Chris Beetles Gallery

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'Frogman Sensation. – Latest' If the Labour Party Still Refuses to Affiliate the British Communists the Russians Will Conclude Officially That the Frogman Who Wrote a Dirty Word On the Keel of Their Battleship Was Gaitskell All the Time – Low's Spy

David Low (1891-1963)

Price

£2,750

Signed

Signed and inscribed with title
Dated '15th May 1956' on reverse

Medium

Ink and watercolour

Dimensions

12 ¾ x 19 inches

Provenance

The Jeffrey Archer Political Cartoon Collection

Illustrated

Manchester Guardian, 15 May 1956

Exhibited

'Images of Power: From the Jeffrey Archer Cartoon
Collection', Monnow Valley Arts, September-October 2011;
'The Illustrators: The British Art of Illustration 1831-2023', Chris Beetles Gallery, London, November-December 2023, no 65

In April 1956, in what was the first ever official visit by Soviet leadership to a western country, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR Nikita Khrushchev and Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars Nikolai Bulganin arrived in Britain. The Soviet party arrived aboard the Russian warship Ordzhonikidze, docking in Portsmouth Harbour. The United States were said to be ‘deeply concerned’ that the Soviets would use the visit to strengthen their relationship with the British Labour Party, led by Hugh Gaitskell. However, the Soviets failed to see eye to eye with the Labour Party, announcing they found it easier to talk to Anthony Eden’s Conservatives. The frosty meetings between the Communists and Labour culminated in Gaitskell refusing an official invitation to visit the USSR.

The incident that the visit is most remembered for however was a botched MI6 operation to examine the warship Ordzhonikidze. An MI6 diver, Lionel ‘Buster’ Crabb was sent to examine the hull of the ship and was never seen again; his body was never recovered. In 2007, a retired Russian sailor, Eduard Koltsov, claimed that he had killed Crabb.

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