British spies had astrologer in World War Two

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The documents - the latest in a trickle of British spy agency files being released over the past decade - provide both a cloak-and-dagger story worthy of a Hollywood script and serious insights into World War Two spycraft, said the security service's official historian, Christopher Andrew.

The files show that many spy handlers had nothing but contempt for Louis de Wohl, a German-speaking novelist and astrologer who claimed to be descended from Hungarian nobility and called himself "The Modern Nostradamus".

"I have never liked Louis de Wohl. He strikes me as a charlatan and an imposter," one of his handlers wrote. "He at one time exercised some influence upon highly placed British intelligence officers through his star-gazing profession."

Another handler called him a "complete scoundrel" and another a "dangerous charlatan and confidence-trick merchant".

"He claims in his books to have travelled widely in the East in Arab disguise and to have often frequented cafs in Berlin in feminine attire," wrote another. Several wrote that they thought he was a former Nazi.

Yet he managed to set himself up in a British government apartment in west London, which he called the Psychological Research Bureau.

There, he read horoscopes for wealthy clients including senior British officials, French resistance commanders and the Romanian ambassador, whom he claimed to have persuaded to resign and defect.

PROPAGANDA TOUR OF U.S.

British spy bosses sent de Wohl on a propaganda tour of America in 1941, when Britain was at war with Germany but Washington was still officially neutral.

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