https://declassified.library.utoronto.ca/files/original/aea9687a0ab0e8cae8399be6cc5b16e3.pdf 88e0e6a88d493650fc0af9d9b723e408 PDF Text Text Document disclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loi sur /'acces a /'information SECURITY CLASSIFICATION CONFIDENTIAL FROM: THE OFFICE OF THE HIGHCOMMISSIONER FOR CANADA, LONDON. 4 TO: 5 6 --- 7 8 -•-~ :-:: THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS, CANADA My Letter No. 2110 of May 20th, 1952. R ference .................................................................................... . bject: ..... ~~~-~~~- -~~-~~-~~~. 9.~r;?~ -~-~~~.?~.~-~P .. J:1~~~.f:~. ~1?-~. -~-~~~~~-~~ ... 10 7 OCT1952 I am enclosing, for your information, three sets of tw articles by Cyril Connolly, which appeared in "The Sunday Timestt on September 21st and 28th. We under stand from a member of the Foreign Office that Mr. Connolly had no access to information which is held by the United Kingdom authorities; nor, we understand, did he discuss the cases with United Kingdom officials. Copies CTeferred To.............. . 2. The chief interest in the articles appears to stem from Mr. Connolly's personal knowledge of Maclean and Burgess, and from his analysis of their careers and mental attitudes. The articles may be of some interest not only to the Department but to the R.C.M.P. who, we assume, are in possession of official United Kingdom information concerning the subversive aspect of the case. CANADA HOU SE. Post File Copy to: Washington with enc. . 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Tr:u ('ll 1'..'~t:J P.L ~- 8.C ~lJ(l . i:..:[J "'0Ul 'f)J-11. • n;:rcu 'UJ r:'J, ('I. rps 'T, >G 1 c T- 11.orn. -:rn·, .c.-·,r,;0 n c u} . . .... .' 000163 �ocument isclosed under the Access to Information Act Document divu/gue en vertu de lo Loi sur /'acces a l'informati THE Mr. Connolly l'arly lin of nnd by Donald l\Jurl,•1111. In 1935 Marl,•11n ........ ,1 into th,· Forri11n l\U~ in tht• SEPTE~I RER 28. 19!'i2 ------ Cyril DI PLOMATS-11 Co11nolly to Mrs. Maclean ns " H.onalcl Styles." Burge had Pngagrd thP ca,· hy te!rphone at about two o'clork 1tncl thl'n gone ro11111I, p,ttri t11e c!Pposit. anct linc!ergone a Imel rtn\·rni,: te:st. At 5.30 he had recr1n-d a long telephone call at Oflir,·, -..1... rr hi, r••1rnt .. tion !"oOOII n1ounh·d. Hur••·~ "'•·nt from th,• 11.IJ.C. to th.For,·i«n Ofli,·r in 1914, and D<'purtnwnt TDIES. MISSING THE La•I -..rrk drpicrrd thr (;u} Bur«•"" SUNDAY Far•Ea!'r>l("rU in 1918. In 19·11 .'1urlran -..11~ JJO•h•d to ~ a,h,n,tlon a• act• in,t Fir-.t St•c-rt•LtrJ. and 011 hi ... rt·lurn four ~•·ars l.ntt-r "a• 01'1'"i111rd Coull .-llor in Cairo. Hut in Cuiro r11mr n hr,•akdo-..11. On ~o,rmb,•r b, J9j0. aftt•r •ix month ' lra,r. hr -..rnt hack to thr Forl'i«n Oll'irt> a, hrad of thr A11)rri,·1111 Division. NE day towards the rnd of 1950 Donald Maclean invitrd m<' to lunrht>on at his l'lub and talkt'd at length about the war in Korea. His argum,·nt was that what mattt•n·d most !n thr world was PPoplt•. The Konans wen• peopl<'. but !n the stage which thr war had reacht'd both sldt•s had rntirely forgotten this, and w<'re exploiting them for their own pre:;tlgr. It was essential to stop the war at all costs and get them established as people again This was not the orthodox Communist \"if'\\'. according to wh1rh only the Nort11 Koreans were ' people" and the South Koreans <as Burgrss m11mtained1 had really ~tarted thl' war. :\larlean went on to sugge,t that al! rolonial po: sessions in the Far East were mornlly untenable. and whl'n I pleaded that WI'should be allowed to keep Hong. kong and Malaya for their dollarearnmg capac1t1es he said that that was precisely the reason why we should give them up. as only then could we prov,. our.;plves m earnest and lay the basis of luture itO<Xl relations. 0 I I I Back at the F orcign Office dl611pp,.arance hav!' bel'fl put forward that 1t is be t to deal with a lew ol them like che. nml(l>. Lrt us flr~t take one baM>rllJn the thPory or a voluntary l'S<:ape I. NO!'f•POLITICAL.Thr LU:<,du- 'lhPn he had confided In rt. frn•nd that at last he would be apprarf'd on an alcohtlic fuque, ab!r to settle clown to his grPat to ll'ander about Ille,. Verlaine and task. thr acld1L1onol "fmal volume Riml,aud. and to start a new lt/e to 1,udv Gwendolen C!'cll'R b10- tor;f'thcr, gra11ln· ·01 thr. Tory Prime :\Unist!'r, This fits in with Donald's char:,rLonl Sall~bury, \\htch he thought ter. He 1s said to have d1sappPare the hcst b10:;raphy In Enghsh. once from a party for a few d&\ , !us flat. On Junr 7. a. the hue and cry in Sw1t1f'rland and been found lhAl11•r a quiet and mthn b!'gan III the Pre s. thrl'e telegrams Ing quietly In the next village. sohPr drnner Donald and " Hon11ld" u1rt\·l'd . one lrnm Guy Burgess Again he once remarked to a walk.eel m tlw arc!en l>onald to Ju mother m \I h1ch he sa11i tnend' that he wid11'd he coulrl then smcl that 1111•~ had tu hf> was e111bark111g on a long start a new hie a: a docker .n thP go to er. a I nrn<t I\ ho II\ r,t :\Irdner111nean and two East End, but that ration boo<. neurh) und that ht> 1111ghth,,rn to tmm :-.Iarlean hollclay; his mother and rrlentity cards now made 11, s y .1way tor the mght. Ht• 11nrl his wue. Toto Ladv im1>0.s1ble. Burge al~o had a 1noruL,;ed !,hat ht• would rNurn on lw sent a brief me. agel\lac!ean which reputation for disappearing l.Ji..t the mo:TO\I "nd took only h,s br:<'1· hr s1g11Pd "ith a ch!ldhoocl there would be much less n!a.:on • CTI.SC Wlth him whrn hf' left. name. to h1 I\ lie he wrote • Hn.d . for him to give up the kmd of to lea\e unrxpectl'dly ter11bly existence to which he was add1cte,I. .orry. Am quite well now. Don·t Neither could have Ja.-,ttng attracMidni~ht Arrh·al at \lOlT\' durlmg. I l01e you. Plea.e tion for the other. tor the lorcr don t stop lO\lllg ml'. Donald." All which united them would al:;o drt\'P Southampton t11ree sound plauMb!e but somehow them apart. and the wanderer~ I 'HE pair got mto th, lun><I c.1r unreal. unlc the} \1·ert' meant to would certa nly have been heard ot and clrme to Southampton ju.• bl' dC'll\·e1Pel al !ea. t a week b!'fore. agam for where they \I ere m comIll t1111rto n•, ch tlrf' 1'10.---ClllllllJt•I H,n·m1: acqi..1r<'d u little more puny 'incidents wotd he bound t,o v,• • F,,:a ., wh1cll Jett t mid• hackgrouncl. !t t us f'Xamme ome arii;e; and the e.ement of ant.1111:ht on n ~pt (' .. 11 ..,.eek nd rut e ·>! rhn theor.cs wt1h which we social aggresnon In such a flight to Sam :\I u uncl b,1Ck b1 the began. It will be noticed even now would have cau.~ed them to lea\e cruinn• I I. 1 ncls retu nlng , 'I lv on how vei; tew !acts we have. We som kmd of sta:.ement. '\londa.v Ill irnlnl(. "Wh.1t ,lbnt1t u. pee that Burg.. a net :\tarlean t.he enr?" vcU,d a µon r,a:,1i;e Wf're ColllllllllllSts at ambridge, A Twitch upon the we do not know - - 7 even If they Thread ever met after 1'Hf. b THE C01 CLl DL ·<; im,tqlm,,,,, of Mr. Cambnctge. Both 2. !i<l THEORIES WHICH IJ4PLY A w e re neurotic Conr,ol/y•.~ f)('rwmal am/ intimal<' 8twly of Guy p e r s o n alit1es FORCED MOVE. " A tu:itch 11pon the thread." The argument LS that with schizo/J11rf!PS.\mu/ Dona/,/ lfod,,,m. the t1ro memben phrenic charac- Burgess and Maclean were both agents. Maclean 1 or t,. r i st i c . In Communist of tlw Fon,iw, Of fin• . 'ta// 1dw rnni.\/,ed on .llny recent post both both! wa,; growmg indiscreet and and that they were had beha\·ed ~o unreliable. :!<>, 19;; I. 'f'/11,ir a"'·ial /mt day i11 E11;da11drerkle ;y that recalled before one <or both• could give awa~· oth!'rs who were more thl'\' had to be llad,,a11 ·.\ liirtlu/ay- is d(lw/y <'\ami11,•,l, I srnt secret and more important: that home. both _________ • _____ _J drunk too much thP\' were immedauely 1mpn•oned and then became or i1qu1Ciated and may have got PO crif'd: "B:trk \ ioll'nt and abu~he. both might fa1ther than an uncertain addre,-s he di', rr1becl as al>normal, both In Pari~. 11 they had rPfused to go. allegedly made confe 10ns 1many th!'\' would ha\·e been exposed to yP, rs apart, or bemg Ccimmunl~t the· Brit1Sh and brought disgrace on their families. Even so. it IS agents. and both \I ere notorious n mong their colleagues for their doubtlul II experienced diplomats 40 would s1gr. anti-Britt. h arguments and were aged 38 and their own death-warrants vmhb1ttl'r ngatn. t authontarianism nntl 1mperiali m. Both had risen out a murmur and depart without • a farewell. ra. t uncter wartm1P rond1tions and 1b1 They both tor ,l!acl.:an alo11e1 had I et lllllllltallll'd nn underto .t'ze r,racluillc-hke intormality· in their had gi~e11 illformatio11 Rus!ians at ome time. per/zaps appearance and habit and in the 011 one OC'casion only, a11d thi. 1rus genera! L>ecl-s1ttmgroom rasualnes:; preyrng mz Donald'~ co11scie11c<'. of their \lllY of life. Both had two If the mformat'.on wa. j!l\t'n In enemie. . aclol!'scenre and alcohol, Washmj!ton, It might have been nncl when thl' • vnmshect each was valuable. and U1e leak would thought by ht,, fnencl to have led have taken a long time to trace. th!' other astrny. Burge s might have had wmd m Washmgton of this inve Up;ation e\·en got himself sent home Association that ·was and through his erratic behaviour in order to warn :\Iaclean on his Kept Secret return. Burges.