US authorities destroyed dossiers on Lord Mountbatten at request of UK ... trends now
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 The Mail's new Royals section, 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in the UK after finding that files on King Edward VIII and his American wife Wallis Simpson were 'mysteriously' withdrawn from public view.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
