in AZ’s letters to his family, and in Winsor’s letters, suggest that Howard Voorhees may have been known to AZ personally before he came to Karachi. After Smith departed and AZ became CO at NLO in Karachi, his right-hand man—his executive officer, in fact, if not in name—was Lieutenant Howard Voorhees. (The “jg” was dropped in conversation.) He was tall and suave, a gentleman, well liked by other Americans and British military and civilians. He and AZ were often invited out as guests. All else that was known about him was that he was a Roman Catholic, and that he had no middle initial. None of the official records shows a middle initial or name, and the Navy is precise about this. He and AZ worked well together, without ever a problem that deserved mention in AZ’s letters. Every CO should have such an executive officer. He signed AZ’s orders and remained at Karachi for at least a few days after AZ returned to the United States in 1945. He then departed from Karachi for parts unknown. He remains a mystery, however, and he has since disappeared.
The Spy: Benson
Lieutenant Colonel Reginald Lindsay “Rex” Benson, MVO, DSO, MC, was military attaché of Great Britain in Washington in 1941. Gordon Enders presented Benson’s card of introduction to Sir George Cunningham, governor of the NWFP, when he was on his way to Kabul in December 1941. Cunningham’s warm welcome included dinners on two nights at Government House. Enders and the governor must have enjoyed recalling their many years spent in the high mountains of Asia, and Enders may have broached the notion of a trip along the border with him at that time. Enders was the sort of man who would have found a way to meet Cunningham anyway, but there was no one who could do it better than Benson. Benson knew India well. He had personally been to the border, and had served in Kabul. He was the right person to vouch for Enders.
Like many intelligence officers, Rex Benson led two separate lives, and because of the Official Secrets Act in Britain, it is especially difficult to get the details of the secret side of his life. The service for which he worked, the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, or MI6), was not officially acknowledged even to exist until recently—although it has appeared in fiction and fact for many years. Now that the official history of MI6 has been published, one might think that much about Benson and his work would be there, but he is not mentioned by name in the index, and I cannot find him in the text.83 In order to find out about Benson and what he did for British intelligence, one has to turn to other sources. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has revealed American sources, and those sources in turn have enabled an unofficial history of MI6 to be written. Some of those in Washington probably knew that Benson was a very rich man, married to an American heiress, and head of one of the largest banks in England—and that he was a relative of the head of the MI6. Whether they would have told Enders about this is uncertain, for in intelligence you only tell someone what he or she needs to know. Here is the story of Rex Benson, assembled from various sources.84
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