“Merchants of Disaster” is one of my favorite stories by Harold A. Davis. I have longer wondered who formed the basis for the two master spies, Leon Spardoso and Grant Woods Holst.

Holst and Spardoso – 1938

LEON SPARDOSO and GRANT HOLST
Harold Davis describes the pair: “One was the tall, distinguished-looking man with cold, black eyes, who had driven the knife into Las Quinan’s heart. His companion was shorter and heavier, and despite the fact that he was no older than the tall man, he wore a short, black goatee.”

Leon Spardoso and Grant Holst are described as partners of a well-known syndicated gossip column that was published in a large number of papers in the United States and other countries. Spardoso and Holst are likely based on Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen, who wrote the syndicated column Washington Merry-Go-Round. They launched the column in late 1932 after anonymously publishing the bestselling book Washington Merry-Go-Round in 1931 and subsequently losing their newspaper jobs.

The column specialized in capital gossip, leaks, and confidential inside information about Washington figures. It was widely syndicated-appearing in dozens of papers early on and eventually hundreds across the country-and was read in political circles nationwide.

Drew Peason and Robert Allen – 1937

Pearson was the more urbane, elegant of the pair; Allen was the brusque, pugnacious one. They became well-known quickly after the books, and the column established them as fixtures in the capital.

1951 – Drew Pearson in “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

Colonel Robert J. Allen

In the case of life imitating art, it was later learned that Robert Allen worked as a Soviet agent in 1933.  Allen died in 1981 from a self-inflicted gunshot. 

Drew Pearson died in 1969.  The Washington-Merry-Go-Round newspaper column continued under the care of newspaperman Jack Anderson until 2004.