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. [Foreign Office files: \ VE. By RichapkLiewellyn, pag 83,93. N THE word of its publisher, Richard Llew- ellyn’s new_noye) takes its inspiration from| the Burgess-Maclean case, though it tums out! that “Inspiration” isn’t the first word, that rushes) to mind in connection with ar. Famke |Still, a sort of par- alallel Is certainly there, In Mr. Liew- tellyn’s bOok, as ip jthat news story which startled - the ‘tree world in 1951, two--British diplo- jmats steal away to jthe Iron Curtain ‘with Jmportant se- lerets 1ifted from ‘One of them leaves. behind a wife and children who pre- sumably will join him in the U.S. 8. R, This is Hamish Gleave, a sorry | 4 ‘ specimen Indeed. Richard Llewellya and perhaps it doesn’t really matter, how spe-| cifically Mi. Lieweéllyii had Duncan Maclean In mind when he wrote about Hamish Gleave, [There 1s the usual disclaimer of “any resem- 'blafice to actual persons, living or dead"-—but, i\hat note might have crept in out of old habit.] The important thing here is what makes Hamie, (as his friends call him) run to the embrace of} tyranny. Right to the point of his defection, he has not formally been a Communist. He is a hard- working, underpaid, competent official in charge of the Foreign Office's American desk. If he i despises Americans, and smarts under English! dependence on the dollar, he hates Communisls as well. Some day he may become an ambassa- dor, but 4t’s @ long time to wait, and in the meantime he could do with some more money.| HeSr-uahappy when he remempers how his iwvexeD-S0 K- REVIEW, By JOHN K. HUTCHENS grandfather tosed away » fortune, and his own father spent his life paying off the family losses. ‘You meet Hamish first at Epsom, where, sym~ bolically, he is wearing’s’ dress shirt and socks that need darning. Man in the Middle ‘With that much established, Mr. Llewellyn has planted corruption’s seed in Hamish Gleave, the middle-class Englishman caught between the aristocrats whom he resentfully envies, the ls- boring elass with whom by birth and education he has nothing In common, and the parvenu British business man and his vulgar kind whom he would happily see destroyed. All in all, Hamis is a ripe plum. Now these are the materials of a complex and significant tragedy of our time, but Mr. Liewel- lyn has taken a slipshod way with them. Given the background and character of Hamish Gleave, * |his defection is made too easy, a matter chiefly lof frustrated greed. The Communist overtures leading to his downfall are invited by # nalveté [preposterous in one whose very position makes discretion automatic. And while Mr. Llewellyn suggests in a last-minute rush that his diplomat | jhas succumbed intellectually to the Commumse ideology, there really has been little or no prep= aration for the big betrayal. Imperfections That leaves it a kind of disguised cloak-and~ dagger story, complete with a flery femme fatale luring Hamish on to his destruction, Irrelevant characters appear and disappear, What promise to be important relationships remain half ex- plored. And, finally, the man who wrote “How iGreen Was My Valley” and “None But the Lonély Heart” with such’ admirable narrative jease, 1s guilty of a strange muddiness here, even to the point of long passages of dialogue in. which you must backtrack to discover who is speaking, All of which confusion may, and I suspect ‘does, reflect Mr. Llewellyn’s uncertainty about Just what he wanted to make of this, a spy story lor the tragedy of an undermined integrity, Un- happily, “Mr. Hamish Gleave’ winds up as nelther one nor the other. Nease Wincerrowd Tele, Room 7 Holloman we wR. nom gisele é- off Denelhd © hi7é/- Wash. Post and Times Herald Wash. News Wash. Star N. Y. Herald Tribune N.Y. Mirror N. Y. Daily News —— Daily Worker The Worker New Leader