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Lon een eer “ARERR PEAR erage tet ante ee cote eerie zg song nt hates are nanerce emer ents 537 Former had all the papers and 1 came fo the con- Jusion that J had neither the possibility { stopping, nor the right to stop, Mrs. faclean, . Mr. Crossman: I entirely agree about Mrs. Maclean. do not see why she should not have joined her husband, but was talking about a search of the house not being made because she was expect- ing 2 baby. 2 tee ov Be tae ore 4. My suspicions are nearly all based on this paragraph. Jt is not a question of the ports. 3t is a question of whether we could not have kept Maclean from going by telling him frankly that he was under suspicion. I assume that he had already been tipped off by not having the secret apers. I now ask why we might not fate tried saying to him, “ Maclean, you are under investigation. and if you move that proves your guilt.” {think he would have stayed in that case. At Seast, would have been a risk worth taking, whereas, this way, it was certain what would happen. You tip him off. you do not keep a watch on him, you allow hima long week-end, After that it is certain | that he will “ skededdle,” whereas, by my ; method, we might possibly have bluffed him into staying. °° . I would remind the Prime Minister, if he has Dr. Fuchs in his mind, that at the critical moment the police bluffed Fuchs into a confession before they actually had the evidence in their hands. § am asking myself, therefore, why that was not done in this case, when we had already with- drawn the papers and had, therefore, warned Maclean of his plight. It still puzzles mes 3 ote The Foreign Secretary made it clear to us that one of our difficulties was that M15, the counter-jntelligence organisa- tion, is not responsible for the actions which are taken. It is responsible for | advising each Government Department upon the records and the personalities of the people there, but the actions are left to the Department in question. There- fore, we can never know whether the Foreign Office was not sufficiently strongly advised by M.15 or whether, despite the advice, something held it back from taking the necessary action. 7 ‘That brings me to my own suspicion Maclean belonged to the élite of the élite; he was one of the inner group of really gified men, one of the half-dozen nce sign Ofice TF NOVEMBER 1955 Oficiate. Poppearance 1538 stars fot top promotion; an intimate friend, a confidant, a mao who spent Jong evenings with half-a-dozen people who are now in ky Positions. I am not blaming anyone. { am only saying that if a man has been desperately misjudged, if risks are taken for him—and, of course, fisks were taken for Maclean; if a risk |. is taken and it does not come of, then certain people are not very anxious to have the extent of the risk they took on his behalf exposed. 0 oe _ We find a striking séntence at the beginning of the White Paper about Maclean's conduct: .r- ae: oe 2 ne “Macican was guilly of serious misconduct . .-.. and suffered a form of brealdown which was atuibuted to overwork and excessive drinking” Surely it is clear that the excessive drink- ing was the result and not the cause? Anybody looking at this can see that the man was sullering from a terrible psycho- Jogical strain, the strain of being a traitor He had those two loyalties which drove him into drink and drove him into. treason. [/nterruption.] [Aa Hox, Men Bex: “Wise after the event”) Ve well! I say this to the Prime Minister; it_ is rumoured that before he went .,.- Maclean hinted to certain close friends that he was under a terrible strain. 4 have even been told that he gave broad hints as to what the strain was; aad 1 am further told that his friends regarded all this merely as signs of nervous break- down. The trouble is thal we cannot in- vestigate these rumours. If there bad been a full investigation, we could have ~~.” found out from his Foreign Office cone fidantes exactly what Maclean said in his confidential talks ~ “+ “iat F -- The curse of the policy of the White -- Paper, -the policy .of concealment, has . been that those rumours have grown and grown in this country. And pot unreason- ably, for someone bas to explain why, |..- © when suspicion bad narrowed down to one man, there was this curious hesitae =" ~~" tion 40 take the risk which was takea -.- with Dr. Fuchs. We are not talking about ports now; we are talking abouts’ ~~~- facing Macleao with i; and breaking him down. We are talking about the long shot which came off with Fuchs, Why was it not tried with Maclean? ” wees I do not think that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will thiok me unfair when I say that at feast until ree cently, the Foreign Office has been under peer epee a