In November 1917, the US ambassador to Russia spent long hours writing and personally enciphering indignant cables to Secretary of State Lansing defending his intimate relationship with his 'French teacher.' Perhaps Ambassador Francis' hours could have been better spent during the Bolsheviks' first weeks in power...

The De Cramm Affairs - A Synopsis

Full-length (2,400-word), footnoted article appears in The Intelligencer: Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies, Spring 2008, Vol. 16, No. 1.

With the scent of fresh scandals in the air, it’s an appropriate time to revisit another notorious affair that just may be a milestone in intelligence history. Even few Russian history experts recognize the name Matilda de Cramm. However, she was the femme fatale who distracted the US Ambassador to Russia during the first critical weeks of the Bolshevik revolution. She has long been suspected of being an enemy agent. The evidence has mounted over the years and it’s time for a reappraisal.

Matilda and her husband Dr. Ludwig Edgar de Cramm were eventually suspected by the US, Russia, France and Great Britain of being German or Austro-Hungarian agents. Dr. de Cramm was a “Counselor of State” for the Russian imperial government. In late 1915, Ludwig and Matilda separated and he was banished because of shady financial transactions and contacts with the German enemy. A search of his home turned up plans of Russian fortifications, but he fled to the US with Matilda.

Matilda soon returned to Russia in April and befriended David R. Francis, the US Ambassador. She became Francis’ confidante, then his French teacher in more ways than one, it seems. When Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks hijacked the Russian Revolution in November 1917, passion and scandal distracted the ambassador. Only top officials in State Department knew of Francis’ personal conundrum—-apart from visitors to the Embassy, French intelligence agents, and perhaps German Ambassador von Mirbach… Nothing conclusive was ever proven against Ludwig or Matilda de Cramm. However, perhaps the available evidence warrants the addition of Matilda’s name to the roster of other accomplished female operatives of the era, like “Madame Victorica.”