Only the Manchester Guardian, so far as I have seen,
has published the story of an outrageous attack—consisting, as th Duke puts it, of "criminally libelous" statements—about the Duchess of Windsor. A woman writer in the American Mercury which in Henry Mencken's time was a journal of high reputation alleged that "the Windsor bills were paid on a lend-lease basis,' and that a photo of Ribbentrop once hung in the Duchess Windsor's room. Challenged in a scathing letter from the Duke, the writer, one Mary Worden, withdraws the lend-lea allegation (which had already been denied by Mr. Edward Stettinius the former Lend-Lease administrator), and says she heard the othe story from someone who once stayed with the Duke and Duche at Nassau. This is an unpleasant business, and it will astom most people in this country that any journal above gutter-standar should publish canards of such a type. It is an interesting corn mentary on the position the Duke has decided to assume that h protests at such accusations against "the wife of the Governor of British colony," not against the wife of a member of the Briti Royal House.
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