◆ SpookStack

} | Qaree most intractably hard-line capi- | covered the Korean war from the north for The Worker and Humanité respectively There is a further subdivision 10 thet motivation. The three favourite refuges for defectors are Moscow, Prague and East Berfin in that order ~ DOL the 1968 Prague of Dubcek, but the suffocating)y oppressive Prague ‘of Novotny and Gottwald. In other words they overwhelmingly tals. The reason for this is quickly apparent. Ip the freer air of Warsaw or Budapest they would have been considered raving lunatics to abandoo the West and settle in the East, and would have been treated as such. In the tough capitals they had Big Brother's protection. Thave a theory of my own for their almos! manic secrecy, and I believe ithas nothing to do with political fear Most of them were in, os on the fringes of journalism. They know that we know they Jead miserable lives in shoddy apartments 00 coolie wages, scratch: ing for the odd bits and pieces that make life less uncomfortable (Peet ‘accepted my invitation to hunch, paid for it himself in Eastmarks, and took my Westmarks for himself. Nothing wrong with that of course: it has been done in every country which has had currency trouble, including Britain) They can hear the laughter of their Weagues in F) Vino's and Poppins’ Fleet Street, and the thought galls. Sometime ago, George Gale then of The Sunday Times was touring Fasi Berlin with a guide who said, “Alan Winnington hves there,” pointing to an apartment block near the Karl Marx Allee. & “Wrnnington,” said Gale, “Phaven’t “en him since China 13 years ago. ‘Let's call op hum.” ‘They did s0. Winnington peered out of the door and exclaimed, “George Gale! Haven’t seen you since China!” He was cordial, but, said Gale, the ‘mtrange thing was “He did not invite ‘oe into his flat!” Gale reported ax much in The Sunday Times. Shortly after that Colin Lawson of the Daily Express taw ‘Winningion in East Berlin and com- mented on it. Winnington ssid, “Oh xyes. But I was really in x predicament T bad just half an hour to finish a book I was writing. And I had to get the manuscript to the publisher there ‘and then. T was really under pressure, 1 bad just 30 minutes. I could not ask George in. It was terribly important meet the deadline,” @ AWSON is one of the toughest characters in Fleet Street. He cross-examined Winnington re- 1 morselessly about such a desperate - deadline, found the answers uncon- vincing and his conclusion was that the sight of Gale was too painful for Win- ningion to face; a successful corres- pondent free to travel at will, while he, ‘Winnington of the Morning Star, hi 20 years of wasted ideology behind him, without even the consolation of the passionate ideals of the Thirties. “One can see why the big names dare ty The Brirish Embassy, Paris, 1939: Donald Maclean (ringed) was third secretary, and to all appearances very much ooe of the “cbérer collegues”? not redefect. Sing Sing and Parkhurst offer prospects even less pleasing than the Kutwzovsky Prospect of Moscow, bot one would think it would be comparatively easy and painless for the amal) fry, of whom there are many ‘Bui ihey stay put, woo, and rarely ‘ome back. One reasor was suggested in an excellent book, 4 Room in Moscow, written by Sally Belfrage, who was one of them herself in the Fifles. According to Miss Belfrage many Of the expatriates had been ill-used and ured before achieving fimited Acceptance. She asked them why they stayed. They explained that the Soviet Union did not wish to give exit visas to British, French, Italian or other nationals who would then go home and complein of brutality, So it offered exit visas on condition they first became Soviet citizens (wonderful dureaucratic Soviet thinking!) But fearing that they would then be even more at the mercy of the regime than before - and not believing 2 word the Russians tell them — they preferred to Keep their passports and stay. Statistics on the subject are, of course, impossible to obtain. There may be ten of 15 families living in East Berlin, not counting the floating wash of military deserters who are usually persuaded to wash beck, & score in Prague, at least one (the Noel Field farnily) in Budapesi, about eight in Peking. and an incalculable number of all nationalities in Moscow. Some are famous, even eminent, like Pontecorvo, Ivy Low Litvinov, widow of the Soviet Foreign Affairs Com- missar, and Dolores Ibarruri, “La Pasionaria” of the Spanish Civil War, though the latter two can scarcely be described as “defectors”. But most are obscure, working anonymously in the Foreign Languages Publishing House. Some of the brighter ones are employed by Novosti, the go-go ress agency on Pushkin Squaie, or by Moscow Radio. ‘The British colony pines for Britain, but, like Archie Johnstone. is terrified f the thought of the initiative which ‘would have to be applied to survive in ‘a free society, The free medicine and free education ase constantly stressed when its members talk to Westerners But the tea-time ritual is observed as faithfully as « ever was ip the outer ‘stations of the British Empire. The late René MacColl of the Daily Express recalls how one defector recognised him, rushed up to him, and, struck almost. dumb by the tumult of questions be was longing to ask, could ® question which MacColl found truly aad T was given limited access to the vet because one of its members was longing for up-to-date gossip about cricket the way Ben Gunn pined for cheese (of, for that matter, the three tisters for Moscow). He asked me to call hisn “just Jimmie” and insimed ‘i am very grateful to the Soviet Union for allowing me to stay.” Happily | was able to supply him with the cricketing ‘titbiu he wanted, and one of the in- direct upshote was a brief session with Donald Maclean. The backbiting and ‘community hatred that goes oo among the expatriates can be imagined, and T do believe that Khrushchev’s de- nunciation of Stalin was Jess of # sen- sation to the colony dian Melinda's decision to leave her husband and marry Kim Philby. Maclean had always been resented and envied. He beld a responsible position in the Soviet Foreign Office, and when Gromyko had something to say in English, if was to Maclean's office that rs Maclean, still handsome, ‘the man who Plays second Biddle to the Third Man” he looked for style. In comparison, ‘Burgess, Johnstone, Dagleish and the others were shucked off to menial tasks of translation. MIMTUATION SEEMS An emential part of the Moscow defection scene and it is hard to avoid concluding that the Soviet Foreign Office authorities enjoy watching these hapless foreigners squirm. Donald Maclean humilisted Guy Burgess by ‘his supetior position in the Soviet hier- archy. Maclean elso humiliated Ralph Parker by coming to Moscow as all. Parker was oe of the odder birds of the Moscow crowd. He made the curious switch from ope Moscow bureau of the London Times to the Moscow bureau of The Daily Worker. He married 2 B nd threw in hhis lot with the Russians and is be- ieved to be the perion who thought up the idea of scouting the United ‘States of using germ warfare in Korea. James Cameron shared a room with him at the Bandung conference and fecalls him as “scemungly ili and in & sort of physical despair”. ‘Next Philby humiliated Mackan by taking away his wife. And now Philby himself hes bees bumilated. Wheo George Blake, the spy, cecaped dramatically from prison in England and turned up in Moscow, Philby took him rather patronisingly under his ‘wing, introduced him to bis wife, aod to Melinda. But earlier this year Blake was awarded the prestigious Order of ‘Lenin, an award so far denied to Philby himself, The anger and social embarr- assment of Philby, who considered himvelf, and was’ considered, the fumber-one glamour-boy defector can be imagined. ‘The Western authorities are also hot beyond joining in the game of i humiliating the defectors. Robert | a a ce