◆ SpookStack

AN a aa Bargess died in Moscow on August 30, 1963, of a heart disease. A cremation service was beld on September 4. It was attended by his brother Nige! Burgess (left), colleague Georgy Stetsenko and Melinda ané Donald Mai Dagieisb, unlike his forme: boss, John- stone, retained his British passport and when he decided to marry Ina Gregorievna Nogtich, formerly switchboard operator at the British Embassy, he bad the chutzpah to exert his right as a British citizeo and get married at the Embassy. Traditionally the Ambassador himself performs such pleasant lite ceremonies. On this cocasion the Ambassador of the time, Sis William Hayter, decided he had other duties, and delegated the tsk to a lesser official There was 0 reception afterwards Mackan was repeatedly described to me by my cricketing friend as “Ube man who plays second fiddle to the Third Man”. He lives in a sixth-floot ‘apartment on the Shevcheako Boule- vard which stands op the Moskva River and the living room has « fine view of the Foreign Office sicyscrape: He is still exceptionally handsome, though greying, but be bas run some: what thick and his posture is stooped, 45 is often the case with very tall men He was wearing an old flannel dressing ‘gown and tattered Soviel pyjamas, and he rebuked me mildly when T knocked for interrupting the BBC news. He was $0 anxious not to admit me into is apartment that he succeeded in locking us both out, 20 we bad to wait in an unheated corridor in & Moscow January until his babushka returned from watking his terrier, Scamp, one Of the few dogs in Moscow. Despite these annoyances he was very court gous, and wholly uncommunicative He said be was working at the Academy of Science, “not exactly Gigging with a spade" he added. He touched his forehead. “Still using'the ‘hd grey matter.” Travel? “There are still a lot of places in the Soviet Union Thaven’t seen.” T tried without success to ee Philby 08 Melinda. In fact I set eyes only ‘once on Philby, but in circumstances which perhaps add a microscopic foot- ote to history, In 1962, several months before the Philby defection sensation broke, I was having drinks with various Western journalists in the bar of the Hotel Intercontinental in Beirut. Philby came in with another group and sat at another table. One of the men from my group called across, “How's the esponage biz, Kim?” Philby laughed heartily. Back briefly 10 Ralph Parker and my own experience with him I was in Moscow to do a piect about Soviet film stars for the Saturday Evening Post. We was an innocuous story but in those days, before the Novosti Press Agency made life #0 much easier for foreign correspondents (at 2 price), needed contacts with all sorts of snail- like Bureaucratic channels. To seek & short cut I telephoned Wilfred Bur- chett with whom I had once worked ‘on the Daily Express but he was out of town (Burchett, at the moment of writing, is trying to have his Australian Passport restored. It was taken away at the time of the Korean war. He ‘wants his children to grow up Austra- lian). So T made contact with Ralph Parker and we met in the restaurant of the Hotel Metropole. He was a big, suspicious man, wearing « stained, ‘old-fashioned double-breasted suit and & shirt from GUM. The eggplant colour of his nose indicated tastes which I satisfied by repeatedly refilling his vodka glass. Parker had not much Songer to live. He had long since ceased to be ® big shot in the hier- archy of defectors and correspondents, and, serving the Soviet Union no more useful puspose, he had been tossed on to the scavenges-belt of translation. 1 offered him S100 if be could get me into Mosfilm Studios. Tt was # not (right) Uungenerous offer for a task that required only 2 couple of telephone calls to the right people Parker, however, was visibly uneasy, looking his shoulder, although at 4 po restaurant was almost empty. He drew beavily on a Russian cigarette and said, “There is only ove mun in Moscow who can help you, Victor Louis" He was referring to the rather mysterious Soviet citizen who acts as an unofficial link between the western press and the Soviet author- ities. Officially, Louis is Moscow cor- respondent for the London Evening News, and he has an English wife, the former Jennifer Statham. Parker gave me the number without consulting his book, and lumbered off. I went straight to my hotel room to dial. But evidently Parker had got 10 the telephone first and said something like “there's an Englishman with an Jtalian name working for the Americans, ready to give you $100 to get into Mosflm Studios.” ADE a date with Louis to meet him I his apartment. He opened the door and held out his hand, which I shook. This was not, however, what he had in mind. “Where,” he asked, “is the $1007" Jennifer Louis hovered in the beckground. “Cash in advance,” be said. As this did not seem particularly reasonable, the deal ig not go through, but ] got my story anyway, and Louis subsequently des- cried me to other Western corres pondents as “that limey Wop”. The story is worth telling if only because’ it demonstrates tbe tofaliry of suspicion among this group which the Western correspondents call “the litte grey men”, the Western defectors who lurk in Moscow. To Moscow defectors, the most baffling defector of all was Lee, Harvey “+ Oxwald (the man who was himself murdered fer the assassination of John Kennedy), a Joner who made no tense even by the topsy-turvy logic of defection. As my cricket fan said, “This fellow was a weirdo. The Soviet Union can recognise a weirdo as quickly as anyone else. Not only do they allow him in, which is ridiculous, they allow him to marry, which is insane, Not only do they allow him to marry, they allow him to marry a girl of major education, in which the Soviet Union has invested important years and capital, which is inconceiv- able. And then they allow them botb ‘out, which is impossible Meanwhile Qy many honest, sober, upright, would- be defectors can't even get in i the first place.” Two othe: Americans who upset the general pattern of defection were the naval code clerks, Bernon F. Mitchell and William "Martin who defected in 1960, when they were 31 and 29 respectively. They had worked three years for the super-secret National Security Agency in Wasbing- ton, and their defection forced a deeply mortified Pentagon to change allits codes. The two men gave a press conference at the House of Journalists in Moscow, and said everything that Washington boped would be lef unsaid by Americans. They defected, they said, because they discovered ‘America ‘agents spied on friendly as well as unfriendly countries, that CIA manipulated money and military hardwear to try and overthrow un- frendly governments, that U.S. spy planes invaded other countries’ air space, that U.S. policy was 1 build-up for © preventive war which would Jeave them “emperers over the gra yard of civilisation". The two then disappeared into the obscunty which the Soviet Union reserves for tumeoats with mo further purpose. To move from the Moscow colony to the Prague colony is to move if nol to a different world at least to » different continent. The Moscow col- ony is predominantly British. The Praguers are mostly American, and even like to call themselves” “the ‘American group”, to the deep indig- nation of the United States Embassy. Even before the “Czech spring” of 1968, the Praguers were fairly relaxed and ‘in some cases quite communic- able. Their telephone sumbers were, and are, frequently listed in the Prague directory, and provided they were assured they would not be embarrassed by What was publihed 7 they were occasionally mildly frank. They were secure in enjoying the full protection of the Novotny regime, and merely had to pick up the tele- phone to have any ooty journalist kicked out of the country. ‘The most distinguished ase Atfred Stern and his wife, Martha Dodd. In pre-war Beslin, Martha Dodd, then young and attractive, was an impor- lant figure. She acted as her father's hostess, met Hitler and most of the other leading Nazis, and her views were considered extreme Left even in © period when, to many, the Lefi ” alitemaaimenighataiceeenmaanemmnmenan anim aamanaentammeebaneansmnmemn A