◆ SpookStack

1 ath SB TEPOTE £O MS superio * (Mr, Philby writes, he spent ¥ that the Russians could Ha ned of Mr. Voikov’s inken-. ipns to defect by buggingl his m. .Or Mr. Volkov might e@ betrayed himself through nervousness or excessive drink- ing, Mr, Philby added. “Another theory—that the Russians had been tipped off about Volkov's approach to the! Britfh—had no solid evidence! to Mepport it," Mr. Philby writs. “It was not worth in- cluding in my report.” Another crisis that jeopard- ized his career came during Mr.! Philby’s service in Washington. Shortly after his arrival in 1949, he was informed that a Brit- ish-American investigation of Soviet intelligence activity had ylelded™“a strong suggestion” that information had ‘leaked: the British Fmbaser Avr! po Sea me ee eee fui) ing 1944 and 1945, the years Mr. Maclean had been there. .* Mr. Philby writes that his initial anxiety “was tempered Wy relief” after he found that either the British nor the Fed- al Bureau of Investigation spected that a high diplomat was involved. “Instead,” he adds, “the in- + Vestigation had conecentrated on nondipiomatic employes at the embassy, and particularly on those locally recruited, the Sweepers, cleaners, bottle wash- ers and the rest. A charlady with a Latvian grandmgther, for instance, would rate k 15- page report crowded with in- significant detail of hersel, her family and friends, her private lifé and holiday habits. ‘It was| ‘testimony to the enormous re-/ sources of the F.B.1. and to the pitiful extent to wihch those resources were squandered, Jt was enough to convince me that urgent action would not be hecessary, but that the case would require minute watch-| ing.” ' However, during later meet- ings with Soviet contacts out- sife Washington he was told t “it was essential to rescue. Maclean before the net closed: af him.” Mr. Maclean was at| thé time head of the American! Department of the Foreign Of. fice in London. Mr. Philby tells how he as- signed Mr. Burgess, who was also working at the British Em- bassy and living with the Phil- bys, to arn Mr. Maclean, in London. 7 Mr. Burgess was to getfhimo@}f arrested three times in gne day for drunken dtiving in abi the forcing Sir Oliver Fragks, the British Amtassa- dor, to send him home belause’ ? | | voluntarily just before Mr. Mac- _ lean disappeared. nfident that Mr. Maclean, waduid soon be safe, Mr. Phil forpstalled any possibility hefwould be suspected by gty-| - jing the investigation “a nudge in the right direction.” To that ‘end, he writes, “I wrote a ment! ‘orandum to Head Office sug-| gesting that we might be wast- ing our time in exhaustive in vestigations of the embassy. menials.”” But after reaching Lo} don, Mr. Burgess apparen panicked and joined Mr. - ean in his flight to the Soviét Union, on May 25, 1951. Describing how he learned about their escape from a col- Mat a league at the embassy “at 8 horribly early hour” the next Motning, Mr. Philby writes: ‘Ble looked grey. ‘Kim,’ he saiq in a half-whisper, ‘the bird hag flown.’ I registered dawn- ing horror (1 hope). ‘What bird? Not Maclean? ‘Yes,’ he an- swered, ‘but there's worse than that. Guy Burgess has gone i with him.’ At that, my conster- nation was no pretense,” * ; In the wake of the Burgess- | Maclean case, which caused a major outcry in Parliament, Mr. Philby was recalled from Wash- ington and was asked to resign. The Government denied at the! time that he had been involved in the case and, according to eat five years later h e Tesumed his role as a double agent whjle working for The Observer. \ “it might have looked a bit! . fo 9 odd” had Mr. Burgess returned: ve :