< might perhaps at on!' lime ha\·e been a kmd of private commi.5 ar to !\Iaclean. After hrs rar!'lree luncheon. then. on that last Friday, !\1actean was somehow tipped off that exposure was imminent. At 5.30 he telephones to his contact Burge who says .. L!'ave it all to me." I ,.f The ,takind ~lyth .. 134!rausr of McCarthy." I of a 000164 �ccess to lnformat'ion A acumen THE THE SUXDA.Y TDIES. SEPTE)IBER MISSING 21. 1952 Document divu/gue en vertu de la Loi sur l'acces a /'inform .DIPLOMATS pattl'm In Bur1tl' ~·'I ret11•lrri•MO!! In romantic lriPt.r!.~hlp hP 111:l'dto dommau,. but '"" mte1.ectua1 atlm:ration Y.as u. ually kef,t for the" e II ho were older than h m eU !'here 11ere atsc, uome w1t1, v:t:.,,m Maclean In 1913. The one reached his favourite authors were Mrs. the bourgeoisie entirely surrounded Cambridge by way of Eton anel Gaskell and Balzac and, later on. by Communists. like the Alcazar or he orelerred to drmk and argu ... Tn June. 1944 he had been tr nsTrinity, the other. two years later Mr. E. M. Forster. "Lenin had said Toledo. to the Ni,ws Depanmeo or . One day Burge."5"a friend came to frn· bv Gresham's School and Trinity Hall. They knew each othrr 111 somewhere tht\t he- had learnt more her shaken and yet unpre. PO. the 1''ore1gn Office, In 1946 to the about France from B Izac·s novels Cambridge and were both tllltn trom au m:,tuiy-oook.i. put Guv naa conba!'<l to him that 11..- otllce of the Mm1 r of Stat,. ... tr. was not just a. member but a. secret Hrctor McNeil. In 1947 t.o B branrh members of the left-wing circle together.lialzac wa..~ agent or the Communist Party, and , Fo1'f'lgn Officr ,. tmrl m 11148LOthr there. But there L~ no evid- thP greatestAccordingly writer or all times.'" ol tlir he had then Invited him to join in Far-Eas• rrn Orparrment ence ot that oppressive parental this work. The friend had relu eel Forr1,:n Offlcr authority which drive,; young men <Koestler.> Donald was ~eldom heard to talk with concern: and tor her part the In 1944, the year that Ouv Burto revolt. politic.~. Guy ne1er eemed to .·top. novelist felt that Burge. ·s ges went from the B.B.C. to the He was the type or bumpt1ou:1 Fascism was suddt>nly expla1t1Pd . r 01e11muau:f' do1,a d 1aclean .~ Marxist who saw himself as Salnt- M a secret agent he must have post,llcl to Wai;hmg rm as a• t,Pre-\Var Cambridge Ju~t. who enjoyed making the flesh bttn told to lnvp_o;t1gatPthe British mg Fu:,L ::,ccreta1 v. un u.-. I ot his bourgeois listeners creep by Fa..'!Cistsand hoped t.o pa II as one re-tum Marxists m 1948 he gave his picture or the jUl>tlce which Even SO, It WO..'! lmpo.'lsible to feel dmner-pa1 t~ to his fnt"nds. I. T was more than ten years since history would mete out to them. quite certain. for it would be m was a deli;,;h fut evening. he harl and promis- kel'plng with Burgess's neurotic become a good host. his charm WR-' I the end of the first world war, Grubby, intl'mpnate and a new generation was tf,owlng cuous. he Ioveel to moralise over his power-drive that he should prPtrnd based not on vanity but on up which found no outlet in home lnencls and satlr.f.l;e their smug to be an under-cover man. sincerltv and he would dlscU!>II so Y afterwards the novell~t foreign· affairs a.'I a student. not politics for the adventurous or cla.:. - uncon. cious behaviour, altruistic impulses o! the adole- rt-ckle or the reckoning In store. wu told that he had spent several an expert. He enJoyed the magascent. l\1arx1Sm satisfied both the But when bedtime ca.me. very late, days wrestling with his cons1'11ence zine that I then edited. which was a blue rag to Burge<sS.a v.-eakmJecrebel11ousness of ~·outh and Its and It was the moment to put the at the time of the Soviet-German analy. e away, the word "Prepo - pact and had decided to give up tion of culture into a socfet\ craving for dogma. terous" dying on his llp11, he would the whole business. This may well alrParlv dearl The Cambr1ctge Uommunlsts substituted a new lather or super-ego Imply a dl.spensatlon under which hav" been true. On his return from WaJ hmgton Here we have to decld!' wh!' her he was appointed Couns llor m tor the old one. and accepted a this onf' house at le-ast, this family, the. f' guests. might be spared the Burge visited Germanv wi a 1,;au o. " .1.nUona..o M.ic11:1111 new justice and a stricter i ..ee a authortty. They felt they had worst con equf'nces thanks to the secret Communist. a Nazi sym- coiu,uze ,md a love of justice; I see a or their brilliant pathiser or as a.n observer ror our soul that could not be deflected 1 exposed the weaknef~es of Liberal- protection rnend whose own Intelligence • Services, or-at ism· along with their elders' Ignor- hungPr-marchmg trom the straight course: and Is I va.riotis le\•eJs o! rusopportun:~mance of economic affairs. To this po.~1tlon would be "' rommand.ing in It that deep affection tor hts , in the happy workeri;' Utopia. as a!! Uuee. On one occasion he frlenrls which he always mani~eneratlon Communism made an It wa..~the time wnen J\oysslnla took l'Ome Bo.v SCout.s over to a ft'~t,.,1.. The worrl~ or Rt>tl"ll'v Intellectual appeal. standing tor A Matter of Choice rally at Cologne. before the Russian love, liberty and social justice and mattered. Baldwin about the father seemed to In January, 1939. he Jett the be c.oming true of the S<,n. A for a new approach to life and purge~ had taken place and the or Necessity B.B.C .. and In the autumn or 1940 Coum,c1111rat thirtv-tlve, ne seemea art Yet It was connected with a especial bitterness or Communist HE d1sap!)<'arance, towards the political party, and this party Is controversy had ansen. There were he was doing confidential work for In a fair way to equal his -parent's few ex-Communists. and the the War Office. At this time he was distinction. end of Mav la$t \·ear. of Guy not inclined to relinquish Its hold. very claim to represent the arrested tor bemg drunk In charge says Arthur party's Burge-ss and Donald faclean Is a • The Comlntern," extreme left wing was not di~outed. of a car and acquitted because he Koestler. "earned on a. white-slave m1·stery which cannot be solved A Breakdown 10 while so many factors remain traffic whose victims ,were young Unlike all other political parties, was working founeen hours a day and had just idealists flirtmlj unknown. and therefore any ,1•1th violence. 7 been 1n an airCairo explanation ran bC' based only on The feelini,:s of a balance of probabiht1es. THIS JS THE FIR T instalment of Mr. ra~\. January, such ~·oung mrn N 1950 word began to reach us Such solutions tall into two cate- are' de~cnhccl 111 1941, he goril's. according as they presupthat all was not so well. It was Connolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy was n<ffrls pose the disappearance to be a numerous said that uona.1ct, wnu,;e nigh once more In the ancl porm.s. or in matter of choicf' or of n!'resslty. R1trf{ess and Donald llfaclean, the t,rn member.~ B.B.C .. and there Liberal principles had received full i;uch tracts as A rnlunt11r.v flight might be poli. . . he remained for scope in enlightened Washington. Mr. St r p h <' n tical. as that of Hess to Scotland. by the of the Foreign Office sta.ff ll'ho 1·a111shed tmcards three years in had been so disheanened Spender's " I•'oror of a private and psychological poverty and corruption of the w a rd from nature, as when two boys run away Liberal Middle East that he had had some the end of May last year. It u·ill be, read u·ith i~~1:an ism." from school. kfnd of breakdown. It seems that involved 1 he The compelled exit. the forced They adopted a theory that sufficient rmrticular interest by those concerned with the :r;A1iec!1:eng~ ~ no hp raval nf move. implies escape under duress, thf' writers· own alcohol could release In one a • 11 • • • ·d [ • l i hat greatly the threat being either or private second personality which. though in an age o I eo og1ca appealed to him. country, and the 1 pecu l ,ar pro> ems arising blackmail or of public exposure; It might simulate the destructive elm e of Marxism or again it might be the result or wns conflict u·hirh is of ten projerted on the plane of ~~~~t~~ffy h \~ element. worked only good by hel~ an imperious recall by a. Power lethal. seldom Ing people to acknowledge the truth rivate 11ersonality A second and concludinrr hai. on work with about themselves and reveal t.trelr which regarded on!' or both or the P What WPr!' • highly sec re t two diplomats as in danger or as thrsr lll'O VOUlll! Donald entered O r Ra n1Sa.tioru, latent affinities. article will ap11ear next tt'eek ha\'ing become too dangerous. like? Donald • until he was able into the spirit of the Investigation There remain~ a possibility men and took as hi.! alter ego t.he name L _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _J to repre ent the was that thrv were sent abroad on a sMaclean • Foreign Office of " Gordon " from an export gin a n d 1· - haired. ~Peret mission. anrl another that tall. 11:1th great latent physical Communism then offered the con- He helped, for Instance. to remo1·e wilh a tusky wild boar on the label. they were lured abroad and then strength, When night tell h!S new elf took solarion ol a religion the anti-Russian bias from Poles but Int and rather l:irlnapped. flabb)' him, one was During the Spanish War I saw whom we were training for J)Oi'Sess:on. He sta.ml,kaea one 01 1 her!' are simply not enough Clll1SC'IIJUS Meeting t \\ o pa.rt:e . but got Into more much less of Burgess, who had now sabotage. ot both nmiab1lltv and fact. to exclude an.v or these \I eakne.