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Macleans are very keen to eet you and have invited us yer! I looked forward to ‘ek with enormous curivsity, as Tha. slready begun to grasp how restricted our life was going to be: in 10 days chad spoken to no one other than Kim, Sergei and—with a few nyers and sign fanguage—to Zena the housekeeper. At last I was to meet the couple whose situation most closely resembled our own. ‘The Macleans—another Anglo- American couple—had defected to Russia in dramatic circumstances, but they had a 10-years start. Naturally, 1 was extremely curious to know how they lived and how they had adjusted to the complexities of _ Russian society. They surely knew the ropes and 1 was eager to learn all I could from them. Kim had been kept under such ftrict control that he had met the Macleans only a couple of weeks before my arrival. He had known Donald as a young man but had seen little of him during his later Foreign Office carcer, There was no comrade- ship between them, such as had bound Kim two Burgess: and litde human sympathy or attraction, What they had in common was theic dedi- cated work for the Russians. Kim had not met Melinda before arriving la Moscow. ‘That evening they gave mea warm welcome. Apart “from occasional visits from relatives, I was the first petgon from the Western world they wad met in a long white with whom they could speak freely. I faced a barrage of questions: they wanted to know what was happening in London and New York, where I had 40 recently been, which of our mutual friends I had seen, what # everyone was doing and thinking out there in the West. Touch of envy Undoubtedly, they would have gtcatly liked to take a look for them- Selves. Unlike myself, Melinda had allowed her American passport to expire many years before and she could go no farther west than Prague without taking a risk. Already, on ~ our first meeting, I detected a touch of the envy with which these ‘expatriates regarded me: I could ‘come and go as I chose; my passport ~ was still valid, Most of all, I was still an American. After dinner we settled down to hand of bridge, and this was the . pattern of many future meetings. Twice or three times a week, we would dine, play bridge and gossip. If the building in which we lived was plain and sombre, dating from before the Revolution, the Macleans’ ay ment was high up in one o! massive, heavily-ornamented piles, “vat. characteristic of Stalin's reign. They * ‘ i ia \ had a fine view over the <) ycow | kX river from their drav3 Som mistakabie fiavour of London S¥'i. But the chint’cs were rather { ~ and foreiga furnishings were dh.’ to replace. - Apatt from the drawing-room, which was larger and more ambitious than ours, the family was crammed. into two small bedrooms: one for their daughter who was then 12; another for the two boys Fergie and Donald, 18 and 20; while Donald and Melinda slept on sofas in the drawing-room. The girl, Mimsey, was born after dur father defected. and went to Russia as an: infant; she spoke Russian like a native and struck Kim and me as being unusually spoiled and terribly rude to her mother. T! older boy attended = Mosco| University. and his brother technical institute. None of tl children looked Russian, perhaps bé- cause they dressed themselves front parcels of clothes which Melinda's mother’ and sister_constantly sent from America and England. So conceited Altogether it was not a very happy household, and’ 1 sometimes wondered “why Melinda, who had clearly been close to’ divorcing Donald a number of times, had chosen to join him in Moscow. She may have shared his convictions and been an accomplice of his espionage. but she seemed to yearn for the luxuries. of Western capitalism— from which she was not wholly cut off, thanks to her mother’s packages. Donald was an enormous man, with an unappealing conceit. From our first meeting, I did not feel we would ever become close friends. His wife was a short, plumpish brunctic, not unattractive, extremely nervous and highly strung, with an annoying habit of repeating herself. On that first evening it was quite obvious that no love was lost between them. She was amusing in her way and some- ‘one new to talk to. We left their house late that even- ing feeling quite sorry for her, but they seemed to know a good many people, were both working, and their social life seemed relatively glamor- ‘ous to me. I wondered when we, toa, would be allowed the freedom to make friends. In a sense the Macleans had lon; ‘ago served their period of exile. Jearned that before being allowed to come to Moxow, they had been Kept on ice for .two ‘years at Kuybyshev, a fast-growing indus- trial city on the Volga. Burgess and Maclean arrived in the Soviet Union in 195%, when Stalin was preparing » his final purge. ,They were lucky to survive, and the fact that they were DeLoacn Mohr Hichon Casper Callchan Conrad Felt Gele Rosen Sullivan Tovel 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 YorX) Sunday News (New York) New York Post The New York Times The Sun (Baltimore) The Worker en nnn ‘The New Leader The Wall Steet Journal ‘The National Observer People's World one Le TOT the 1 bicrvet bere uw faye 3! ‘eG enden }