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re | ig nerenn +h HS Peliosis & | I Chamberlain had “saved peace” at : Munich. Each after his fashion be- . 8an to prepare for the coming war. z In Britain, apart from such obvious tasks as :Tearmament and Civil Defence — a small skeleton - -Organisation for sabotage and propaganda was set up: 7it was known as Section Nine of the Secret Service. ba This was the organisation that became ‘known later as “Baker-street,” or, jocularly, “The Baker-street Gestano,” Till now Guy Burgess had done secret work on an , Oapasional and frec-Jance basis only, In December 1938 he > W4s Offered a regular job in Section Nine. : He was so convinced that war was coming that he * derided to resign from the B.B.C., though he was, warned : that there was no. guarantee of More than six months’ em- : ployment with Section Nine, THE SECRET—FROM GERMANY JN retrospect, it {s clear that, in the year after Munich, the only hope of peace still lay in geniine and serious Anglo-Soviet negotiations, and 4Jso that Chamberlain and Halifax had no genuine and seribus - intention to negotiate. From captured German documants published since the war, we know the reason for an attitude that now seems criminally —------ .negiigent and casual, During the jong and dilatory negotiatlons with the Russians, Sir Horace Wilson and other British spokesmen were secretly ‘negotiating also with the Nazis, The British Parlament and people—bemused for a time by Munich but shocked by Hitler's rape of Czeghoslovakla—and the Cabinet It#Rif would have been hogrifled t@learn that on July po Sid Horacel Wilson was seexir byja non-dgression pact wilh Hifler, to Yenable Britain to nd hetself of ffer commitments vis- 4-vis Poland.” oO sléns were kept secret from she binet, and even from ie reign Secretary Hallfay fe these particular discus- F alifax did indeed learn lof min « humiliatingly rougd- about way. A secret organiga- tion found out about them from « German source, A high official of the organisa- tion took the matter so seriously that he called personal! at the Foreign Office with evi ence of what was golng on behind his chief's back. VERDICT What history saig © doubt {ft was for reasons of discretion thet as few people as possible were told of the talks. In s minute dated August 3 the German Ambassador In London, Dircksen, reported that Sir Horace Wilson had “ex- patiated at length on the great risk Chamberlain woul meur by starting confidentia nego- tiations with Germany. . 4 ihe greatest secrecy vas negessary at the present stade ° —~Hecause, in Dircksen’s n words, “everyone who came but in ] favour Adjustment with ermany was regarded as raitor and branded as such.” Chamberlain and Wilson wer! ot. of course, consclous an eliberate traitors to Britain: - Like others to whom the name has been applied, they were working for agreement with a foreign Power which happened at the time to be unpopular. Tt is, however, important— particularly when one of the negotiators holds the highest office in the State—that the policy thus clandestinely worked for should be. whether popular or not. correct—that ig, thet it should be in the true Interests - of the people on whose behalf “ the negotiators presume to act. The verdict of history under ; which Chamberlain and Wilson | stand. condemned, is. simply that they were wrong. | . Even the declaration of war on September 3, 1939, meant,no 4 oith Backeround,” Driberg, will be h: Bhortly. & Nicolson. Price “Guy Burgess: d@ Porigait © bp ms ubitshed v Weldenfeld dnd - 128, 6¢,° - *