·s. er·nu.s roub!e \\hen in •h .. comHe did not • seem .1oined the B.B C. in Bristol. A We now see the outline or the explanations. nor can we even preanimal but resemb,rd ternble thing had happened-he Ideal personalities or Burgess and pany o! a friend. he broke into the ~ume that the behaviour of both athf'pollt1cal clever helpless youth In a had become a Fa1:c1st ! Still sneer- Maclean. On the unstable rounds.- fir t apanmen• to hand m a block .Maclran and Burgess ls covered hv Huxley novel. an outsize Cherubino Ing at the bourgeois intellectual, he lions o! their a.dole. cence they were of flats and sharpened his tusks on the snme explanation. The most Intent on experience but now vaunted the intensel.v modern erectin!{ the selves whom they the I urniture striking fact-the suddenness or too shy andamnrous clumsy to succeed. The realism of the Nail ll'aders: his would like to be, the father ftgures Then on a boating ttip on the their dlsnppearancP-suggests a of an august atmosphere admiration for economic ruthle~s- or thl'ir day-dreams. the finished Nile, with some twentv people i.n panic, but even this Ruddenness shadow Jay heavy on him. and he sought ne. s and the short cut to power Imagos. With hl~ black hat and the party, he seized a rifle from an could have been counterfeited. The on the more impetuous and had swung him to the opposite umbrella, his brier-case under his otnc1.:iu.ssmtry and be1ta.n to 1mpe111 spontaneous thoroughness or the rt'fuge emancipated fringes of Bloomsbury extreme. He claimed to have arm-O.H.M.S.Donald ts .. Sir the safety or those nearest him bv search would seem to indicate that and Chelsea. Such a. young man Donald Maclean." the Tvrrell, the swinging it wildly. A Secretary at the Foreign Oflice first accepted the ran be set right by the devotion of ut tf'nderl a Nur!'mbc-rg Rally. Maclean. howevrr, a strong sup- Eyre Crowe of the second world the Embns.~v intervened, and in the thPory of kidnapping, and so would lnte111gent, older woman, and It pnrtr.r of the Spanish Repubhc. war. the last great Liberal dlplo- scuffle received a broken leg. The tend to exclude the notion of a an a misfortune that Donald was se<'mrd suddenlv to have acquired matist, terror of the unJust and two men returned home on sick secret mission <unless self-imposed 1. was ju t not quite able to Inspire such lea\·e. while M~ tacle:in wt,n wq. a backbone. morallv and phvsicallv hope ot the weak. "It 1t wasn't while a high French police official an attachment; charming, clever His appearance greatly improved. for you, Sir Donald," snarled on the boating trip. went to Spain has maintninPd that it would have and affectionate, he was still too his fat disappeared, and he had Ribbentrop, " we might still have for a rest with hl'r two son .. been Impossible for the two visitors unformed. become a personage. In 1935 he won the peace." What was the nature of Donald's to France to elude the dra~-net Guy Burgess, though he preferred had pa.~sed into the Foreign 8ur1tess. or course, ls a power spread lor thf'm w1tJlout the • prooutburst? It wa not just o,·erthe company of the able to the Office. an l from 1938 he was at behind the scenes: a btigadier in worK., but over-strum: the etfon ot lf·ction" of a poi1t.cal organisation. artistic, also moved on the edge or the Emba.<;sy in Paris. mufti. Brigadier Brllli,mt. D so There are, however, countries ht-Ing " Sir Donald," thl' whol" I rrme-mber some argument.'! F,R.S., the famous hlstonan. with pamphemalla where It might be possible !or two the same world. He was of a verv of " O.H.l\l.S .." had with him. I had telt a. great svm- boyish grin and cold blue eyes, been too much for him and he had able-bodied men to obtain work and different physique, tall - medium for special re\·erted to hL<;adolescence, or to still escape notice, but they are not In height, with blue eyes. an m- pathy for the Spanli;h Anarchlst..<1, s er on de d now quL~iti\e nose, i.ensual mouU1, curl~· with whom he w $ extremelv dutle.. With long stride and his ideal or ParL~ days. the free and so easily reached from the station at Rennes. in Britta.n.v. whence they hair and alert fox-terrier expres- .evere. as with all the other nori- hunched shoulders, untid,·, chain- solitary young !-CUlptor working all vanished on Mav 26, 1951. One sion. He was Immensely eneri,;etlc, Communist factions. and I detected smokmg. he ta IKs-walks and talks night in hlq attic. The return of in his reproaches the familiar -while the wholl' devili.h simpli- the repressed 1. famihar to psychomust also consider the possibility a great talker, reader, boaster, walker, who swam like an otter and pnggish tone of the Marxist, the city ot his plan unfold.~ and the annlysts, and there was also riow a that the.v are dead. drank, not like a feckles.~ underresonance of the "Father Found:' men from M.I thlS and ".\I.I. that. bnef return to his earl\• . exual As one ol the manv who knew both, and as one of the few who graduate, as Donald was apt to do, At the same time he could switch S.l.S. and S.O.E., lls~n dumb- ambi\'alence. " Gordon" had glnn " Mv Ood, Brill nt I "Sir sookP with Haclran on his last dav but like some Rabelaisian •botlle• tn a magL,terlal defence ot Cham- founded. Donald" the sack. The brrlaln's foreign policy and seemed believe vou're right-it could be enr ged junior p rtner would no in England, I ~hould like to swiper whose thirst was unquenchable. nblt'! to hold the two se!f-righteollll done." The Btigudier looked t hi: approach thP subJect lrom a diflonger put up with him. points of view simultaneously. watch and a chilled blue eye fixed ferent standpoint. Let us put aside V the facts of which we know so lltt111_ --+- ....nt·~~.,.,,,,!fflter e na sually spent in the Left-Bank t t momellt, so far as one lndicares with a little group or hardpactt-tce tn hla are doln 1'.,rever uncl nct by Cyril T HOSE who become obsessed with a puzzle are not very likely· to solve it. Herc ls one about which I have brooded tor a year and would l!ke to unburdC>n myself. Something ot what T have put down may cause pain; but that I must risk. 0t•cause where people are concC>rnC'd the truth can never be asct•rta!neo without painful things being ~aid, and because I feel that what I put down may lC>ad to somebody rcmcmbcri1'<,; the fact or phrase which will suddenly bring Jt all Into focus. It I did not bl'lll've (by Instinct rathC'r than reason> that the two peopll' about whom I am going to write may well have been victims or some unforeseen calamit.v. the puzzle would not exlsL and I should have nothing to say. I have had access to no secrets. I have not talked to many or the people I should like to, I offer no solution. only a tew suggestions. a meditation on human complexity which leads to murky bypaths but which. I hope, will show that no one has any right to jump to unfavourable conclusions about people or whom the; know nothing. I Connolly I I I I i T r -- ---- --------------- I I le~~ f • 0 I ('h "l'lrkr'rt ,·rn• hare . 111111It wa. n ACK In I onrlon hi' had si • Donald acl,.an. dP p1te his that hr hrg n tn hullel up hi m11nth • IP \P tn 11;rtwf'll and to thP For t n tnc,. ~--~--u;1~1p mm r·-1:&;;DOJllS1all►-Jfor-iibeir--rpnupp\' la • b!-lonirr~ w~ that of r npu•at ronm in I rPmrmbf'r I 1at IL HP as t!ll rltinkinit ancl wa. 1101\ -,appearance. n,:a rrl. S<' 1,wph ·rn c. ad1 grrw \'!'ry high lndrl'cl unrler~oin1t treatmtnt from l count rnnnced Dnn Q u t ,coteN 194n Dnnalrl Maclean had mar- woman psvrho-ann•,·~t. Hts apnPR"Donnld hnel mnnv admirable mtroH"rted and dlffidf'nt, an &-ntush rlrrl In Paris an American girl qunlltlrs. Hr. wa.~ responnnC'r \\'[IS tnghtPOlnll;: hi' hnel 10 L Lookini! Back to ldl'all~l and a. dreamer ,:lv!'n t.n silJIP and pam~taking. logical and as rlPllghtful P~ h!'r name. l\tl'hnel:i his srrentt)", his hands 11·oud udclen outburst., or aggr!'s.