◆ SpookStack

One-sided ir Percy, now 67 and in. pat h retirement. does not. inten| tel! what he knows unless hI is balled to give evidence at anf official commission of inquiry. _ But then, friends predict, the “fur may fly.” Our conversation yesterday in Sir Perev's flat in Carlisle Grange, Eastbourne, was one sided, I said: “There is a growing belief that the Oficial Secrets Act has been used to silence people who could cast light on the competerce or | political Ic -alties of some people youlin- vestigated who were on fhe fifnges of this. affair.” ‘ir Percy moved hig head|in @ fron-committal way. Trip to France {tried again: “You have re- | ferred to the matter in a book you recently published .. .” Almost reluctantly he passed over his mew book, | One passage reads “% had gone on holiday ust after the disappearance ef the intomats. Burgess and Maclean. dat this time Mrs. Maclean as in the gouth of France ; ko if was assumed—most impidp- a¥ly—that, I was clumsily dip- ing the jady, xilising my intentions: of mee|- | | “She had done nothing to warrant her being kept under observation, and no one hgd ay right to prevent her leav- ink the country or from Roi}s tof any place outside it s¥e ; might choose. i ‘And, had she been pre- venied from so doing. whal would have been gained?” I said: “One accepts that you wrote this when the evi- dence of Petrov. the Russian diplomat-spy. was not avail able to the Western Powers. Censored “One must assume, however, i that MI5 had its own evidence on which to suspect that Buf- gess, Maclean. and perhal en = Mrs, Maclean, wert nhrties to some Soviet plot. | 1 ‘The Foreign Office admit tifa, Donald Maclean had been urfder ,cbservation before his disappéarance, ” Sir Perey: “7 cannot com- » ment on assumptions.” His book was censored by security authorities. perhaps in constilratton with men who once worsed under him, before it was published, “If there is to be a search for a_seapegoat.” I said, Official Secrets Act migit prove a hindrance in establishing the truth of the malter, don’t you think 2” . Sir Percy moved his head in a rbn-commitial way. ‘hen he politely indicat ‘Hat the “ conv tion” was_qt ay end. “Sorry 1 have ngt bebn able to be more helpful he said.