◆ SpookStack

a ee eee OCR or 533 Former rein Office 7 NOVEMBER 1955 Officials- tesponsible to the present Forsign Sec- retary in Algiers. When 1 talk of secrets und security, therefore, 1 talk with some sonal experience. I know perfectly well that much of what I learned about tis now out of date—the ty pe of security ens we accepted and which included the steaming open of one's letter and the ‘tapping of one’s telephone conversations unusual ihings io bappen, i then supposed, when one had secrets. i Tam sure the Prime Minister will know what I mean when I tcll him that in a “secret department the greatest temptation ‘in the world is to use secrecy not in the national interest but in the Departmental interest, of io the personal interest, to :“cover up™. Every’ politician, so Minister, every general is tempted at ‘some time or another to suppress in- “formation, not because it is elpful to ‘the enemy but because it may be harmful i his future reputation or to a friend— or to that organisation to which he » belongs. Every’ rambassador, also, is con- * tantly tempted to suppress information { which seems to contradict the way ia i which he $s running the Policy a our country in his area. + nee But secret depariments are the worst because they are subject to no Parlia- t mentary control. The Prime Minister | Sivoo be is responsible for the Secret | Sivie but it is clear from the Burgess and Maclean case that the Service did not bother to tell many Cabinet Ministers what it was doing. 1 gather that the { Foreign Secretary hardly knew before 25th May, and I gather that the Prime Minister of the time was not told, although the Secret Service was respon- sible to him, that for two years it had been investigating somebody wat the Foreign Office. * meer 96h oa Mr, H. Morrison : I said that ‘the Prime Minister was told at the time I was told— = on 25th May, to the best of my recollec- Mr. Crossman: :_ Therefore, for two years our counter-intelligence had been doing an flaborate i investigation of 6,000 people. The investigation was narrowed down to one person, in the course of two years; of all this the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary were told nothing. That may be perfectly all right, I know enough about secret departments nce a Tle P.oppearance fo know how much they resent telling; Politicians anything at because they regard politicians as very “leaky people ~~... and very dangerous people to whom to _ tell secrets, The trouble, of course, is that ° secret departments are not responsible to Parliament, '22.- Gea} era etyctt ora” Despite the Foreign Secretary's’ com mendation of their patriotism, which I éo not deny, I say that there is nothing more ~ morally corrupting than the power to lie because it is claimed to be in the nation’s interest, or 10 keep secrets by saying that it is in the nation's interest. at cors ° tupts. And that is why these Secret De- -* Pariments, in the very essence of their = _ nature, are liable to the moral corruption ot constantly using national security to - “cover up.” They do it either out of ~ rivalry vith another Depariment—a - rivalry on which Secret Service organiss- _ ~ tions seem to spend most of their time—or because a friend has gone wrong and someone wants to cover the matter up. Therefore, when someone quoles this paragraph from the White Paper, I as aa old member of the gang. do not believe a word of it.. That is just what the Minister was bound to say if those con: cerned were “covering Up.” mye. ce I admit that “The Times” has bee getting rather extreme of late in its judg- Ment on all sorts of issues, but on Satur day, in a Teint 3 article headed “ Ostriches,” 1 think it got matiess roughly eight. It sai Pee dah win “As the authoritie: no doubt ‘catcatatod . when holding back information for so long. many targets for criticism have now moved on... The suspicion is bound to be that after the early days when the interests tate secrecy had to be beeded. there were £ital seasons for putting off information in 3 that the storm would, blow, itself out, This, of course, is confirmed ‘ty ‘the Forcign Secretary's speech today. 1: ~ * The right hon. Geotleman was just bit short about the Petrov case, dui those of us who have read the Petrov material know that Petrov provided no evidence “1. ihe. pat - whatsoever except hearsay evidence., At anes “ke Yeast nothing else has been published.’ He , said what be had to say, for £5,000.-4 - gather from an extraor fay ssage in the Foreiga Secretary's 5; Petrov —.-.- refused to talk if his Mevelati ions were published in Britain. Presumably, he - wanted {o sell his information to a ncwae ~~~ paper, because fe then would be ~~ paid for the articles, whereas if what he