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with a puzzle are no ; very likely to solve it. {ere is one about which I have srooded 10r a year and would * ike to unburden myself, Some- } hing of what I have put down tical, as that of nay cause pain; but that Ivor of a private nust isk, oecause where wople are concerned the truth an never be ascertained with- vat painful things being cald, nd because I feel that what I ut down may lead to some- vody remembering the fact or yhrase which will suddenly oring it all into focus. Ty I did not believe (by instinct ather than reason) that the two eople about whom 1 am going to -rite may well have been victims of ime unforeseen calamity, the wave would not exist and 1 shouid ive nothing to say. I have had access to no secrets. Lave not talked to many of the w. ple 1 should like to, I offer no nution, only a few suggestions, & ieditation on human complexity hich leads to murky bypaths but mich, 1 hope, will show that no ae has any right to jump to favourable conclusions about euple of whom they know nothing. A Matter of Choice or Necessity Hess to from school. the threat being blackmail or 0 an imperious recall having become too dangerous. ‘There remains that they were secret mission, kidnapped. sume that the the same explanation. their panic, but even tend to exclude PRE disappearance, towards the a and of May last vear, of Guy wirgess and Donald Maclean is a ws i ry which cannot be solved ‘where are. however ni many factors remain y ' ssihle IN OWN, and therelore any where it, ruBbt be poss Ths splanation can be based only on balance of probabilities. ich solutions fall into two cate- ‘ies, according as they presup- ‘ise the disappearance to tter of choice or of necessity. vanished on Mav 26. 1951. also consider the poss thas thev are dead - - The Sundav Times London, Sept. 21; 1952 on Duart MacLean, Espionage - R Dona et a Re: a i. ors 108 és fun Legs ATV ACHE ANDRICAD TUS FIGLNSD a by Cyril-Connolly | _ 4 ‘A voluntary tight might oé poli- Bcotla and psychological ' nature, as when two boys run away The compelled exit, the forced move. implies escape under duress. either of private 1 public exposure. or again it might be the result of by a Power which regarded one oF both of the two diplomats as in danget or 05 a possibility sent abroad on & and another that they were jured abroad and then Theie are simply not enough facts to exclude any of these explanations, nor can we even pre- behaviour of both Maclean and Burgess is covered by and Maciean from the so-called s 5 The most striking fact—the suddenness of disappearance—suceests this suddenness could have been counterfeited, The spontaneous thoroughness of the search would seem to indicate that | the Foreign Office first accepted the theory of kidnapping. and so would the notion of @ secret mission (unless self-imposed), while a high French police official has maintained that it would have been impossible for the two visitors to France to elude the drag- spread for them without the " pro- i tection ” of a political organisation. countries for two | is ‘ abic-badied men to obtain work and still escape notice, but they are not so easily reached from the station ai Renhes, in Brittany, whence they Wbility net As one.ol.thé many who Knew +4. and ag one of the few bvho spoke with Maclean on his last Pia in England, 7 should like | approach the subject trom @ dif- ferent standpoint. Let us put aside the facts of which we know so little and consider the personalities involved. In 50 far as one indi- yidual can ever understand anotier, we May find that we have grounds to eliminate some of these explanaLlions and so narrow down the value of X. as We shall name the factor responsible for their joint disappearance. Looking Back to : Childhood WO facts distinguish Burgess “atomic” spies—first, they 4 8 not known to have committed crime, second, they are members of the governing class, 0 the high bureaucracy, the “they” "to whom refugees like Fuchs and Pontecorvo and humble figures like Nunn May belong. Ir traitors they be. then ‘they aré traitors to themselves. But. as in all cases where people seem to act against their own poitical -interests. We must go ack ta childhood. Politics begin in the nursery, no one is born patriotic or unpatriotic, right-wing OF left-wing. and it is the child whose craving for love unsatished, whore desire for wer is thwarted, or whose innate ig warped. that a | any sense of justice eventually may try to become A revolutionary or B dictator. In . ngiand we attach spiritual values - alone to childhood | an adolescence, dismissing political actions of a subversive mature as youthful escapades. But in fact such behaviour in the young is revealing because it €x- piesses the true meaning of the relationship, with the father in f f its most critical phase \v Guy Burgess lost. his father at an age, and his mother (lo he is devoted) remarried, the child of distin- carly guished iberal parents: | his witty an father. who was then President ro e of the Board of Education, died ~4 i e was nineteen. . | Burgess Was bern inTsTh ROT RUCORDED (INDEXED - 125 98 OCT 16 1952 aa