◆ SpookStack

PN Pn GSE NEED Aa OOM sep AWA eR PNET REE OREN AREER 1 Former Pureign Office sat people are moral, but that “B™ lass people are immoral? on What is even queerer jis that when hector McNeil asked whether Burgess puld be put up into the “A” class the Fquest was resisted. Why? If the younds were failings of personal charac- he should not bave been either “A” “B*—{An Hon. Memper: “Or °C* : *D*."]_ As an hon. Friend says, or C" or °D,” and if he was merely being rdged on his intellectual merits, he Prould have been in the A class or owhere.. . jis is proof that the Foreign Office $as worried about Burgess, but not wor-, be enough, because he had already got 3s foot inside the door of the élite. There ve have the two of them, Maclean right $n the élite of the élite and Burgess push- ing his way up by means of some some- what unsavoury personal connections which perhaps got him in in the first place. A competent establishment officer whould have forbidden Burgess ever to have been appointed, and should certainly have thought twice about giving Maclean, - ‘only three months after his nervous ~ ‘ereakdown—notice that it was only three amonths after the breakdown—the fappointment as a head of a Department. It is no good the Foreign Secre- tary or the Prime Minister, of.. indeed, my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, South, telling Perhaps ¥ am, and perhaps this, because I lived in this sort of world, ~ Bu, the average man in the street, when told that this is a true and satisfactory explanation, knows perfectly well that whatever clever men produced this type of bunkum, it is always for the same reason. In Britain, influential people do pot want to have too much interrogation or inquiry into what went on in the Foreign Office élite, 4 sesince >= The crime in the Foreign Office was, first, to turn a blind eye to Maclean's deficiencies for far too tong; to prefer Private friendship and belief in him to public duty, and ihea when he bad gone, to prefer Deparimental loyaky to duty to this country. We are a democracy and we really have the right to know the facts when something has gone wrong... -- I want, in conclusion, to say two thin; briefly about the proposals fox ani Hea which bave come from this side of the uc@ Ire that I am a suspicious ope of person, . understan 7 NOVEMBER 1955 Officials. Drveoronce 1a .a Spy selling himself for money. For this .. fas! House. First of all, I will say a word about our proposals for an inquiry into ~ security. After the Foreign Secretary's speech I feel much Jess need for this ine quis than I did before the debate. But,” then, I never believed that security was the main problem in this case. The main ‘oblem is ‘the establishment of the ‘oreign Office, and the conduct that was - committed in the Foreign Office. ~ ~~ Still on security, I have one point to~ make in addition to what my right hon, Friend said. I think the Foreign Secre- lary was absolutely right in saying that we are back in the Elizabethan age and that treason has become a sibility ;°T would say that it is a possibility for every ~~- thoughtful man. Everyone who faces the’ - world’s dilemmas today finds his national loyalties in conflict with others. We have talked about Russia, but there might be a conflict between our national foyaley. _ and American interests. The Russians are not the only people who have secret ser- vices. J can conceive of a time when an Englishman might think if his duty to ass information on to America, feeling ¢ had a moral duty to do $0, and then, Jater, he might well be proved to be a traitor if the world went the wrong wi for him. ~ oa rn 2 The Foreign Secretary is right. This te a basic problem. Surely, then, the Prime Minister wil} agree that policemen are really no g for this job. We have to ~*~ detect the type of person who is note” common criminal. Such a person is not detectable in the ordinary way ; he is not one has to have an_understanding of Marxism and other philosophic prob- Jems of the modern world. I should feel 8 great deal more confident if I had been © told that we are ¢o have a heads of M.LS mot ex-policemen but people who have studied deeply the ideologies of the modern world and cap put themselves in ~ the place of young men and know what they are feeling. We want @ new type of person for this task. The Jess we have ~ of security the better, provided that the quality of it is really first-rate. -. tt . Secondly, I would remind the Houss that this searching for spies is really a relatively small part of security. Nine-" tenths of security means security against carelessness, security to prevent informa lion going to the enemy, either because ~ of their technical power to break dows