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Cambridge Five Spy Ring — Part 9
Page 9
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eerie ee
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Missing Diplomats LL
Popular indignation in Britain over the latest
revelations in the case of Maclean and Burgess is
Boiind to Jet loose « torrent of questioning and
eriticism When the House of Commons meets next
month. white paper has merely added fuel to
the indignation. It is a lame document which has
satisfied nobody in search of the truth. However,
it does acknowledge the debt to the statement of
Vladimir Petrov. Petrov, after defecting from the
MVD service in Australia, gave out information
about Burgess and Maclean which showed that their
affiliations with the Soviet espionage network was
of long standing.
What Petrov said makes the Foreign Office look
more than a little disingenuous in what it put out
at the time of the diplomats’ disappearance. The
newspapers were assured at that time that Maclean
had taken no documents away—a gross misstate-
“ment by omission- On the authority of Petrov,
which the Foreign Office does not deny, it appears
that in fact Maclean had cartloads of documents
photographed ‘for Moscow's files. Moreover, the
diplomats’ connections with the Russian espionage
system since their undergraduate days in Cam-
bridge University must have been known to the
British authorities.
The disingenuousness of the Foreign Office is
often thought to be traditional. To the home folks,
as well as to foreigners, a diplomat is supposed to
lie for the sake of his country. But in the extreme
form in which that disingenuousness has been
manifested of late years, the modern practice must
be unique. If this kind of misinformation does not
atop, the governments of the free world will find
they have forfeited all popular confidence.
What is amazing is that British officialdom should
have borne with the two diplomats for as long as
it did. To be sure, Burgess was recalled from
service in the embassy in Washington and was not
officially employed when he vanished. However,
the point will be raised why he got his assignment
in the United States in the first place. He was an
admitted homosexual, a free talker with no bridle
on his tongue, anti-American, and a maniac at the
wheel of an automobile. Maclean was just as
unsavory-a character. He was the type of drunk
who stays on the booze for days at a time, a violent
man Who at one time in his term at Cairo severely
injured a colleague and at another totally wrecked
an American's apartment, and he also had homo-
sexual tengencies. He, too, was anti-American~
during his erm in the United States. All this is
apart fromphe known facts of the Siplomats’ Com-
munist conhections.
‘Wa may leave it to the aroused British people to °
ferret out answers to the questions that are being |
asked. The case is a reflection on the personnel |
as well as the security policy of the Foreign Office,
Fie-responsibility for withholding Information on
56 gcras ©
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foe eae
Mr. Tolson
| spe
prt Mr. Harbo
. Mr. Mohr
Mr. Parsons
Mr, Rosen
Mr. Tamm
Mr. Sizoo
Mr. Winterrowd
Tele, Room
Mr. Holloman —____
Miss Gandy
ent which was in power when the two diplomats
jook off for the Soviet empire. But the Eden
government is finding that-it is being accused ‘as
fs tase belongs, of course, to the Labor gov¢rn-
_an accessory. And there must be some anxious
speculation in Downing Street over the answers to
je inevitable questions that the MPs will hurl at
ne Prime Minister this mgnth. One is: Who tippkd _...
ff Maclean that he was under investigation a a
Ahus facilitated his ‘getaway?
>!
kon Oe
elise.
PER PGi neque
Wash. Post ond EB
Times Herald
Boardman
Mr, Nichol
“Mr. Belmont :
Wash. News
Wash. Star —____
“7 ON. Y. Herald ——__
Tribune
“ON, Y, Mirror —-—___
126 ras Daily Worker
og7 im $58 The Worker
New Leader
- —; 7
Lene eres aan _—
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