<lon: n• nlute In argument, Judiclou.'I Mnrhnf(. who bnrr him two sons. tremhle 111, fact' 11·n.~11s1m,!I·a Childhood whPre Guy Burge s. despite nnrl r1·en-trmprred and. l shoulrl Shi' brought bNh SWl'elnP.ss and lll'lr! l'l'llow and he lookPd as 1! he Into his lire-. Gnv Imel sprnt t hr night ~lttlng up In TWO fact,; dlstlngul~h Bunt 11 his intel11genr.l' wa a round-face-rt lmn1nne. an admirable Sv,1 anrl ttnrltrstnnrling brothrr. Ht' hncl grown much Burge s. however. as the war ll'rnt a tunnel. Though he remained I. nd Maclean from the ro-calle:i g n I cl en - patecl Sanrhn Panza, on lP<I a more t roublt>d e'>lstl'nce. c!Ptnched anrl amiable M ever I hnnc!SQmer, and hill tall figure. his .. atomic.. . pil',S-!in;t, th!'V UP exhiblt10ni~t. manl<'. grn\'e long facr and noblr brow, his A npw friend whom he had 1mirle was clrnr that hi' was mlsl'rnhle nr:,t known to have commlttPd t'xtrovert, a,·1dl~· rlar k suit, black hat and umbrella was tnkrn prl,·oner-of-war, and 1t accl m a \Pl"\' bacl wa1• In c-or,. any crime, 61'Cond. the,· arP C"n1cnl andyetargumentat1vt', romet1me \'Rgue 11·rre . rvrre and dtstlngul~herl On,. was notrrl that hr had hrcome 1·Pr.ntlon a kmd or shut Pr wo1:'rl mPmb,.rs of the go\·rrnlng cla.~~.or curious. and Incompetent. With all his f!'ll now that he was a rock, that If much morp Insulting and destruc- lull as If hr Imel returned to the high bureau('racv. the "they" toughnl" s. moreovPr, Guv Burgess one were In trouble he would help t!\•!' when he drank he seemed to somr IJnsic and inrommunkabk who ruie the "wf"" to whom lnU>ni;ely to be liked and and not Just let one down with a hit on the unforgivable thing to anx1rly. • rerugep• like Fuch and Pontecorv,, want!'d say to everyoneHis m!'ntnl and humble fl11;urt'.~ llkf' Nunn Mav wa.s lnc!Ped likeable, a. good conv<'r- rrprlmanct Some or his frl!'nds urged him to sadism whlrh sometlme:1 !Pd to his 1P~11m. and an tnthu~11U1Ir. ~long. rr t.rai ors the,· br. thrn satinnahsL pointing out that since h gl'ttlng knockerl out. did not builder-up or his fr1tnd.. Beneath t h"Y are traltnr.i to thrm elve. , t ·rlurle great klndnei;:1 to those In ehshkrel the life and dlsnt:treed wit 1 or his Mar 1s White Hope of the Br1 . a..~m all ra<r~ whrrr people t111• "tl'rrib:lltt\" thr pnllcv rould not go bark trouble. Abov!' all. he disliked Wllhout 1t hr srem to act ,wamst thPlr own nnah· e:; one divined the alTectlonall happening again nnvone to i:rt out or his rlutrhr ·; Others ate moral coward1re ol the public orei,:?n Office J><Jlltiral in 1 Prr t.q. we must go schoolboy. n.ssured him that he ll'0uld hP was an nffl'rttomtte bullv bark In rl11ldhond. bf' well enough to return to capable of acts of i:enPrnsHy, like a S()(ln An old Etonlan. an "Apostle" Politics begin In the nursery; no wnrk, wht('h, would prove the bPst REMEMBER, at the beilnning magnate or the Durk Age,;. who had taken a F1r~t In HI. torv one Is born patriotic nr unpatriotic, !lung for h1msp!f and his fnml11· or the war, mentioning to one At the same '1me he IHL~ctrmk- I Iw F0l'f'ljrll nmcr had tn ll'f'lt:h rtgh -111,ingor left-wing, and it Is at Cambridge, and was tempted tii lng and living extrnvagantlv. He his yc-ars of hnrd work against the child whOlle crav[ng !or Jove become a don. he yet : emed un ot our most famous diplomatic Is un1,11t1sfied, whn<,c desire for adventurer with a first-class mind. rrpresentallves that Donald was a was fond or luxury und display, of tllt' outlmrst. 11hich lhl'.I' put dnwn smtts at Clarlclges and ta. t cars pn11·11r L, thwart,.d. or whose lnnat«' who would always be In the rcnow, lrirncl or mme and receiving a to thf' stram or long hours anrl he drove ahominablv. He fnrnwl •·,,rial rh1tlrs In Cairo nnel Y.n P of justlre L, warped, that a framer of secret pollcle11. a glanc or mc-rrelullty. Satisfied whl('h belonged to the febrile war-time Washington. His reputat111n for a eventually may try tn become a financial wizard already. anti a that this lndee-d Willi so, he carl-SOC'ietv or lhr temporan Ci\'ll rrv,,Iu Jnnar\' nt a d1~ atnr. In future editor, at l!'ast, • of " ThP prnPt rnt11111; mmcl, sounrl 1uclcmrnt that Maelran wa..'I Sf'n·ant. Maclran to the •!>ecret nnd Though he enjo.vecl n rxphuned England ,;,.·,attach . plritual valurs Times." fllllC-t111dustryturned ·thr st·alr. a white hope, a "puer aureus •• c1tactel or the permnnc-nt. alr,nP. t.o c h I I rl h o o d and bout or luxury, he was lndll!erent 1 hep . .1cnmtr1.~L s repons bec11111e art,,lrscr-nre, r!Lsrn!Mlng p<>lltlcal to appearances and even hostilf' or the SNvirr- whosl' attalnThe position of Ru· has an allv more rnrouraglng, and by the act Inns of a l'Ubvrr ·tvf' nature a11 to his own. Unhke Donald, he mrnts and re. ponsibllltles werP had made things ens1rr for Com- autumn the rlr('1s1on was taken. On munist..,. who at first wrrp able to yr,uthlul <'apadr~. But In fact concealtel his &exual diffidence bv wrll beyond his yf'ars. Nnve111brr 6, nltf'r n particularly Unllke 11PrVI'their own and thl'ir adopted • such bl"hav1our In thf' young l.'1 over<onfldence. hean 11l~ht, Donald Wl"nt back to of r•n I rveallng hrcatL~I' It exwithout n. con flirt. t hr l-'ore1r,n Office as head or the What wa~ common to both Bur- Burge s hr wn.q without vanitv. I country thP s1mp!Pst rlistlnctlon prr • s tlw truP m"anlng of th!' gpss and Mnrlran at this time wa~ think Wavere-rs rl'lurnecl fn thtlr nllrg1- Amrrirnn D1vis1on <a position !f's, rel a lrmshlp with I he father in the-tr Instability; both wen• able bPtwern them is that Ir vou had anre and those 11ho had nPvrr 1111Prousthan it sounds 11nd \I hlch Jt.'I mr».L critical ph~ "· anrl ambittou.'! young mPn or h1i:1h , g11,·n . laclr-an a INtt•r. he would WR\!'red llf're suddenly re prcted, l111nh·rc1no sncml dUIIPSI, And hr hav" J)()strd It. Burgess wo4ld Burgt'SS now had a frienrl. R forrui:n hou1:ht a house n!'ar Wrsterham Guv Burg!' ~ lo t his rather at an intelhfi(Pnre and good conn.-ctlon havr forgotten It or diplomat. whom he con lc!Prrd the- l11r !us w1lr ancl rhlldren. to which r11r1;· aa;:,•, and his mnthn 110 who we-r!' somphow par0<lle.'1 of probablr whe,m tw Is d,.votnlr rrmarrlrrl; what thPY !,Pt out to be. Nobodv O!)<'n..rl 1t and thrn rf'I urn rel tn tell most lntere~tlng man he Imel e,·rr hr hoprcl tu rrturn almost p1•en Maclran Is thr child ,,r rli.<1t tn- roulcl takl' th!'m Quit!' Reriouslv; you what you should have said. mtt and with whom hP r11rr1erlon f'\'!'lllllg, R\oirling thP temptations g1wrhrd Librral parPnt.~; his thf'y wl'rt' two chnra<'ten; In a tale H11rgrss nncl a great I rlend or his a verbal crusarle In lnvour or Com• nl the I'll,\', fathPr, whr, WWI thPn Prr.slr!Pnt, Ru Ian novrl. Lat1rf'l and Harclv would somrtlmPs stay with a nmnlsm, P11rh taking a elitrerent or thl' Bnard 11r Education, clircl Pngngrel to play TalJpyran<I anel t11!f•11trrland beautllul woman. a line with thf' pntt'nl1nl convert, ont> whPn hr was nlnetl'rn. the \'0Ungtr Pitt. Burl[!' ·s. lnclel!'nl- no\"l'llst who. In tho.'le davs. rough. one . mnoth. Burge ~ wu 11orn ln J!Jl1, all •, wa a great reacler of fiction; rl' 1·mbled an Irreducible bastion or We may ch tingul. h ll. cert:1111 B I F I 000165 �' ,, r • ~ ~ THE SUNDAY TIMES. SEPTEl\lBER 28. 1952 ~ THE MISSING Last we~k Mr. Connolly depicted the early lives of by. Cyril Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean. In 1935 Maclean passed into the Foreign Office, where his reputation soon mounted. Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the Foreign Office in 1944, and was in the Far-Eastern De(>arunent in 1948. DIPLOM··ATS-II· e Q nfl O 11Y disappearance have been put forward that it is best to deal with a few of them like chess-openings, Let us first take one based on the theory of a voluntary escape. 