◆ SpookStack

* - . ~ Carey-Foster was, ng, “Don’t worry, i said, “I'm sure. your husband , willbe back soon, But I think : it would be best if you said | nothing at all about this to any- one else.” Clearly, however, a more serious wi when the Chief Security Officer | reported Donald Maclean’s “non-appearance.” High-level | inquiries were immediately opened. ‘That night an urgent signal wos out to all British | | diplamatic and consular pests | ‘on the Continent to look out | for Maclean and his companion Vand report back on a “clear- the-line” level to the Prime : Minister, In other words, the | message was to have the bigh- test possible priority and was ‘to be sent in plain language to avoid any delay in coding and decoding. a Guy swe pearance—and she tod missed . ¢ n’t worry, your e,.back soon” At the same time the various hes, i brancl 5 M. 1. special England, vjagencies abroad wei but no warning was sent to the French or other European police, ML id | At Eatened, the morning ont dis Stans ths Trou : pemg etter “they lett, th s ice obviously hoped Ht woul Are mrqenmd ate tex, 3th, the guests ible to find Donaid |withaut any publicity. |, When did the Foreign Office know that Maclean's com- panion was not an unknown Roger Styles but Guy Burgess, very much known in official explain to them that Maclean had been unexpectedly calted away—as she watched the drive with ever - increasing anxiety far his return. On ‘Sunday, May 27, Mrs. and ———— ©! bunbar — Mrs. Maciean mother—by chance telephoned signal id then an hotel to try to hange English moncy. en to have hired 8 taxi niles away, where they could ‘i ke aft BASSO Tereprioned to ii nish the iain they missed at- (0M. Paris to ask atten he Foreign Office either on th 3t, Malo. _ There {s certainly no evi- vlenee that they did in fact soard the train, and while the tory of the taxi journey was arly related in good faith sthe driver, the French ateté. were by no means satis- Hed of its reliability. _ “The identification appeared fo be open to dougi,” they told me. . From that moffient the two men‘ disappeared utterly and completely. ~ The: remarkable difference between the amateurishness of the Sst part of the disappear- ‘Monday or the Tuesday to sa: | that her son was missing. His | disappearance had been; j noticed despite the errant, ‘ bohemianism of his usual life, because he had not kept two {highly important engagements. ! And the captain of the Falaise had notified his ‘ superiors that two passengers had failed to rejoin the ship | when she left St. Malo. Mrs. Dunbar arrived from Paris on Wednesday, May 30, in response to her daughter's telephone appeal. She toy, who were ill with measles. Melinda said to her-in a low, I wish you_would come over, I'm afraid Donald has gone off on a drinking “party again On the Monday morning, still without news him, { Melinda telephoned to his office and was to.d that he had not arrived And that afternoon she again telephoned, but this time to speak to Mr. G. A. Carey- Foster," the Foreign Office's Chief Sccurity Officer. She the first part of Pp feild him that Maclean had | Melinda, who in any case was ant ‘the efficiency of the’gone away for the week-end {far ‘from | well, extremely econd Hage is one of the masmewith a {rlend named Roger | worried and upset, but by no curious . aspects the whole Styles but not returne’ ans overcome by. grief, for; LJ a ~ t- that time:she clearly exe" pected Donald to returrr———— | ordinary capacities. f of @! r fos some six or seven days fter it was discovered. pare ae Mr. Harho Mr. Mohr out. He had been gone five days, . and although that was. a long time indeed ‘for ad escapade—which was tl] planation which Melinda was - clinging to—it did not seem to : her entirely outside his extra- It was on that day, in the London api of. Lody Maclean, Donald’s mother, that Melinda first met the senior ' M.LS5 officer who was in charge of the investigations. He was brought there by Mr. Carey- Foster and not to Beaconshaw, because Melinda had to be in | _London to see her doctor, ' ‘The interview that day was short and matter-of-fact.” The investigators seemed at that jtime also to expect Donald to” *~ return~—at least, that was the impression they gave Melinda. ‘ But it is now clear that by ‘May 30 the authorities must have been in possession of a . ‘good deal of information, cer- itainly that Maclean's com- . panion was Burgess and that they had gone to France. Obviously too. whatever Melinda may have believed, the authorities did not piace much reliance in the early theory of @ hectic week-end in Paris. Obviously it was necessary sooner or later to seek the co- operation of.the French police. When was this done? The impression I gained in Paris at the time was that the Mr. Herbert Morrison later suggesied that the co-operation of the French police had been requested only one di fer the disappearance had ‘become known. ‘Once the French police knew, a “leak” was inevitable and the only surprising thing is that it was 80 slow in arriving. inspector at th 4 Nationale told a French jour- natist, who worked also as an informant for an English news- paper, that they were looking two missing Britighdiplg- mats, That was sufficient, .