie claims that he discovered the ‘extent of official (and secret) filleting’ when he was researching his most recent book, Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Louis Mountbatten is seen with his wife Edwina as they prepare to leave Northolt for India in 1947
The then Prince Charles with the Earl Mountbatten at Smith’s Lawn in Windsor in the 1970s
He says he requested files on the pair which had been available in the National Archives for two decades.
Andrew Lownie is the author of The Mountbattens: their Lives & Loves
‘They contain useful titbits on the then Prince of Wales’s movements but nothing remotely secret.
‘Yet 90 years later, the Metropolitan Police refused to release the file on the grounds that it would jeopardise the present safety of the Royal Family!’
When the decision was upheld by the Information Commissioner’s Office, he took the issue to a tribunal.
When a judge asked him to supply examples of information from other files from the period, he found that ‘the 20 files I had highlighted in my submission – and which had been publicly available for more than 20 years – had been mysteriously withdrawn from the National Archives.’
He adds: ‘They included a file with the number MEPO 10/35 which reveals Wallis Simpson’s affair with a car salesman called Guy Trundle, which has been copied and quoted numerous times by historians and is published in all its juicy detail on the website of the National Archive.
‘Yet historians cannot now look at the original file.’
Dr Lownie argues that because of the difficulty in accessing official records royal biographers are often left to rely on ‘newspaper cuttings and briefings from “sources”.’
He claims that even files from the Victorian era, held at the Royal Archives in Windsor and the Foreign Office Archives in Buckinghamshire, remain closed.
Dr Lownie also claimed that records as far back as the Victorian period remain closed.
The Cabinet Office has declined to comment. The FBI has been approached for comment.
Dr Andrew Lownie is author of The Mountbattens: Their Lives and Loves, Traitor King: The Scandalous Exile of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and a forthcoming biography of Prince Andrew.
