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FACT AND ) FICTION HE White Paper on the disappear- T ances of Maciean and Burgess tells us little that is new, confirms the- suspicion of incompetence in falling to prevent the get-away, because the ¢ @id it at the week-end instead of ing working hours, and kills the m: of Ministerial responsibility. + rhe myth that the Minister ts rponsidle for the acts of any or all ofthe thousands of employees of any ‘pdrtitutar Ministry fs a piece of fiction conveniently ercated to save face all round. . tt enables the Minister bravely and frankly—~and quite safely—-to accept responsibility which he, and everyone else, knows is not his, Its usefulness is that the higher branches of the Civil Service are thereby protected fro: the yelgar scrutiny of the people. nd eferything ¢an go on exactly as begore. onour, so to speak, is satisfied Bnd | | Under-Seeretary, In building up this Demolished That, presumably, was the idea in fre inds of Mr. Harold Macmillan, the, Minister, and of Lord John Hope, the myth in the past few days. Untor- tunately for them the White Paper demolishes it, : ‘The indictment of the Forelmn Office | arising from the Maclean and Burgess case is that such men could continue to hold responsible, and coveted, posi~ tions after behaviour which any per- sonnel manager would regard as un~ fitting a man for any position sof responsibility, True, the relatively unimportajt newoomer Burgess was due to pe acked, but Maclean was promoted. e WHS & gemne member of the sac- rosanct caste which creates and rung the machinery of the Foreign Office. More than any other State organisa~ tion the Foreign Office is a product of the class system of the 19th Century. } irae B reteennien | It is not open to the rebust competi- dion of the comnion people, Nurture 33 more important than character, No witch hunt ‘We do not want a witch hunt in the Foreign Office like the McCarthy In- qyisition that paralysed the Americin Skate Department. We-want a Htfle fitsh air in the place, fresh minds, mén whe don't know, and what is mosge, adn’t care, whai School anyone went to. |