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> Hoare on the beach at Villers-sur-mer, near ‘. The next summer she disappeared ” . my friends, HAVE been m deeply interested in the mystery of the Missing Diplomats than most people, and in a somewhat better position to try to penetrate it. For one of them, Donald Maclean, his wife Melinda were , They had been my neighbours jin Cairo. From there, indeed, | Donald and 1 had flown back te England together on. the complelion—although neither ef us then Knew jt—of our respective terms of service in that part of the world, Decision After his disappearance ! remained In close touch with Mennda during the f unhappy years of he: ence 85 the Wife of the y Diplomat. and it was oniy in the Anal four months before she disappeared that I ceased ta hear from her. After she had gone I became | the confidant and friend of ner ' Stiet « stricken mother, Mrs. : ‘Dunbar, 1 And it was one night last: December, in the course of one | of our endless discussions. of this tragedy which had fallen en her and her faroity, that [> seecided with her approval to write “The Missing Macleans,” a book which would try {o presett a true picture. : The Case of the Missing Diplomats, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, was one of the major sensations of 1951. For the world at large it | opened on Thursday, June 7. _ SENSATION Or that pleasant summer morning, when the Koreaa war was barely a year old. the stoty of these two men first broke on an Engiand which at + hardly realised its im- portsace. on esas The head@ines were bold and black, but the stories beneath .Was no mention of the two names which were to become a byword of the times we Jive « in | Said one repert Scotland Yard officers and Freach detectives are hucting for two Brith Government employees believed to have {eft Londen with the intention i of getting te Moscow. A friend is quoted as saying fs they planned the Jountereata, ve their “idealistic pur- Pose “soberly and “sensational them were guarded, And WEL Eedbac we . ‘the two men gre “employed oy the Forblgn Office end taaaae i & possibility they might have important papers with them. warat-experte have flown fram Lendon te France to work police, and » With the French police, and all : a trentiers : Bre being watched. The pallce. it is understood, are watehing visitors to the Soviet Emtusay in Paris. « No newspaper — sensation could have had a better begin- ning. The story bad all the Lagredien ts — missing diplomets, Might to” Moscow, fmportant, papers,‘ eirports ' and frontiers watched, Soviet Embassy Involved. : That same afternoon the Foreign Office—a week late yeluctantly divulged sufficient details to give the brew more Ye ‘ An announcement from, Whitehall sald that two mem- bers of the Foreign Service had been missing Trem their homes sinre May 25, Ther Mr. D, BD, Maclean and Mr, G. de M. Burgess, All possible Inquiries afe | being made. ft is known ¢h: + they went to France i lew di ago, Mr, Maciean had a breait down a year ago owing to aver. sitain but wee believed fully: to have recovered. Owing to their dbsener with! out leave, both have been su bended with effect from June 1 j Since that day, over three years ago, more has probably been published about the Maclean and Burgess mystery in the world's newspapers and magazines than on any other lage topic. me of it has been the result of painstaking, con- scientions investigation,! accurately pre sented, A lot has been rere reporting. Too much has been unabashed, third-rate fiction. . Certainly the story bas never been elther easy or straight forward to’ report. After the laboriously assembled details Sof the actual Right fron: Eng-* land to France, reporters had ~ nothing te go on, for, despite an enormous hue asd ery in England and on the Continent, : two men were néVo nS again, ‘