Boris is secretive about the contact he has in America, whose wealth and influence he believes will ensure his entry to the USA. Although reminded of the danger his Czech nationality and background poses should he decide to leave England, he is sure that his connection will also protect him from the vagaries of anti-communist sentiment at large there. So, despite the veiled threats made by Colin Brentwood he sees no reason to disclose the identity of his fellow countryman.

As to there being wealthy Czech immigrants that Boris might have been able to call on, they were not unknown in the USA. More than three hundred thousand Czechs had settled there over the fifty years before the First World War, and some first and second generation immigrants had made their mark.

The Estee Lauder brand of cosmetics is a commercially successful worldwide brand, and its founder was the only female who made it onto TIME magazines list of ‘20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th Century’. Born Josephine Esther Mentzer, she was the daughter of a Hungarian mother and a Czech father. Her interest in cosmetics developed assisting her uncle at his New Way Laboratories and, on graduating from high school she worked alongside him, helping produce new beauty cosmetics. At the age of 29 she and her, by then husband, Joseph founded Estee Lauder. Only seven years later, in 1942, she had her own counter space in up-market department store Saks of Fifth Avenue, New York, using her personal sales approach to good effect with the middle-class women.Her personal success can be judged from the 26,000 people now employed by Estee Lauder, worldwide sales measured in billions of dollars and a company with a net worth recently reported as $51 million.

One of her two sons, Leonard, is listed as 48th richest man in America. The other, having worked for one of America’s presidents, has exactly the sort of influence to help smooth Boris’s settlement into the USA.

A family with definite influence and wealth is the Bush family and the ancestry of Barbara Pierce, who George Bush senior married, can be traced back to Czechoslovakia and the kingdom of Bohemia.  George Bush senior was a successful businessman before taking to politics and becoming President of America. His son too became American president, after having been Governor of Texas for two consecutive terms. His election campaign had attracted funds of $800 million. His current wealth stems from huge profits made when he relinquished his role as managing partner and interest in ‘Texas Rangers’, selling for $15million his less than $1million original investment.

Like Barbara Bush, the Wallenda family circus troupe were also originally from Bohemia. They might not have the influence of other Czech families in America but they would have had a certain bond with Boris – spending their lives walking a tightrope and with no safety net to cover any fall.

Up to the end of the First World War immigration was not discouraged, and several hundred thousand Czechs had settled in Chicago, St Louis and in Texas. The mass exodus that followed that war, and with the great depression of the 1930’s giving rise to concern about immigrants taking jobs away from Americans, led to immigration quotas being introduced. They were applied on the basis of the ethnic mix of the resident population, so that 80% of immigrants were from Ireland, UK and Germany, while Italy was left with 250,000 on a waiting list for entry and Czechs accounted for just .1% (point one percent) of the number allowed in.

In 1965, immigration to the United States radically changed again; quotas based on national origin were replaced by a preference system, based around skills and family relationships with citizens or residents.So the possibility of Boris gaining entry to the USA had been considerably improved. First wave immigrants had become established and, with drive and hard work, become successful. Then America had made a special case of those left homeless after world war two, allowing entry to more than half a million European and Soviet citizens.

And if all else failed America could sometimes bend the rules, as it did in the case of Leslie Chateris, author of ‘The Saint’ books. Denied rights by an Immigration Act – the Chinese Exclusion Act – because of his mixed Chinese/English parentage, an act of congress was passed, personally granting him and his daughter rights of permanent residency. However the 1965 Act specifically allowed the barring of suspected subversives from entering the country. At a time of heightened concern about Communism – culminating in the hysteria of the ‘McCarthy Witch hunts’ – it was used to bar members and former members and ‘fellow travellers’ of the Communist Party from entry into the United States, even those who had not been associated with the party for decades.

 Colin Brentwood might well be right and a word from the UK Foreign office in the right ear could see Boris in real difficulties… unless of course he was a spy with secrets to trade, as Igor Gouzenko had been.