1. NON-POLITICAL.The two dis- ' thought he had said MacArthur. to Mrs. Maclean as " Ronald Then he had confided In a and asked what he had to do Styles." Burgess had engaged the friend that at last he would be appeared on an alcoholic fugue, with it. car by telephone at about two able to settle down to his great to wander about like Verlaine and ' "Senator McCarthy," said Bur- o'clock and then gone round, paid task. the addition of a final volume Rimbaud and to start a new life All the deposit, and undergone a brief to Lady Gwendolen Cecil's bio- together. gess. " Terrible atmosphere. This fits in with Donald's characthese purges." driving test. At 5.30 he had graphy of the Tory Prime Minister, Salisbury, which he thought ter. He is said to have disappeared He seemed very well and almost received a long telephone call at Lord the best biography in English. once from a party for a few days jaunty, obviously pleased to be • his flat. On June 7, as the hue and cry in Switzerland and been found livAfter a quiet and rather back even if he went around saying In 1944 Maclean was began in the Press, three telegrams ing quietly . in the next village. he was convinced that America h!l.d sober dinner Donald and " Ronald " arrived : one from Guy Burgess Again, he once remarked to a posted to Washington as act• gone mad and was determined atJ. walked in the garden. Donald to his mother in which he said friend that he wished he coulcl ing Fir,;t Secretary, and 011 war. then said that they had to he was embarking on a long start a new life as a docker in thP his return four years later During the winter Donald go to see a friend who lived Mediterranean holiday; and two East End but that ration books was appointed Counsellor in Maclean had made a great effort nearby and that he might have to from Maclean, to his mother and identity cards now made it, He and his wife. To Lady Maclean impossible. to fit into his new existence as stay away for the night. Cairo. But in Cairo came Burgess also had a a commuter. Mrs. Maclean was promised that he would return on he sent a brief message which reputation for disappearing, out a preakdown. On November the morrow and took only hls brief- he signed with a chiJahood there would be much Jess reason expecting another child, and 6, 1950, after six months' Donald conscientiously refused to case with him when he left. rntme, to his wife he wrote : " Had . for him to give up the kind or leave, he went back to the go to.cocktail parties in order not to to leave unexpectedly, terribly existence to which he was addicted. Foreign Office as head of miss his evening train to Kent. By sorry. Am quite well now. Don't Neither could have lasting attracMidnight Arrival at May, however, he seemed to. be the An!,erican Division. worry, darling. I love you. Please tion for the other, for the force more about London of an evenmg, don't stop loving me. Donald." All which united them would also drive Southampton and it would be interesting if we three sound plausible but somehow them apart, and the .wanderers NE day towards the end of could discover if there was any HE pair got into the hired car· unreal, µnless they were meant to would certainly have been heard of I 1950 Donald Maclean sudden increase in these outings and drove to Southampton just be delivered at least a week before. again, for where they were m comafter the return of Guy Burgess. in time to reach the cross-Channel invited me to luncheon Having acquired a little more pany incidents would be bound t_o On one occasion in April. after vessel Fala.i.se, which left at mid- hackground. let us examine some arise; and the element of antiat his club and talked at length some feint attacks, he knocked night on a special week-end cruise nf the theories with which we social aggression m such a flight about the war in Korea. His down one of his greatest friends to Saint Malo and back by the began. It will be noticed even now would have caused them to leave argument was that what for taking' the side of Whittaker Channel Islands, l'etUl'nlng early·on how very few facts we have. We some kind of statement. mattered most· in the world Chambers, in the Hiss case. Monday morning. " What about suspect that Burgess and Maclean was people. The Koreans were Chambers, according to Donald. the car? " yelled a port garage were Communists at .Cambridge, was a doubleA Twitch upon the people, but in the stage which we do not know - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 even if they the war had reached both sides faced exhibitionist too revolting Thread ever met after had entirely forgotten this, and to be defended I THIS IS THE CONCLUDING instqlrnent of Mr. I •Cambridge. Both were exploiting them for their 2. (a) THEORIES WHICH IMPLY A by anyone. w e r e neurotic MOVE. " A twitch upon the own prestige. It was essential Donald's drinkConnolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy p e r s o n alities FORCED thread." The argument is that ing followed an to stop the war at all costs and with schizoand Maclean were both Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members get them established as people .established phrenic charac- Burgess agents, Maclean (or routine. The again. t e r i s t i c s. In Communist was growing indiscreet and charming and of the Foreign Office Staff who 1.:anished on May recent posts both both) This was not the orthodox Com- amiable self was unreliable, and that they were munist view, according to which gradually 1e ft ' had behaved so recalled before one (or both) could 26, 1951. Their crucial last day in Englandrecklessly that give away others who were more only the North Koreans were behind, and the they had to be' secret and more important; that " people " and the, South Koreans hand which Maclean' s birthday.,-is closely examined. I sent home, both (as Burgess maintained) had really patted his friend L were immediately imprisoned drank too much they started the war. Maclean went on on the back or liquidated and may have got no and then became farther to suggest that all colonial posses- became a flail. A change would than an uncertain address Burgess cried: "Back violent and abusive, both might sions in the Far East were morally come into his voice like the attendant. in Paris. If they had refused to go, be described as abnormal, both they untenable, and when I pleaded that roll of drums for the cabaret. on Monday." would have been exp~sed to He ,had booked the two-berth allegedly made confessions (many the British we should be allowed to keep Hong- It took the form of an outand brought disgrace kong and Malaya for their dollar- burst of indignation, often directed cabin at Victoria on the Wednesday years apart) of being Communist on their families. Even so, it is earning capacities he said that that against himself, in which the in his own name, and on that day agents, and both were notorious doubtful if experienced diplomats was precisely the reason why we embittered idealist would aban- had invited a young American. among their colleagues for their aged 38 and 40 would ~ign should give them up, as only then don all compromise and castigate whom he introduced to various anti-British arguments and were their own death-warrants withagainst authoritarianism could we prove ourselves in earnest all forms of humbug and pretence. people as " Miller " and whom he bitter out a murmur and depart without had met on the Queen Mary, and imperialism. Both had risen and lay the basis of future good As the last train left for Sevenoaks returning from Washington, fast under wartime conditions and a farewell. relations. from faraway Charing Cross he when (b) They both (or Maclean alone) to accompany him. But Burgess had yet maintained an underwould wave a large hand, in some let him down at had given information to the the last moment. graduate-like informality in their bar, to his compa,nions. " Well, a,ncY- Burgess seems to have had the idea Russians at some time, perhaps Back at the Foreign appearance and habits and in the how, you're all right. And you arP. of a long holiday m France in his on one occasion only, and this was all right." The elected smiled hap- mind, but tha;; was unconnected general bed-sitting room casualness preying on Donald's conscience. Office of their way of life. Both had •two If the information was given in pily, but doubt was spreading like a with the week-end jaunt. For this not Friday evening he had an impor- enemies, adolescence and alcohol, Washington, it might have beeri WTE talked for a little about how frown on Caligula. "Wait-I'm and when they vanished each was valuable, the leak would W he felt at being back at work sure. Perhaps you aren't all right. dinner engagement which he thought by his friends to have led have taken and a long time to trace. and • Sir Donald " again, and he After all, you said this and this. tant never cancelled. the other astray. Burgess might have had wind in told me how fond he was of his col- In fact, you're very wrong. You At Saint l.V.lalo,where the boat leagues, how secure and womb-like won"t do at all. (Biff). And as for Washington of this investigation the Foreign Office seemed, tmd how you-you're the worst of the lot, arrived at 10 a.m., the two stayed even got himself sent l'Tome Association that was and well he had been treated. I men- but I suppose I must forgive you." on board, breakfasting and drinkthrough his erratic behaviour in ing beer till the others had left. tioned that I had at one time been (Bash.) order to warn Maclean on his Kept Secret Then at eleven they, too. went intended for the Diplomatic Serreturn. Burgess might perhaps Burgess·11 ashore, leaving behind vice and. that I had always at one time have been a kind Unexpected Visit from two suitcases. At the station. which HEY had everything in common, regarded it since with some of the of private commissar to Maclean. the Paris express had just left in fact, except each other; they After his carefree luncheon, then. wistfulness which he felt for litera- . Maclean lthey would have had plenty of were like two similar triangles sud- on that last Friday, Maclean was ture. We left rather late and he merged on the steps into a little AFTER a dinner-party on May 15 time to catch it) they took a taxi denly superimposed. When Donald somehow tipped off that exposure to Rennes, the junction some fifty pin-striped shoal of hurrying imminent. At 5.30 he telesix of us came back to my miles away. 