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w 4 2 wg Fhe Paris 1 mext ' biazoned a vg ¥ “ And, anyhow, age rang false, It was n a telegram he. would ever have -sent. “Am quite well now”: he had not been ill wher he left. “Don't worry, darling”; what insufferable futility ! This telegram, to paralleled 27 months later after Melinda, in her turn, had dis- appeared, throws afi interesting said pathetically to Mrs, light on the mentality of the Dunbar, “Oh, Mummy, they . OFsanisers of these disappear- 4 ‘ ; ances. can't be referring to Donald. : he two-fold search for the can they 7” 7 eee ee : tWo men—unofficial and highiy ublicised by the Press : official and shrouded in complete secrecy, by the security organi- rrespondent tele-. to $s London officlt inquiries w@Re made, and the moa! the news was s¢ the front page of two Britith newspapers. When Melinda read the head- lines, “Two British Diplomats Missing,” and the story below which suggested that they were “trying to get. to Moscow,” she Were from oF sations — reached its zenith FF Perce during the next few days. _ Her fears that the head- While hordes” of zealous Jines pointed at Donaid were . reporters besieged ‘Tatsfeld, confirmed ‘the next morning scores of their colleagues . Not only were the names ; Donald Maclean and Guy Bur- gess impossible to avoid when- ever one locked at a paper, but telegrams from. the scoured the Continent. A few more details were added to the * insignificant little mound of news- '| known _facts—and a massive mountain. of conjecture, specu: J Missing men were received | lation and rumour soared every that day, | day higher and higher. There were two from . “ Donald: one to his mother, | Lady Maclean, signed by his | childhood nickname “ Teento.” and the other to Melinda, They had been posted in the Post Office in the Place de ia Bourse in Paris, which is open all might for telegrams, at - 10 pm. the previous day by a heavily made-up womah. The | original “Of ‘the “telegram re- ceived by Melinda contained many mistakes in English, most of which were. corrected in transmission. It read: MRS. MACLEAN MELINDA. ' BEACON SHAW. TATSFIELD | NEAR WESTERHAM. SURREY. ENGLAND. HAD TO LEAVE UNEXPECTEDLY. TERRIBLY SORRY. AM QUITE WELL NOW. DON'T WORRY DAR- LING. 1 LOVE YOU. PLEASE DON’T STOP LOVING ME. questions What the police and the In- feligence services discovered was not revealed, and if the Government knew anything they kept it to themselves, Shiped at angrily by a Press which felt itself baulked of official confirmation of , {ts various. theories ,jabout the Missing Diplomats and their fate, the Foreign Secretary, Mr.. Herbert Morrison, was finally - forced to make a statement in the House of Commons on -June il, For any light it threw on the mystery. he might just as well have saved him- DONALD. self the trouble. His. statement ended with Tuo wf @ | ef . . Words: *TRe-security aspects — search | This was both meaningless and frightening. The foreign handwriting and the obvious mistakes showed that Maclean could not ha¥e written it, That meant eithed that he had had an accident @r that he was no longer a free agent. But even if he had dictated it, he would at. Jeast have got ,the address right. He would hot have placed. Tatsfield in Surrey when he knew that itsi dress was W . A string of + . oe ~~ oe * Lehe case are under inves : * gation and it is not in the oo A i they — ‘Lic Interest to disclose them ” me ne: + & few more facts, more ine | Sa rl in fact, he said, it really "teresting ‘than anything con- ;tained in the original state | ment, were elicited by a string «concerned itself with “ domestic of questions. *The most Impor- | developments Inside the tant and the ‘most reassuring. | United States and questions vf was the Foreign Secretary's | purely Anglo-American con- assertion that there was nO | cern "—whalever that mizht evidence that Maclean and | mean. _ Burgess had taken documents What were extremely in- with them teresting in the Commons de- But in reporting the debate | bate were the tributes to Donald “ we = - the next day one newspaper |.Maclean. wir, Morrison, after noted that. Mr. Morrison |stating that ° the medical “appeared evasive” whe evidence was that Maclean _ had -tully recovered from. his - breakdown, said that * a report on Mr Maclean's work was that he was an exceeding'y able oMfcial.” Then came Mr. Anthony Eden, who had been Foreign Secretary when Maclean was. two men knew? Had they Bt the British Embassy in really been collecting informa- ; Garo. mays tion for Russia—of which there | ~ " May Tbe allowed t sd}, as Was no evidence at all—they (Mr. Maclean was serving ' could easily have gone outside ‘under mie at the time in Egypt, their own particular niches in . that all the reports 1 received the Foreign Office. of the work he did there were Mr. Morrison was at pains Very good indeed ? fo decry the importance of And to this day, that is Donald Maclean's position ag . really the sum total of ali that Head of the American Depart- “official sources"—-the Foreign sked whether they possesse any knowledge which hb potential value te Russia. It was, anyway. a fairly ‘difficult question to answer. Who could -knew what these ment — whieh Mr. Eden Office and the Government— described as “perhaps the had to say about the dis« heaviest and most onerous posi- appearance of Maclean and tion in ‘the Foreign Office at .Burgess. There have been the present time ''—-by pointing ‘ofher statements. many out that many of the “matters them—al) eaually negative. afl concerned win negotiafions — ually unilluminating. wit e United States are © opyright actually dealt with in other -___ [World copyright) wf... depariments.” A Foreign Office spokesman : followed this up the next day. — He said that the American Department was not respon- sible for current questions such as North Atlantic Treaty Organisation matters, the Japanese Peace Treaty or roblems considered by the | nited Nations Atomig Energy munission. se ———— a ——— My Mbp