The explosive letter from Thorpe stifled by Robert Kennedy
ROBERT KENNEDY intervened to suppress revelations about Jeremy Thorpe’s sexuality to save the British establishment from scandal, according to a previously unseen memo.
Kennedy was US attorney general in 1963 when the FBI came into possession of a passionate letter from Thorpe to an American known as “Bruno”.
Thorpe, then a rising star of the Liberal Party, was clearly besotted and wrote: “If I’m ever driven out of public life in Britain for a gay scandal then I shall settle in San Francisco” – the city where the two men had met.
It was a prescient remark, as in 1979 Thorpe was accused of conspiracy to murder a former lover in what was dubbed “the trial of the century”.
When the letter came to light, Britain was in the grip of the Profumo affair and homosexuality was illegal in Britain. An FBI memo, obtained along with the letter by the BBC via a Freedom of Information request, reads: “The letter makes reference to a possible homosexual relationship between [redacted] and Jeremy Thorpe. The letter was written by Thorpe and bore a return address of the House of Commons, London.
“The Attorney General stated that he wanted to inform [redacted] of this matter on a personal basis ‘as the British can’t afford another disclosure of this kind’.”
It added that Kennedy had verified that Thorpe was an MP, although it wrongly identified him as a member of the Labour Party.
Sixteen years later, Thorpe stood trial for conspiracy to murder his former lover, Norman Scott, with whom he had conducted a secret relationship when homosexuality remained illegal. He was acquitted, but his career was destroyed.
The prosecution had a copy of the letter, and it has been speculated that Thorpe’s decision not to take the stand was because he did not wish to be cross-examined about its contents. The letter was dated April 1961 and was seized two years later when “Bruno”, whose full name has been redacted by the FBI, was arrested in New York for breaking the terms of a probation order for theft. In the letter, Thorpe writes: “It was an unkind stroke of fate that we should only have met at the very end of my stay in San Francisco… I don’t know how you feel, but although we only met so briefly, I miss you desperately.”
He said: “How I adored San Francisco… the one city where a gay person can let down his defences and feel free and unhunted.”
After offering to use his contacts to help Bruno find a job, he said: “Somehow we must meet again, either I must get on to San Francisco on some mission, which the British or American taxpayer will pay for!! – or one summer we must get you to Europe for a really good holiday.”
He asked Bruno to write to him at his home or at the House of Commons, but warned that “the latter should be marked personal!” He signed off by saying: “I can’t tell you how happy I am to have met you. Yours most affectionately, Jeremy.” Thorpe died in 2014, aged 85.