◆ SpookStack

+o SP ~ *Tnere are other theories. Qne holding the two were ona mammoth drinking spree had consideratie currency - until the passage of time pushed it beyond the lintts of credikility. There has been talk of kidnaping and of a postitlie euicide pact; there have been hints that the case is one involving sexual perversion. "The two have many acquaintances in diplomatic circles in Washington. Mclean, who is 38, served with the Bmbassy here from 2194, to 1948. Big, handsone, intensely nervous and high-strung, he worked prodigiously at his job as head of the Chancery, often stick- ing to his desk until 9 or 10 o'clock at night. Between times; with his American wife; the former Melinze Marling of Chicago, he enter tained energetically in his home on Georgetown's P Street, attended the usual round of diplomatic parties ~- and rested up by playing tennis. . . "He beheved himself in Washington, and is renextered as ‘one of the nicest feliows you could hope to meet-' Transferred to Cairo, however, as Counselor of the RErbessy, he seemed gradually to fall victim to a sort of nervous and moral breakdom. Has friends insist it was simply the strain of overwork which did it. In any event, he began to drink herd- His binges became wild seizures - ‘he was inclined,! says one acqaintance, 'to throw bottles around.' Finally, when he invaded the apartment of an absent friend and smashed it te pieces, he was recalled to London. There, having undergone psychiatric treatment which supposedly cured him of his ills, he took over the Foreign Office's Arerican section. "Burgess; a LO-year-old bachelor, was another story. Like Mclean, he was a Canbridge man (Eten, too). He wore the old school tie and his club stood next to kiclean's on Pall Mall. But be wasn't the type. His service in Weshington began last November and ended two months ago, when he was recalled to London. The reason for his recall = ‘general unsuitability,’ said the Foreign Office - was not wholly the fact that he was arrested three times in one day last Feb-~ ruary for driving 80 miles an hour in Virginia. His associates at the Enbassy say frankly that, while Burgess had undoubted intelli- gence, they also found him incapable of applying it with any efficiency and co-ordination. “Burgess was given very little to do in Washington, simply be- cause it was felt there was little he could doe By the time he eft, according to a close frgend, his state of mind verged on the suicidal. He was drirking far too much, his habits and personal appearance be- came progressively slovenly. He would frequently drop into the offices of other Enbassy officials topour out his woes - his hatred of America, his feeling of frustration in his career. In middle life, he had reached the rank of acting second secretary and already was over his head. "He was a close student of the writings of Lenin and Stalin, and his knowledge of the Communist dialectic reportediy had contributed to some of the West's more effective diplomatic exchanges with the Kremlin. Yet, by the time he got back from Washington, the Fordign Office apparently had had enough of Mr. Burgess. He was put on leave, and his departure from the service was considered imminent. Om -10<-