'They did not speak met this liberator of irresponsibili- was officials, who welcomed him ties, when Don Quixote found his phones to his contact Burgess who on the way. They gave no tip to house : it was divided into two, and affectionately. says " Leave it all to me." the driver on the fare of 4.500 Sancho Panza, there was bound to One evening at the end of that Donald occasionally spent the francs be a combustion. and they arrived at Rennes night in the other flat. Pa t midwinter a friend came round for a in time to oat.oh the Then how was their association The ~faking of a drink. He said that he was in a nli,tht there was a battering n the station express again. They were not kept secret? I think myself that difficulty : he had been up very late door and I let him in, sober-drunk, noticed oh the train, which Myth with Donald the night before, and the first time I had seen him in reached Paris, via Le Mans, they must have renewed the CamDonald had said to him, " What this legendary condition. He began between five and six. From that bridge friendship in the summer of HIS theory bristles with difficulwould you do if I told you I was to wander round the room, blinking moment they have vanished. 1950, during Maclean's convaleties, but it does at least expl,;i.in at the guests as he divided the a Communist agent?" scence, and that Bu ess was part the sudden departure. And yet. like sheep from the goats, and then of what Maclean called his " ash- all who knew him, I am convinced " I don't know." went out to lie down to sleep in the Preparations for a can life," of which he was ashamed that Donald was not an active "Well, wouldn't you report me?" hall, stretched out on the stone and trying to cure himself. Hence Communist. He had a morbid in"I don't know. Who to? " floor under his overcoat like some Journey the secrecy. Were they Communist clination to suicide, and he would ,. "Well, I am. Go on, report me." figure from a shelter sketch-book. HEN Burgess had booked the agents? Surely the first duty of a say that only his love for his chilHis friend had woken up with The departing guests had to make tickets on the Wednesday he secret agent is to escape detection, dren kept him from it. This love their way over him, and I noticed a confused feeling that something conventional views and was the one emotion which he felt said the other name for the cabin ~press that, although in apparent coma, unpleasant lay before him. It was would probably be Miller; and on rise in his career. The more Com- without ambivalence, and he would he would raise his long stiff leg like an absurd situation, for it was Thursday night he seemed to be in munism they talked the less likely not have taken any drastic step impossible to be sure that Donald a drawbridge when one of the an agitated state " looking for the they were to be agents. And Bur- unless he had been convinced that goats was trying to pass. I put him was serious. My friend knew him it was for the best as far as their friend who was going with him." gess talked a great deal. so well that he could not believe it to bed in his absent friend's flat He seems to have spent much of happiness was concerned. and gave him an Alka-Seltzer was true. The whole incident breakfast in the morning. Friday with Miller, fetching him Perhaps Burgess and Maclean seemed preposterous in the light of Recklessness or from the Green Park Hotel in the are at last integrated. But, as On May 25, the day when day. and lunching with him. Maclean said, what matters most Burgess and Maclean left England, morning Deception? o'clock he rings up from is people, and that is what I arranged to greet some friends in At two club for the hired car, visits makes his case essentially tragic. Burgess Recalled from Schmidt's before lunching down his OULD this have been reckless- Guy Burgess always enjoyed garage with Miller, parks the the street at the Etoile. We met in the ness or a subtle double bluff? being himself, and for a while car near his New Bond Street flat. Washington the road. Donald was with them, and goes shopping, buying a white Both are just possible. Maclean, he lived his own dream, a realislooking rather creased and yellow, N August, 1950, Guy Burgess had casual but diffident. We all stood mackintosh (he had no mackm- however, in the fifteen years in tic example of the " new type which I had come across him, of diplomat " who is always debeen posted to the Washington on the pavement. I said to him, tosh), a fibre suitcase and a good Embassy as Second Secretary; he "You're Cyril Connolly, aren't you? many nylon shirts which did not remained always devoted to the manded in wartime. But Donald nonconformist but essentially non- Maclean, were it not for his lack had last visited Washington in -I'm Sir Donald Maclean"; this fit him. political little group of writers and of balance and emotional security, 1942. By the early spring of 1951 reference to our·conversation at his At 5.25 he left Miller at his painters whom he had known in had the qualities of a great public I things were not going so well for club was intended to efface our last hotel, saying "See you at 7.30." London and Paris. They were his servant. Yet with all his admirahim. The telegrams which he meeting. He seemed calm and He then went back to his flat. home. tion for people, he betrayed those drafted were often rejected as genial, and went off gaily to con- received the telephone call, and did Burgess ever appear at who loved him, humiliated those I being 'biased. there seemed tinue the luncheon with his packed into two suitcases an~ a allNor calculating. "Guy would help who trusted him, and discredited I nothing for him to do, he was friends, who were to rejoin me for brief-case four suits, his shirts, anybody in distress. He would make those who thought like him .... But not popular with his colleagues, coffee. blue Jeans, socks, handkerchiefs, a split-second decision and carry once again we are condemning he was drinking heavily again, At luncheon, they told m& when and his gaudy collection of tiesand on one day, February 28, he they an extensive wardrobe for two it out no matter what the conse- them unheard. came back, he had been melquences. He would certainly not do Meanwhile a myth is slowly was stopped three times for speed- low and confidential; he had nights at sea. At seven he had a anything to injure his country." transfiguring them. At first they ing, which led to an offici'.11com- talked about himself, about last drihk at his club. Later that how Like most people who feel they were seen in Montmartre and plaint. Then he gave a 11ft to a much better he felt, how he didn't evening the American rang up the in Brussels and been starved of love, Burgess Montparnasse, young man and let· him take the have to visit his psycho-analyst so flat to know why he had not been have and Maclean desired to raise the Bayonne, on the high pass to wheel. There was an accident, and it often, and how he was determined fetched. emotional temperature around Andorra, in a bar in Cannes and, turned out that the young man to take a hold on himself lest he Maclean's day was apparently had no . driving licence. Burgess got into any trouble which might quite inactive. Burgess is the agent, them to something higher than with brimming glasses, in a gardenpleaded diplomatic immunity. At bring disgrace upon his children. Maclean the patient, and there is in the world outside, and found n restaurant of Prague;,------, a consolation. If we believe about the same time an En~lish This year they 000166 That day was his birthday. The nothing to show that Donald in- drink visitor to the Embassy reported luncheon was his treat, and the tended going anywhere until he that emotional maladjustment was heard of playing it is Lubianka prison ~n him for anti-British tal~. He was week after he was gettin~ some was driven off from his J:iouse hy the key to their personalities, ., 0 T r I I I -------------.-' T T W I I C �;i-th it:··-- •• ··-· ··- ··-- ·- - ~~~•vb.y telephone at abo~t two able to settle· dow~;tGm~ di§r/mt'd Pw'lli~~~tfilf veittt1,l]flioicfH.fl°!ILctff¥tfifiri/prlfierifl'life "Senator McCarthy," said Bur- o'clock and then gone round, paid task, the additiotDoftJm~~U~ gess. " Terrible atmosphere. All the deposit, and undergone a brief to Lady Gwendolen . Cecil _s. bio- together. This fits in with Donald's characthese purges." driving test. At 5.30 he had graphy o~ the Tory ?nme M1mster, Sall~bury, wh~ch he ~hought ter. He is said to have disappeared He seemed very well and almost received a long telephone call at Lord the best biography m English. once from a party for a few days jaunty, obviously pleased to be • his flat. On June 7, as the hue and cry in Switzerland and been found livback even if he went around saying After a quiet and rather began in the Press, three telegrams ing quietly .in the next village. 