◆ SpookStack

aes the hole ode important? It’s becan ald MacLean served as a secretary of the British Embassy in Wash- ineton along with another secre- tary. Guy Burgess, and the main job of MacLean was to keep in| touch with atomic-energy de- veiopments here. He was secre- tary of @ committee of the allics, including tie British! government, and was therefore accepted and trusted as a thoroughly reliable person, When MacLean disappeared and one of the reporters here told former Secretary of State Acheson about it, the latter is| reported to have exclaimed: “My| God, ne knew everything! MacLean not only knew about tomic-energy matters when Hh) as in America, but at the tim! {his disappearance he had bee! aven charge of the s0-calles American desk” in the British Foreign Office in London. This is the desk over which flows! daily all the confidential mes- sages from diplomatic repre- sentatives of Great Britain in| the United States. Naturally at) that time there were very se- jcret. exchanges between our| State Department and Great Britain relative to plans for end- ing the Korean war. There were also objections by the British to the continuance of the con- flict if it involved extension of hostilities into Manchuria. Whatever the information was} that the Zritish government had from its close friend and ally,! the United States, Donald Mac-| Lean was in a position to carry| ‘ito the Communists. There are ‘various rumors that the Federal, Bureau of Investigation here| originally had a tip on Mac-'! Lean’s activities and had so notl- fied the British government and that the British security authori- ties were about to pounce on Mrciewrrmand Burgess iust 3s they made their getaway. ! ) Regarded As Brjjnant, 1 laclean and Burgess) were college men and known as| brilliant “intellectuals” in lite- rary circles. Their sympathies} for Communist doctrine were not| difficult to determine, but the; British Foreign Office, which was tpooh-poohing American concern! lover the Alger Hiss case and the infiltration of other Communists| in the State Department, didn't seem to be vigilant in doing a check-up job in the matter of Noyalty—any more than it had| been ‘when “clearing” Klaus} Fuchs for admission to the| American alomic-energy project. Whether Mrs. MacLean has| [Rone to see her husband volun- tarily or involuntarily. the fact} vemains that the oft-distributed story from some London sources| that MacLean and Burgess had been somehow —“Jiquidated” doesn't seem plausible now any) more than the first unofficial intimation that they had just| gone on a “holiday binge.” It will be important for the British Security Service to re- establish faith in its efficiency; be that's what they have been doing these alist few days and some day will reveal. American officials are much concerned be- cause again the subjeel of an exchange of atomic secrets with Britain is up for consideration, and Congress is not lkely mend existing Jaw to provife ‘freer interchange if Britijnh curity methods are believed Re lax. 1 by getting all the facts, and may-.