◆ SpookStack

Fem te te | SON WO may HE Government is confronted v4 » two separate issues in debatiag ; ¢ disappearance of” Burgess 3 di Maclean, *We hope it will not, in Uts { embarrassment, allow them to be-‘t come confused. One issue concerns | the staffing of the Foreign Office; the | other concerus the state of our. ; counter-eenionaze service, “ We have a right to kaow why ment} of unstable character were allowed | to hold responsible posts in the | Foreign Office. There should be no * Sectecy about how their appoint‘ ments were made or why their mis | demeanours did not Jead them inte. trouble earlier.s The Foreign Office should not be shy of admitting that: it gitied to deal humanely with Mfclean’s breakdown, or unwilling tofconfess why. it accepted into its. midst a brilliant but erratic outsider’. recommended by a junior Labour, Minister. The precise nature of the : Foreign Office's mistakes should be | fully and openly disclosed, so that - the House may judge whether every-_ thing possible has been done to make | (a repetition of such mistakes un- . likely. Oa a ;. To detect that these men were . forcign agents was not the task ‘of : the Foreign Office but of our counter- » | espionage. service, The inefficiency © rof this service, and the apparent ° ; possibility that_it was penetrated by - Sofiet sympathisers or agents, is a” sepprate issue. We have an absolife - right to demand evidence that ta ‘ sevére, thorough and disinterest .u tigation of MiSs PE’ being itace invec R35 SS ee stic reform when Fuchs viriua [ gt was clear that this service needgd . dp i, | gave himself up, as we argued at af ‘igoe.: But Parliament bas no right’; ‘to expect this inquiry to be made ih. “public, That would defeat the ends | of security: we must be content if a ormatory | ‘sufficiently high-powered refi -comumission is appointed. ~ ° i Character Assassination: ~~ MEANWHILE, the parliamentary _~" debating of these issues has been I opened with an example of Mc- . Carthyism which shows how little the ' dangers of this political vice have yet - been understood. ‘Colonel Marcus | Lipton, M.P., using the privilege that - _ allows Members to say what they like « . in the House without risk of a libel action, named Mr. Harold Philby, férmerly First Secretary at the Britis . Embassy jn Washington, as a mab : a had, he believed, carried o "dubious third-man activities.” . “ Mr. Philby may or may not be guilty of this grave charge. Whether he is, can be established only by , some form of official or judicial in- ~quiry. 1f Colonel Lipton pad merely-: ; demanded such an inquiry so that he “eould offer evidence agzinst a person | unnamed, he would fave performed a valuable public service. The Gov- _ emment could hardly have refused to hear his evidence, © 9 #5 * Instead. Colonel Lipton went on ‘to use the method of public allega- tion in & privileged place, where bis ' i victim has no right of reply. That is the essence of McCarthyism. Its danger is not that the charges are necessarily unirue in every case, bjt inat it wantonly damages reputatiogs d spreads fear because the chars ¢ made in a manner which evadts’ Ke safeguards of judicial procedure. at.