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her-e. -does the responsibility lie ? PF the whole uhha stor of the. Missing Bey ere. was NOL so desperately serioud, the valiant ‘efforts’ of the resent Foreign Secretary ide, Harold Macmillan, and of Lord John Hope, to offer them. “elves as hostages would be merely funny, Mr. Macmillan has made a noble offer to “take the eiame,” although at. the time Maclean was not only spying hyit also bringing discredit on ‘pe Foreign Service by his sorderly behaviour, the jlinister was a somewhat yescure MUP. with ne alficial position, Let there be no Joubt, someone is faxponsible. For, leaving side for .the memedt Jaclean’s treachery, 3 ehaviour for some years had been such that. he was not fitted fo hold the honourable position of a senior member of the British Foreign Ser- vice. _And somebody was covering him. gravel fs this the end of the story ? (CERTAINLY not, “ much more, is likely to be heard of Donald Maciban, The Soviet Government Have matched the British Govérm- ment in their bland ceniais for the past four years of any knowledge of the Missing Diplomats, But now that one of their own renegades has blown the gait, further denials will be futile. ; , And so T Suggest they wilt soon make public use of a man who has charly become .. one of theif well-paid servants ~—aud they will put Donhid Maclean on the air “in the interests of East-West friebd- ship.” high responsibility in the Poreign Service. FAILURE ALL \ THE WAY - HE White Paper on Burgess and Maclean is an admission of failure. The Foreign Office failed to pay early or adequate heed to the extraordinary héhavyiour of these two men ,holding offces of The Intelligence Service fgited in the elementary task of keeping them under surveillance, . At the moment when suspicion should have been. keenest, Maclean was given week-end leave ! The fact that he and Burgess had flown the country was not discovered for three days. And the excuse for leaving Maclean unguarded js that he would. have been difficult to “shadow” in the country. “This would be laughable were the whole thing not so serious. under lock and key for four years. These were grave enough blunders: “Almost a$°-- hig a mistake was the decision to Keep the story Everything in the White Paper—apart from references to the later departure of Mrs, Maclean to join her husband-— could have been made public in 1951. The result of this incomprehensible delay is that. thé whole Foreign Office has suffered. Hundreds of loyal and devoted civil servants have now been tainted by scandal. department has been dealt a shattering blow. Responsibility AMPEANWHILE, remains, the The prestige of the entire question of responsibility For Mr. Harold Mactnillan to say “Blame me” is nonsense—and, whatever the rule- bock says, He knows it to be monsense. all the fault be laid at the doorstep of Mr, Herbert Nor ¢an Morrison, who was Foreign Secretary in 1951, and who probably signed a hundred other State papers on the day he approved Maclean's investigation. The full story has yet to be told. No one would bé foolish enough to demand that our counter- espionage methods be. made public. But we have a right to Knew who was directly responsible for ' this disastrous faiture to protect vital secrets, and whether he still remains in a position of trust. The solution of the Bureess and Maclean mystery has been revealed reluctantly—and a little ata time, The White Paper all but completes the sefies of admissions. But public opinion will not b Sifisfied with anything less than the whole truth, That is why an early House af Commions debat the White Paper is essential. demand it, The peoplé