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~ camera Pe UTNE mentee Bae 1519 Former Ann Offce NOVEMBER 1955 Oftcts—Diapprcccs, i: * (Mr. Crossman} > one great difficulty, the defect of tts Virtue. Is has 2 sense of exclusiveness about it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South hinted at this. I believe there is a sense in the Forcign Office that when a chap has become a member of the club, he can do no wrong. Everybody outside, of course, knows nothing about foreign policy. Even if “ The Times” correspondent has been a long time in a place where the ambassador has been working only one month, the ambassador apparently is capable of telling the expert truth in his telegrams, but “The Times” can say nothing of value. 1 accuse the Foreign Office of the kind of exclusiveness shown by those who are defending a privileged Position somewhat precariously, . —... This is a peculiarity of the Forcign Office. As I have said, during the war I was a member of a secret auxiliary department for Psychological warfare, attached to the Foreign Office. The Prime Minister knows, because he was in charge of our department, that we had to obey the security rules. It was a nuisance that we could not telephone over an ordinary line the content of a secret docu- ment but, instead, had to use @ ecctamble.” I was a nuisance that we could not recruit certain people. have thought—indced, 1 did think —that the security regulations which prevented me from fecruiting those people were wrong. but I had to observe them. ° Tt was much more irritating when 1 found that although we had to keep the regulations, the Foreign Office next door did not have to bother about them. The Foreign Office was too high and mighty. It was infra dig. for the Foreign Office to abide by the common laws security. The Prime Minister laughs, but he Knows that this was @ fact——+-4 0 mi bw _ The Prime Minister indicated dissent. Mr. Crossman : If the right hon. Gen- tleman shakes his head again I will say one of the unpleasant things which I did not mean to say. There was a difference in the security treatment of the auxiliary department and of the Foreign Office— between the types of people we could re- cruit and the ‘types recruited by the Foreign Office. Foreign Office was allowed certain moral types which were forbidden to us. That has now been admitted by the Secretary of State for uCe Sateen a Foreign Affairs when he revealed thi those pss have been dismissed sin- 1952. Yet they were there in 1945 a during the war, >: : 1 could go into detail about this 4) pasity. There was a curious pervert, iberatism which tolerated as eccentrici inside the Foreign Office conduct whi would have been condemned if else had done the same thing outside ti Foreign Office. The plain fact about th. ae Case is that the sect Officer ought no to have come into this lion at al For even if these men not been su pected of any relationship with Russi they were unit to be members of th ‘oreign Office. Yet were permitte to be members of the Foreiga Office, What did the Secretary of State fo Foreign Affairs say? That the Foreig: Office felt this as a personal wound. could not agree more, It was a personal wound requiring to be “covered up.” Is & sense, it was the tradition of the Foreign Office which had been jeo) ised by Maclean and Burgess. been allowed an eccentricity and it had forned out to be treason. course, ik ‘orcign Office was extremely upset whea what i had segarded as Donald Maclean's funoy way of “talking Left. wing” turned out to be treason, -_ As for the other fellow, I am amazed that the Foreiga Office could consider accepting him as a member when they knew all about him. J am amazed that the Foreign Office considered a man of that type, a man who had been noted is his previous secret department as a “no gook™ as brilliant, irresponsible, utterly “gabby.” the very type who should not be allowed anywhere near a secret paper. How did he get in? ~ + Fe od It was mentioned that Hector’ McNed was the Minister, I appreciate the way. in which the right hon. Gentleman made - this reference. But I want to add that - it is the job of senior civil servants to advise young Ministers. Was there any - advice given to Hector McNeil that an- : other type of personal private é might be better than Burgess? No, some- : thing much queerer The Foreign Office accepted Burgess not for © the “A™ but for the “B” class. His mind was absolutely first-rate, he was-a : brilliant fellow, wonderful at languages. * The deficiencies in Burgess were moral. A™ class means BB wee OE