◆ SpookStack

TORIES of espionage . have always intrigued me. The slinky and allur- ing female spy : the suave diplomat whom nobody would suspect; the apparently innocent dealer in antiques ; a dash of murder ' and ro- Imance, with the culprits wan to ultimately . unm asked — most of us are famillar with those exciting com- plications. “But the Burgess-Maclean affair leaves me completely baffed. “Truth,” indeed, “1s Stranger than fiction.” The most exasperating feathre of the affair is. the evasive attitude of th e Foreign Office, and now, when it pleases the superior people ‘n that exclusive de- partment t come of their perch, the casual nature of thelr disclosures, Fantastic SHOULD have thought that Public disquiet about security arrangements in the Foreign Office would have induced the Foreign Secretary to make a eon- sidered statement at once. Not so 3 it Was left to a very junior Minister, Lord John Hope, to make a public “xplanation of this most niysterious affatr, - AND WHAT A FAN: TASTIG EXPLANATION Py WAS. Ta is now admitted that both those unsavoury chardc- ters] were under suspieién while engaged in the sdr- vice, Then, why were thdy permitted to continue in former Minister of Defence and Secretary for War Q demands an inquiry- into their nefari- - ous opera- tions -— though, so We are in- formed, “they were rot. allowed arcess to ‘Top Sec- ret’ documents 37 Worse still, when this pre- cious pair of rascals realised « that the axe was about to fall ee ran el aoe they ventshed right under our security men’s hoses. TAY Both the~Foreign. Office ~ and Lord John Hope must surely underrate the intelli- gence of the British public tf they expect. us to belleve that a high-ranking official in that department, even when under suspicion, could not find ways and méans of. ex- amining secret documents. efaeon te balinern Leertalnly refuse to believe it. I have seen enough of Government departments to-- - Know that. restricted and “Top Secret.” papers ,are tn constant transit betwebn offi- Cials and Ministers, I must confess Secretary for Wai 1ah as and - meat Minister of Defence I was never made-‘acquainted with the operations of the Secfet. Service. Nor, to my knop- ledge, was any othex- Minister, The Prime Minister alone ancepts full responsibility for M.L5, The position of the Foreign. Secretary is uncer- tain; no doubt in due course we shall be enlight= ened on thls score, Apatt Trom an cccasion talk wit the head of M.I.5 on some matter of miner importan ¢ 6, and the perusal of t & le grams con taining information on diplomatic affairs and military- intelli- gence, I was kept completely in the dark, I don’t complain about this: it is far better to re- strict secret information to a few. BUT HOW MANY] OF THE fOREIGN OFFICE STAFF ARE (IN HE KNOW ? me,