◆ SpookStack

Hpw long had they een passin Britain's secrets t Soviet Russia ? PETROV Geciares they w signed up by Soviet telligence services while still at Cambridge, It is irne that bot were tien ardent Com- munists, But so were thousands of other Jiberal-minded young men who turned to “Com- munism in the dark days of tine mid-thirties simply be- cause they considered it the best way of fighting Faseisi When Hitler was defeated, Most Gf them forgot all about Communism, Way should Russian agents have sejected just these two from a!} the Other university Communists who have since become irre- proachable citizens — and patpiots? And what use could they have been before tiev had even decided what their carer would be? o. I think Donald Mac- lean was approached much later, when he was_ First Secretary to ‘the British Embassy at Washington, around 1946, when he was in a position to provide valuable information and was svii- ciently opposed to British and American policy to believe that he was helping the cause of world peace by doing so. How was it that he qwas_not suspected earlier 2 NE of the most disturbing aspects of this dreadtul affair is that Donald Maclean Was allowed such a long run. In his drunken moments be was by no means careful, citger in speech or action, and often declared that he was a Soyiet agent. Did none of his fridnds or colleagues at least Sugpect that he was betraying his trust? If they did, way did they not report hi their superiors? If the report him, why was no tio: taken? How thorough were the investigations ? A SENIOR official of M.S ‘ told me just before ihe News Chronicle serialised m book* last.year that his service had been warning the Foreign Office about Maclean “for some time” before his flight. He dict t say what the warning about, Tt could simply have been of Maclean’s| behaviour, which was entirely unsuitible for a senior Foreign Service official. But if the suspicion was by: then of something tar graver, how was it that ‘he was abic to evade MM.L.5's net? He was conspicuously tall and easy to keep under observation if, for example, he was meeting hig Russian contact in a pub gr a bar to. hand over Fordign Office documents, Even when the game wad up and he had flown, bdth Melinda, his American-born wife, and her mother, Mv Dunbar, told me that’ the Vestigators who hurried own “to-"Beaconshaw, his house at Tatsfeld, when he was reported missing, did not troubie to examine “the mass of papers-he left behind. Yet by thea it must have veen apparent that he was a spy. * How much did Melinda know ? MPUERE is now a suggestion that Melinda, who followed Donald info exile with lher three children 27 months later, * *The Missing Macleans, rfb- Ushed by Cassell and Co., Lid. at 12s. td. net, knew all the time that her hug- bahd was a Soviet agent, ai was indeed a Communist hei- definite hard evidence I can- not believe that it is, then she was a superb actress, I knew Melinda wel Although it is evident ¢ sometime between Donald’ disappearance and her flizht from Geneva she had been told what he was doing—and for inexplicable reasons of het own had accepted the posi- tion and agreed to go to him 1 am still sure she was the simple, rather frivolous girl with no political interests, whatever she appeared. Ji was not only to me that she gave this impression, but to many others of her frien: idcluding girl. friends who npght have had a mbre cfitical approach. What was Burgess's role? "PHE White Paper specitic- ally mentions Donald Maclean as “the principal suspect” in a leakage of infor- mation 10 the Russians, It states that Burgess's behaviour was unsatisfactory, nO suggestion that ny way implicated in passing intormation, Jt is also stressed that there is no evidence of any normal or suspicious con- tact between the two men so that were one suspected the other would. automatically come under suspician, Were they in fact the team they have all aiong been sup- posed as they fled together ? x Were they acting separately 5 Soviet agents, and only Yrought together by he tecessity of getting them hpth ut of Englang at the sdme me? it is an jmporfant point, NN ?