money suddenly became tight. As one acquaintance said, "They both thought the other had money and both were fooled." The couple moved to England, where they spent most of the year, and Hugo fully embraced the lifestyle of the British gentry with his many society friends there. While living in England, Koehler travelled to Moscow and had multiple meetings with Joseph Stalin in 1933. The substance of these meetings, that were probably set up by British Intelligence is not known, but Koehler was impressed with Stalin from their conversations. Koehler had predicted the rise of Stalin in 1920, when he wrote, "All Russia is on the lookout for this dictator and every new leader that crops up is examined in the light of his aptitude for the job." Given Koehler's penchant for intrigue, he may have been asked to perform other intelligence assignments during his retirement. In 1934, Hugo, Matilda, his fifteen-year old stepson, Claiborne Pell and five-year-old son, Hugh, returned to America, in large part because Herbert Pell did not want his son raised as an Englishman. In 1936, the Koehlers purchased "Eastover", a thirty-acre estate off Wapping Road in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, with a 1,000 ft. waterfront on the Sakonnet River, where Hugo planted raspberries, built a sea wall, tended a flock of sheep and made a rose garden for Matilda. His son, Hugh, had chickens, a dog and a pony named "Broadway Bill". Known as "Commander Koehler", he and Matilda Koehler were frequently mentioned in the society pages of The New York Times, and they continued to maintain their apartment on Park Avenue. While the Koehler's and their sons were part of the wealthy Newport social circuit, attending dinner parties and giving them at "Eastover", Matilda was bored by Hugo's navy friends, and her Newport crowd was unnerved by the mysterious and overly exotic Commander. While Koehler's eccentricities probably delighted Stalin, Kutepov and scores of long-forgotten cossacks, the Newport set was not enchanted by them. During one party at "Eastover", Koehler bit the rung of a chair in two, to demonstrate to Matilda that it was "weak" and of "inferior construction". He would consume entire lamb chops, bone and all, to the disgust of his fellow diners. As Koehler's historiographer wrote, "He could easily have done the Greek waiter's trick of picking up a small, dinner table in his teeth, and dancing with it, without spilling the