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ae eg ps 3607 Former 4. Office (Tite Prime MINISTER) o..5, ee, a: Cairo, in May, 1950, that is to say, until he had becn 18 months in Cairo.: . Several people have said tonight that the behaviour in Cairo was so bad. There had been the drinking bouts, which the right bon. Member for Blyth described with a wealth of detail. 1, of course, did not know about them at the time. I was not in the Government. I make no com- plaint; there is no reason why J should. veral right hon. and hon. Members have asked why afier af that he was Bot dismissed the Service, That is an arguable proposition, and I have no doubt that it was weighed very carefully in the Foreign Office at the time. ' = 07 - Tam not going to say what I would, have done if 1 had been Foreign Secre- ry and had had to take this decision, © i thi ink that it would have been an apall- ingly difficult decision to take. The House mhust remember, in all fairness, that up to. that time there was no hint or the re- motest suspicion of treason, or of anything remotely resembling #. Therefore, what the House is asking us to say is, was it wrong that this man who had a brilliant record should be given a second chance? 1t is a subject on which I should hate to be dogmatic in the absiract now, just Jooking back on what has happened since, I believe that there are a great many employers who would take on @ man a second time. } haye known in regiments somebody who had a pretty bad 59 and who, perhaps, lost a stripe as a fesult. But he may come back not so long after and prove himself in action with his. comrades. po 35 5 5 . fal wee ee 1am not asking the House to fudge this =-thank God I do not have to judge #— and all [ can say is that ] think it is rather harsh to say that there is nothing to be said at all in favour of giving any- body a second chance. I think that is & doctrine that this House should hesitate about before it lays-it down. As for his leave, it was not three months, as. someone said, ft was five months" Ieave that be had; and after that a medical examination, 7" > De ne “} have been asked a number of ques- tions about the private contacts of Burgess and Maclean. Many of them I cannot answer, because 1 do not know the answer. But this I cao say. It was as a conse- quence of this which ied us in 1952, foi- fowing on the examination which, quite up - . sates er Ba T NOVEMBER 1955 onsa Soncooc say $0, was set in tralia’ joverament, (© adopt. these whole series of measures which we have taken 2 ss a sightly if I may dy the previous weet se 1 was interested to watch the mood of the House this afternoon as my right hon’ Friend described those measures —the. ™ positive vetting,” as it is called. Person- ally, I think it is right, and 1 think it is. inevitable. But I do not pretend that f like it very much—going along to the tutor of somcone and saying. “ What did you really think of So-and-so when he. was in your college at So-and-s02 "At is very disagreeable to the ordinary British -instinct. But € think we Just had to do’ that much, Le _Mr. C, Pannell rose: ‘The Prime Minister: T hope the Gentleman will not interrupt me, unless it is very important, Let me get on a Tittle further and { will then give way. T am sure that J shall be able to finish tonight—not like the other night w I could not; but that was my fault. What f was saying was that I think this the minimum we had to do, and also the maximum, in fact, that we could do within the existing law. And therefore- T believe that we have acted rightly in | the spirit of what the House would wish, “Now Jet me answer another question, that I was asked. There is no reason to suppose, T am told, that there is any connection between the departure - of. Burgess and the defection of Otto John,: That does nat mean to say that we know, everything about these things, but that is our information. I was asked also some- thing which is more important—and think that we must get this clear if we can—why was not the Fuchs treatmeat applied to Maclean? My answer, after laborate researches, is that 1 think it was applied to Maclean in exactly the sams way. As I understand it, what the Goveroment at that time, the Forcign Office at that time, were trying to get was evidence with which to confront Maclean’ as Fuchs was confrontéd with evidence~ not complete evidence, but enough evidence to have a chance to get him to confess more, | ee beet ope ge As I understand it, thé trouble about Maclean was that there was not anything like the amount of evidence to enable, him to be treated on that subject a ’ Lee menmpe nederdel owe