Fonteyn's footwork veiled plot

Dame Margot Fonteyn. Photo / NZ Herald

The planning, like Dame Margot Fonteyn's footwork, seemed meticulous. A yacht was leased by the ballerina and her husband for a "fishing trip" in Panama and a cover story including a meeting with the Duke of Edinburgh was carefully finessed.

But for Britain's most famous dancer, her holiday in April 1959 to the central American state was merely the pretext for an ultimately disastrous attempted coup involving a cast which ranged from Fidel Castro to Errol Flynn and nimble manoeuvring from Her Majesty' Foreign Office when it all went horribly wrong.

The full story of the involvement of the ballerina, whose grace enraptured audiences in London's Covent Garden, in a violent attempt by her Panamanian husband, Dr Roberto Arias, to overthrow the government of President Ernesto de la Guardia is revealed for the first time in documents released by the National Archives.

The secret Foreign Office file describes how panic ensued in Whitehall when Dame Margot, then aged 40, was arrested and placed in Panama City's central prison on April 20.

She was detained shortly after she had helped to transfer Dr Arias on to a fishing boat transporting him and Cuban mercenaries to a mountain hideaway from where they had planned to launch a revolution.

The arrest of the ballerina led to an outcry in the international media and a swift operation by Sir Ian Henderson, the UK ambassador to Panama, to secure Dame Margot's release.

Describing how the dancer had arrived in Panama on April 10 for a fishing vacation that included an "enthusiastically accepted" invitation to meet Prince Philip during a coincidental visit to the country, Sir Ian said the British embassy had been aware of Dr Arias' revolutionary intentions but advised Panama to let his wife go to avoid an international incident.

The ambassador said Panama had put their VIP in the prison's "presidential suite".

In a telegram back to London, he wrote: "She knew that her husband was gun-running, she knew that he was accompanied by rebels and at one point she used her yacht to decoy government boats and aircraft away from the direction which her husband was taking."

Dame Margot was released on April 22 to be placed on a flight to New York and then onwards to London. The file, which underlines the inter-linked nature of British high society in the 1950s, describes how the extent of the ballerina's involvement, was revealed only when she met with her friend, John Profumo, at the time a junior Foreign Office minister.

Mr Profumo, later disgraced by his affair with the prostitute Christine Keeler, wrote: "It is quite plain that she has been, and still is, deeply involved in Panamanian political matters and in the current crisis there."

- INDEPENDENT