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: Ye: 209-371263) a “OCTOBER 7, 1955. ws ee ater LONDON, ENGLAND = BNOV 16 1955 ¢7 ¢ discussion of the attitude of certain popular newspaj ; tthe Burgess-Maclean flight continues in the correspondente + lurnns of this journal. I wish only to comment on the idga / of the Establishment’ which Lady Violet Bonham id ~ regards as ‘a fiction,’ Mr. Randolph Churchill as a bee in my ' bonnet and Mr. David Astor as a libellous ‘smear.’ I would ask Lady Violet Bonham Carter and Mr. David Astor to read what I have written during the past two weeks more . : carefully than they seem to have done. At no point did I attribute to them, or to other members of the ‘Establishment,’ either improper motives—indeed I went out of my way last week to suggest that their motives were not only proper but such as all of us might have responded to—or the more specific motive of wishing to protect actual or presumed traitors. I merely suggested that, as always in this country, there is a nexus of official and social relations which enables certain people to exercise more influence than other people can. I - find nothing sinister in this. I believe that it is desirable that : | something like the ‘Establishment’. should exist, because, it i pe even worse influences from operating. But I merfly ;~: wfshed to make the point that the tentacles of the ‘Establifh- mént’ seem to me—and not only to me~to stretch farther : | toflay than ever before. Because of this, Lady Violet Bonham + N CASE _ ——= mi “8 Le auev SENT QB, Mine 4 Po. TYER QUN2.1976°° Hen cA REQUEST, wit ~29YsER -A NOTRECORDED - 126 NOV 15 1955 a