1[ In 1944 Maclean was he was convinced that America h~d sober dinner Donald and "Ronald" arrived : one from Guy Burgess Again, he once remarked to a posted to Washington as act• gone mad and was determined mi walked in the garden. Donald to his mother in which he said friend that he wisbed he . coulrl ing First Secretary, and on war. then said that they had to he was embarking on a long st.art a new lit'e as a docker m th" 1 ) his return four years later During the winter Donald go to see a friend who lived Mediterranean holiday; and two East End, but that ration boo~f'Maclean had made a great effort nearby and that he might have to from Maclean, to his mother and identity cards now made it, was appointed Counsellor in to flt into his new existence as stay away for the night. He and his wife. To Lady Macl~an impossible. Cairo. But in Cairo c.-ame Burgess also had ~ 1 a commuter. Mrs. Maclean was promised that he would return on he sent a brief message ~h1ch reputation for disappearmg,- bu1> a ,breakdown. On November expecting another child, and the morrow and took only his brief- he signed with a childhood there would be much less reason_ 6, 1950, after six months' Donald conscientiously refused to case with him when he left. name, to his wife he wrote : " Had . for him to give up the kmd o1 leave, he went hack to the go to,cocktail parties in order not to to leave unexpectedly, terribly existence to which he was addicted. Foreign Office as head of miss his evening train to Kent. By sorry. Am quite well now. Don't Neither could have lasting attracMidnight Arrival at May, however, he seemed to. be the An,.erican Division. worry, darling. I love you. Please tion for the other, for the force more about London of an evenmg, don't stop loving me. Donald." All which united them would also dnvP S uthampton ' and it would be interesting if we three sound plausible but somehow them apart, and the wanderer~ NE day towards the end of could discover if there was any HE pair got into the hired car unreal, unless they were meant to would certainly have been heard of 1950 Donald Maclean sudden increase in these outings and drove to Southampton just be delivered at least a week before. again, for where they were m cominvited me to luncheon after the return of Guy Burgess. in time to reach the cross-Channel Having acquired a little more pany incidents would be bound t_o at his club and talked at length On one occasion in April, after vessel Falaise, which left at mid- hackground, let us examine some arise; and the element of antisome feint attacks, he knocked nig·ht on a special week-end cruise nf the theories with which we social aggression m such a flight about the war in Korea. His down one of his greatest friends to Saint Malo and back by the began. It will be noticed even now would have caused them to leav~ I argument was that what for taking the side of Whittaker Channel Islands, rettu·ntng early-on how very few facts we have. We some kmd of statement. mattered most in the world Chambers, in the Hiss case. Monday morning. " What about suspect that Burgess and Maclean was people. The Koreans were Chambers, according to Donald, the car? " yelled a port garage were Communists at '!Cambridge. A Twitch upon the people, but in the stage which was a doublewe do not know even if they the war had reached both sides faced exhibitionThread ist too revolting ever met after had entirely forgotten this, and to be defended THIS IS THE CONCLUDING in~tqlment of Mr. .Cambridge. Both 2. (a) THEORIES WHICH IMPLY A were exploiting them for their by anyone. w e r e neurotic FORCED MOVE, " A twitch the own prestige. It was essential Donald's drinkConnolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy p e r s o n alities thread." The argument up9n is that to stop the war at all costs and ing followed an with schizoand Maclean were both Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members phrenic charac- Burgess get them established as people • e s t ab 1 is he d agents, Maclean <or , . routine. The t e r i s t i c s. In Communist both) was growing indiscreet and ' aga1~. charming and of the Foreign Office Sta/ f who vanished on May recent posts both This was not the orthodox Com- , amial:,lle self was and that they were had behaved so unreliable, munist view, according to which gradually 1 e ft recalled before one (or both) could 26, 1951. Their crucial last day in Englandrecklessly that only the North Koreans were behind, and the give away others who were more they had to M secret '' people " and the South Koreans ha n d which and more important; that Maclean' s birthday.-is closely examined. sent home, both (as Burgess maintained) had really patted his friend L ______________ _J drank too much they were immediately imprisoned started the war. Maclean went on on the back and then became or liquidated and may have got no to suggest that all colonial posses- became a flail. A change would attendant. Burgess cried: "Back violent and abusive, both might farther than an uncertain address Paris. If they had refused to go, sions in the Far East were morally come into his voice like the on Monday." be described as abnormal, both in untenable, and when I pleaded that roll of drums for the cabaret. they would have been exposed to allegedly made confessions (many He ,had booked the two-berth we should be allowed to keep Hong- It took- the form of an out- cabin at Victoria on the Wednesday years apart) of being Communist the British and brought disgrace kong and Malaya for their dollar- burst of indignation, often directed in his own name, and on t.tiat day agents, and both were notorious on their families. Even so, it 1s earning capacities he said that that against himself, in which the had if experienced diplomats invited a young American, among their colleagues for their doubtful was precisely the reason why we embittered idealist would abanaged 38 and 40 would sign anti-British arguments and were whom he introduced to various should give them up, as only then don all compromise and castigate people as " Miller " and whom he bitter their own death-warrants withagainst authoritarianism could we prove ourselves in earnest all forms of humbug and pretence. had met on the Queen Mary, out a murmur and depart without and imperialism. Both had risen and lay the basis of future good As the last train left for Sevenoaks when returning from Washington, fast under wartime conditions and a farewell. relations. from faraway Charing Cross he to accompany him. (b) They both (or Maclean alone) But Burgess had yet maintained an under- had would wave a large hand, in some let him down at the last given information to the moment. graduate-like informality in their bar, to his companions. "Well, any- Burgess seems to have had the idea appearance and habits and in the Russians at some time, perhaps Back at the Foreign how, you're all right. And you are of a long holiday m France in his general bed-sitting room casualness on one occasion only, and this was all right." The elected smiled hap- mind, but thao was unconnected of their way of life. Both had·two preying on Donald's conscience. Office pily, but doubt was spreading like a with the week-end jaunt. For this enemies, adolescence and alcohol, If the information was given m Washington, it might have been not Friday evening he had an imporE talked for a little about how frown on Caligula. "Wait-I'm and when they vanished each was valuable, and the leak would he felt at being back at work sure. Perhaps you aren't all right. tant dinner engagement whfoh he thought by his friends to have led have taken a long time to trace. and ' Sir Donald " again, and he After all, you said this and this. never cancelled. the other astray. Burgess might have had wind in told me how fond he was of his col- In fact, you're very wrong. You At Saint :tvralo, where the boat Washington of this Investigation leagues, how secure and womb-like won't do at all. (Bi//). And as for arrived at 10 a.m., the two stayed even got himself sent 1!ome the worst of the lot, the Foreign Office seemed, and how you-you're board, breakfasting and drinkAssociation that was and through his erratic behaviour in well he had been treated. I men- but I suppose I must forgive you." on ing l:,leer till the others had left. order to warn Maclean on his tioned that I had at one time been (Bash.) Kept Secret Then at eleven they, too, went return. Burgess might perhaps intended for the Diplomatic Serashore, leaving behind Burgess·g at one time have been a kind vice and. that I had always Unexpected HEY had