◆ SpookStack

Russia in 1953, one of her former friends in the dipio~ Matic community in Gene a renjarked resignedly : “ Tifis jus} shows"how little anyofe Cankknow about anyone eisp.” For Melinga, small a GC} Plump, wih a nervous habit of repeatfig things she has Just sald scemed the last person tofteature in a aiplo- matic ndal or a pre- Stranged disappearance to Russta. Why did she go? Her stepson John Philby asked her this question and she replied, stralght-face, se I was persecute by the aly Express.” But that clearly is nonseny, Her snunathles were awake strong With the Left, inty = DowadRys she will hear ni: eriticign of Conununism. But, of coufse. to admit the slightes muiment with life as sh has lived it in Soviet Russi for the past 16 years would a. acmit her own great mistake, the barren emptiness of her own life, Questions chase answers down the years: the truth Les buried at the Heart of layers of les and deception, Friends who knew Melinda in Esypt, in Washington, and in London agree that she and Maclean | were not happy together. After he de fected to Russta, she even sought advice in ‘Britain and America about the quickest way of divoreing him. csntainly she had sufficient €ause, with his drunken bouts, bis lapses into homocexuality, While. they were in Cairo, the Russian Embassy was even’ sald to have provided him with a congenial companion, In Cairo, too, when her nus: band had his affairs with men, she did not lack men friends, She has always been attractive to men; she need not have been lonely without her husband. The wives of any diplomatic Broup overseas — ‘like Service wives or oi! company wives are of necessity forced to share “ich other's company. Many, who shared Melinda's, did not find her sym; this because she was by natur a drdamer, or because — shi Secretly bated and despised thi capitalist world that had 80 co! Siderately provided her wi Wealtay” parents and priva means ? ico, But was ». {~ Brilish security om era, who interviewed ber alter her bus- Be B8 ¢ sf aE S 5 rep z is The. Soviet diplomat, Viadi- mir Petrov, ostensibly in the Rus: Secretary bassy in Canberra, actually in in Aus. charge of a spy et tralia, said in his official state- ment when he came over to the West: “I am now convinced | that she knew @ll about her husband's plan to flee. At any rate, she began to play a willing Gnd highly astute part in her own successful disappearance very soon after Donald Mac- | lean passed behind the Iron Curtain,” A few years ago Mark Culme- Seymour, the British business man | who had Introduced Melinda to Donaid Maclean in Paris before the war, met them both again in Leningrad. He was fravelling oa export fuse Ress; the Macleans were there on holiday, Melinda told him that ‘even before Donald had gone to Russia she knew she was going to go herself, And that is supported by the skilfu] and resoute way in Which Metinda deceived her trusting mother in the months immediately before her defec- tion. Fegeee z & a B > e HI 5 tei 3 Well might she write back to her mother : “ Please believe me, darting. in my heart I could not have ¢ ‘one otherwise than I have ie.” Another {ndieation | jhat abe was propelled by ideologica Peasons i¢ the fact that Melinda deliberately denied her children the chance grow up ip the land of their birth. “As a former woman friend of hers put it: “I can understang her going to Russia herself. But what I personally find hard to forgive is that she took the! children when they were far too young to have any jdea what pes would mean to them for the est of thelr lives.” Desire = . ironically, the difference between her lite before and her Ife since. ~ The reunion with her husband proved not the end of the story, ub rather the beginning of another and infinitely more complicated chapter, Maclean worked six days a week in the International Publishing Co-operative, Melinda found she had exchanged a pleasant, leisurely life in ngland, with holidays abroad and the hard housework done for her—for what? Materlally, for a three roomed flat on the sixth floor of a barrack-like block over- looking the Moskva River, near jthe entrance to the Kr (park, where i ee names OF Mark Thelr fat had and DeLogch ____- Mohr Bishop. Casper Callchan Conrad — - Felt Sullivan Tave) — Trotter Tele. Room ____ Holmes Gandy The Washington Post Times Herald The Washington Daily News ‘The Evening Star (Washington) ___ ‘The Sunday Star (Washington) ___ Daily News (New York) Sunday News (New York) New York Post —____ The New York Times The Sun (Baltimore) — The Daily World The New Leader _. The Wall Street Journal ~ — The National Observer —— _People’s World — Examiner (Washington) se DELETE? copy scur 4 ¢ be BY ca PL ea AEQUEST afrsirg