◆ SpookStack

JPAHE Foreign Office, faced with the dis- elosure of some (but only some) of its long hidden Burgess-Maclean secrets, pours a bucket of whitewash over Itself. Will it get away with that perlormane 2? I hope not. think the safety of the nation justifies the most searching Investlgati into the Foreign OMce, tife Security department, aqd the Secret Service, Even if such an. investigatipn uncovers—-as I think 1 worlid some secrets as devastating as a Hiroshima bomb. I EY us Icave’ Maclean for the moment and turn to furgess, the more evi} and langerous man of the lwo. He was not only a man of moral j-repute, buf. a man with & Enister political background, known to have disclosed secrets. WHAT HAPPENED when the Foreign Office received a strong report against him ? | He was merely “ reprimanded, | and given a post at Washing- | ton where he could dabble in secrets again. Who was responsible for that folly ? i AT, Washington Burgess con- | dX tinnes Uae same behaviour. He not only misbehaves but he | js again wha the Foreign Office describes as “careless” about secret papers. The ambassador sends him home. ‘The Foreign Office sends him on holiday whliq Io akes up 3s mind whether lo ack him or not. 1 PHINK we are entitled to qsk did some peovie throw] & le of protection round at nis singulariy favoured yours Who were they ?____ man? | [9s known now that Burges ‘as in touch with Russial 4 only here but in tl | United States. ¥et that. faci if either never discovered or] discovered, is never produce: against him. What a remark- 1 able security system, isn’t it? | Further, at Washington, Butgess j jearns that his old friend i Maclean is about to be caught for handing secrets io the ation es Undoubtedly someone ene British Embassy. Oughtn't we to know who he is, and what pas pappened to him, if any- a co comes home and “tips off” Maclean. He prepares for thelr fight. Buys the travel tickets. And by odd coincidence they ieave the country on the very day that the Foreign Secretary. Mr. Herbert Morrison, authorises the interrogation of Maclean. DID BURGESS have another tip off” “from within the eign Office that it was time forun? It looks lke it. | OW to the most remarkabl happening of all. “Why asn't Burgess with © h known bad record put unger close surveillance after pis rewrn from =the | United Siates ? ‘ad he been watched as a mpn with his history should have been, his association with Maclean, who was then being quietly | investigated, would have beer discovered. That would certainly have dropped the net over Maclean. Burgess’s Foreign Office con~ tacts would also have come under oosetvation and sus pion which might have farown ‘a light on several mysteries. His buying of the travel tickets would have indicated that flight was imminent. The trap would have been closed ‘on both of them. There would have been no escape. for some inexplicable reason no watch Was puy on him by the departihent responsible. L suggest tha} the head of M . then Sir Yercy Sillitoe, should be askeg to explain that mystery. F Sir Percy Silitoe knew the facts, ther clearly be was guilty of extraordinary inepti- tude in failing to order the shadowing of Burgess. If on the other hand, the information did not reach him, T think it is reasonable (o ask Why not, and who failed to let him have il. BURGESS IN FACT, was such & lucky young man that we need some better assurance than we have yet had that his astonishingly lengthy m= munity and final escape were not due to the protection of riends wilh political admins- trative or security power. nd J think we are also ent to ask the Foreign Offige < “Are you stone-cold cerypin that you haven't any morq ab home like him?”