◆ SpookStack

tena rience ENON eemeene tae ane pds mS hey “a eee ain $e ys an an ’ + (Lreut.Covonet Corpeaux d xi.e How easily satisfied some people can be, particularly when we recall that, accord- ing to a further reply by the right hon. Gentleman that day, there had been since the Fuchs case a certain tightening up of the system. { wonder what it amounted to. Heaven koows what it was like before. i 7 ae aera nie - Early in 1950, apparently alarmed the Fuchs ial, Pontecorvo himself wet to some of the security authorities and told them that he had Communist rela- tions in Italy and had recently seen them, when he had been over there. At! about the same time we received @ repon from Sweden saying definitely. ahat ‘both Pontecorvo and his wife. were. Com- munists, Pontecorvo continued to carry out his highly secret work, and in Jul of that year he blithely set forth with all his family for a motor tour of Italy. He did not come back on the day that he was due to return, Instead, he wrote a letter to the atomic station at Harwell, where he was employed, telling those in autho- fity there that he could pot come back on time because bis car had broken down. The reply given by the right bon. Member for Vauxhall in the House of Commons on 6th November, in answer fo a Question, was“) rn “Dr. Pontecorvo's eave ‘expired on 31st AR On this date be had written @ pote to Harwell. received on 4th September say! thai be had troubie with bis car... In reply to a further Question, the right hon. Gentleman aid of Dr. Pontecorvo,’ *... the reasons for this man over-staying Bis feave seemed quite normal. He had «° Motor-car breakdown, and was asked to vist some people in Switzerland, and it was, naturally, only about a week ‘afterwards that’ those ai Harwell became worried about him.” —Orriciat Report, 6th November, 1950 Vol 480, © S678) a yar eos co “Normal” and “natural” Ye gods! All I can say is that if our security autho- fities consider that sort of behaviour in the case of a man of Pontecorvo’s ante- eedents and background sormal and Natural, non them is i 1 am sorry to have inflicted ol history on the House at such Jength, but it leads me to the point that I want fo make—that these three top-grade Russiaa agents, al} atomic scientists, men varying very widely in every way, in character and upbringing and so on, bad one thing in common. It is that if, when the potea- 7 uow YSIS. Former Foreign Officd> TNOVEMBER'195$ — Officia tial ‘enemy’ became Russia fnstead “of Germany after the war, our security authorities had carried out even the most cursory investigations ‘into their back. grounds, all three would have been’ found utterly unfit for their jobs. St seems barely credible'to me that, after atl that, the same thing should have happened in the case of Maclean; but in fact it did, Maclean was of about the same age as the three and was at Cambridge with Nuon May. He was then recognised as 2 Communist. He went into the Foreign Service immediately~ afterwards, : But although we are told in the White Paper that io January, 1949, knowledge came, to those concerned that information was Being sent from our Foreign Office to the’ Russians and - a cere eee “hi par ate spread Sad “protra Bet bs Oley mb ate those widespread inquiries were® ‘bot spread widely enough even then to include’ Maclean's background just re he joined the Foreiga Service. ~ - A year and a half later, in April, 1950, the inquiries were not even spread. as. widely as that, when, io fact, the suspecis had been sarrowed down to two or three’ of whom, of course, he was one. «were not even spread widely enough to: include his background immediately be-, fore he joined the Foreign Service when the suspects had been narrowed down to” ‘Disappearance 15% one—he himself—because’ paragraph 4° of the White Paper states that the infor-; mation was obtained only after Maclean had escaped. 02. ee saree. oH Therefore, it amounts to this—that all this time the security services have been, neglecting what should be the chief chan- nel of their inquiries, said, these spies are now recruited very: frequently for ideological reasons rather, se, as has been than for what I might call the olds | fashioned reasons, These facts are not in doubt. They are stated in the wretch White Paper, but the White Paper also, Giscloses that in mary other ways our, security services did not Prove up to the: jor. Paragraph 26, which has been en- arg ed upon in the debate today, states. ° that no watch was set on Maclean, except io London, as it would have been ,too. dangerous and would have been likely to have alerted him, because “he lived in a quiet country area. Surely our security" service is mot going to confess that its trade craft has fallen to that level?.> wane