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KIM PHILBY cominued FBI files, says Philby, have their uses: to silence critics CIA pressed for & full-scale confer fence with SIS. which was duly held in London im April 193i. Rather 40m surprise, the British s100d firm. and flatly refused to jettson Bandera The best that could be agreed, with un 4 itl semper on the American that the situation would be Fecexamined al the end of the 1981 patachute-dropping season. by which fume st Mas hoped. more facts would be available Within « month, the Brush had dropped three six-man paries. the aircraft uking off from Cyprus One party was dropped mig way between Lwow and Tarnopol fmmother near the headwaters of the Pruth, mot far from Kolomiya, and third jusi inside the borders of Polar near the source of the San In order te avoid the dangers of overlapping land duphcation. the British and Arr fericans exchanged precise information abou the Gomng and geographical ee ferdiniaies of their operations. 1 do not now shal happened t© the parties concerned But I can make an in formed guess Some eigh’ years Inier. 1 read of the mywerious murder of Randers 10 Munich in the American zone of Germany 11 may be that despite the brave stand of the British in his de- fense. CVA had the last word THE Fai Was in sorry shape when J reached Washingion. It had caugh' & ‘Tartar im the small person of Juéith Coplon, 2 brilliant young woman em. ployed im the Depariment of Justice apainsi whom thes were thyang. 10 ‘rang home esponage charges. Wher the evidence against het obtained largels hy illegal. lelephone-tapring had hardened sufficientiy to justify her arres:. Hoover sanchoned the neces aary action and Copion was pulled ir She was cought passing documents te 4 contact. and the case agains! be: teemed open and shut. But in ther: hhacie the FBI hud negiected to tube Our a warrani for be? arrest, which Was therelore in stself illegal The iegatity of the arrest was duly Jambasted in cour, bur worse was to follow Coplon though caught red. handed. was resoived to fight to the end She wen’ over to the counter attack and hegan harrying the FBI witnesses She ted them in such knots that they admitted to: tapping nos only her telephone but telephones in the headquarters of the United Nations The cour proceedings began 10. dam. age the public image of the Fl Severely that Hoover mcontinently Stopped the charges It wat charac tervsii: of him that he reacted to the fiasco by frnding » «eapegoat Howard Fiercher, the principal FBI witness a! nal, was fired But Copior went Vi was the triumph af a brave The failure of the FB) an the Copion case was hy nes means umiaue fF even unusual I cannot speak of the Fecond of the FBI in checking crime Jn the Unived States, Wilh that aide of Ms activities I had nothing to do. Bu: V hed a great deal to do with nk ounter-espionage work, and 1% record in that eld was more conspicucus tor faslure than for auccess Hoover did % ot caich Maclean or Burgess he did nol catch Fuchs, and he wouid not have caugh! the rest if the British had not caught Fuchs and worked bridhantly on his tangled emotions he did not catch Lonsdle. he did not catch Abel for years, and then only because be was delivered up to him on & platter. be did moi even eaich me If ever there was a bubble reput tion. it 6 Hoover's But Hoover is a great polincian His blanket methods and ruthless faumoriarianisem ate the wrong weap: ‘0ns for the subtle world of intelligence But they have other uses. They enable Hoover to collect and file away # vast amount of information shout the per sonal lives of millions of his fellow. countrymen. This has tong been com mon Knowledge, and it has brought Hoover rich dividends trom the purse Of the Amencan taxpayer. Thete are fen people in the world without skeletons. in. their cupboards w' they would prefer to remain decentiy forgotten. The overt record thows thal 4 distressing number of | Amencan congressmen have pasts thal donot bear minute scrubny. Ané what about the covert record hel! by Hoover? r aacuran's