◆ SpookStack

them to the Russiars, 2 x them when copies ha heen sent to Moscow. They continued their treacherous work year after year. ’ After they disappeared the Foreign Otfice deliberately misled Ministers and deceived the public for four years. The answers given in Parliament, the answers given to the Press are now exposed in aff their scandalous dishonesty. Three years ago, in October, 1952, the Marquis + of Reading _was Under - Secsetary for Foreign Affairs. Answering a question in the Lords, he said that Maclean's Communist sympathies were not known when he disappeared, * That statoment was a fie. Maclean had been undbr security sa ee before he disappear¢d. Bur Lord Reading id was not respansible|for the He, He saj (what he honestly believed to be tree. Somebody fed a lie to him, i he fie? He must he 1 now? Is he still in the The little that we now know about this infamous affair has been gouged from the Foreign Office by the revelations of a Russian spy, Petrov, who turned Queen's Evidence. it was his evidence that smoked out the men who have hidden for four years behind 2 smoke-screen. lf it had not been for the pure accident of Petrov's double-twist, we would be ted with. variants of the same fies for the next four years and even for the next 40 years. WHITEWASH ? The last thing the Foreign Office will do is name the man, the Mr, X (or the men it there are more than one of them) who can be convicted of deliberate deception f ‘ Press and Parliament, Some people in the Foreign Office are scared. They have a lot to explain, and they much prefer to do all their explaining in private. ‘They have been guilty of scandatous negligence. They may also have been guilty of gross favouritism, Before the traitors’ departure, they protected the jobs of Burgess and Maclean. Why? In the American service Burgess would have been promptly sacked for no other reason than his vofuble drunkenness. “START HURT Calt that ° witch-hunting ” if you Jike. There "are witches in the Foreign Office. LET'S HAVE A HUNT. Equally promptly the Americans would have urned Maclean out of his job and turded am over to a psychiatrist, But our own oreign Office kept them in responsible mployment, ~ Yle