everything in common, Visit from two suitcases. At the station, which of private commissar to Maclean. regarded it since with some of the the Paris express had just left in fact, except each other; they After his carefree luncheon. then, wistfulness which he felt for literaMaclean (they would have had plenty ot were like two similar triangles sud- on that last Friday, Maclean was ture. We left rather late and he time to catch it) they took a taxi merged on the steps into a little FTER a dinner-party on May 15 to Rennes, the junction some fifty denly superimposed. When Donald somehow tipped off that exposure imminent. At 5.30 he tele-j pin-striped shoal of hurrying of us came back to my miles away. They did not speak met this liberator of irresponsibili- was officials, who welcomed him housesix ties, when Don Quixote found his phones to his contact Burgess who on the way. They gave no tip to : it was divided into two, and says "Leave it all to me." affectionately. Donald occasionally spent the the driver on the fare of 4,500 Sancho Panza, there was bound to One evening at the end of that night be a combustion. francs and they alTived at Rennes in the other flat. P~t midwinter a friend came round for a The l\faking of a station in time to catch the Then how was their association drink. He said that he was in a nl;tht there was a batter!ng•}m the express again. They were not kept secret? I think myself that door and I let him in, sober-drunk, difficulty : he had been up very late :Myth noticed o'n the train, which they must have renewed the Camwith Donald the night before, and the first time I had seen him in reached Paris, via Le Mans, bridge friendship in the summer of this legendary condition. He began HIS theory bristles with difficulDonald had said to him, " What between five and six. From that 1950, during Maclean's convaleties, but it does at least exphtin would you do if I told you I was to wander round the room, blinking moment they have vanished. at the guests as he divided the scence, and that Burgess was part the sudden departure. And yet, like a Communist agent?" sheep from the goats, and then of what Maclean called his " ash- all who knew him, I am convinced " I don't know." went out to lie down to sleep in the Preparations for a can life," of which he was ashamed that Donald was not an active "Well, wouldn't you report me?" hall, stretched out on the stone and trying to cure himself. Hence Communist. He had a morbid infloor under his overcoat like some "I don't know. Who to? " Journey the secrecy. Were they Communist clination to suicide, and he would ' "Well, I am. Go on, report me." figure from a shelter sketch-book. HEN Burgess had booked the agents? Surely the first duty of a say that only his love for his childeparting guests had to make His friend had woken up with The tickets on the Wednesday he secret agent is to escape detection, dren kept him from it. This love way over him, and I noticed said the a confused feeling that something their conventional views and was the one emotion which he felt other name for the cabin ~press that, although in apparent coma, would probably unpleasant lay before him. It was he be Miller; and on rise in his career. The more Com- without ambivalence, and he would would raise his long stiff leg like an absurd situation, for it was a drawbridge when one of the Thursday night he seemed to be in munism they talked the less likely not have taken any drastic step impossible to be sure that Donald goats was trying to pass. I put him an agitated state " looking for the they were to be agents. And Bur- unless he had been convinced that it was for the best as far as their was serious. My friend knew hrm to bed in his absent friend's flat friend who was going with him." gess talked a great deal. , happiness was concerned. so well that he could not believe it and gave him an Alka-Seltzer He seems to have spent much of was true. The whole incident 1::ireakfastin the morning. Perhaps Burgess and Maclean Friday with Miller, fetching him seemed preposterous in the light of Recklessness or are at last integrated. But, as from the Green Park Hotel in the On May 25, the day when Maclean said, what matters most day. morning and lunching with him. Burgess and Maclean left England, At two o'clock he rings up from Deception? is people, and that is what I arranged to greet some friends in makes his case essentially tragic. club for the hired car, visits Burgess Recalled • from Schmidt's before lunching down his always enjoyed the garage with Miller, parks the COULD this have been reckless- Guy Burgess the street at the Etoile. We met in near his New Bond Street flat, ness or a subtle double bluff? being himself, and for a while ashington ' the road. Donald was with them, car and goes shopping, buying a wh~te Both are just possible. Maclean, he lived his own dream, a realis, looking rather creased and yellow, N August, 1950, Guy Burgess had casual but diffident. We all stood mackintosh (he had no mackm- however, in the fifteen years in tic example of the " new type tosh) a fibre suitcase and a good which I had come across him, of diplomat " who is always debeen posted to the Washington on the pavement. I said to him, always devoted to the manded in wartime. But Donald Embassy as Second Secretary; he "You're Cyril Connolly, aren't you? many' nylon shirts which did not remained nonconformist but essentially non- Maclean, were it not for his lack had last visited Washington in -I'm Sir Donald Maclean"; this flt him. political little group of writers and of balance and emotional security, 1942. By the early spring of 1951 reference to our·conversation at his At 5.25 he left Miller at his painters whom he had known in the qualities of a great public things were not going so well for club was intended to efface our last hotel, saying "See you a~ 7•3o." London and Paris. They were his had servant. Yet with all his admirahim. The telegrams which he meeting. He then went back to his flat. home. He seemed calm and tion for people, he betrayed those drafted were often rejected as genial, and went off gaily to con- received the telephone call, a nd Nor did Burgess ever appear at who loved him, humiliated those being biased, there seemed tinue the luncheon into two suitcases and a t· , G Id h with his packed e 1P who trusted him, and discredited nothing for him to do, he was friends, who were to rejoin me for brief-case four suits, his shirts, all ca 1cula mg. • uy wou blue jeans, socks, handkerc~iefs, anybody in distress. He would make those who thought like him .... But not popular with his colleagues, coffee. ·s gaudy collection of tiesa split-second decision and carry once again we are condemning he was drinking heavily again, At luncheon, they told me when and hl it out no matter what the conse- them unheard. and on one day, February 28, he they an extensive wardrobe for two quences. He would certainly not do came back, he had been melMeanwhile a myth is slowly was stopped three times for speed- low and confidential; nights at sea. At seven he had a . t . . . t ,, he had last drihk at his club. Later that anythmg transfiguring them. At first they o mJure 11is coun ry. ing, which led to an official com- talked about himself, about how and Like most people who feel they were seen in Montmartre plaint. Then he gave a 11ft to a much better he felt, how he didn't evening the American rang up the in Brussels and young man and let· him take the have to visit his psycho-analyst so flat to know why he had not been have been starved of love, Burgess Montparnasse, fetched. and Maclean desired to raise the Bayonne, on the high pass to wheel. There was an accident, and it often, and how he was determined emotional temperature around Andorra, in a bar in Cannes and, turned out that the young man to take a hold on himself les't he Maclean's day was apparently to something higher than with brimming glasses, in a gardenhad no ,driving licence. Burgess got into any trouble which might quite inactive. Burgess is the agen_t, them in the world outside, and found ,1 restaurant of Prague. pleaded diplomatic immunity. At bring disgrace upon his children. Maclean the patient, and there is drink a consolation. If we believe This year they have been about the same time an English That day was his birthday. The nothing to show that Donald in- that emotional maladjustment was heard of playing chess in the visitor to the Embassy reported luncheon was his treat, and the tended going anywhere until he the key to their personalities, it is him for anti-British talk. He was week after he was getting some was driven off from his house by . hard to see how they could possess Lubianka prison and running an import-export business in Prague; recalled from Washington as compassionate leave, for his wife His birthday luncheon the control to serve a foreign coun- and Guy Burgess as visiting " generally unsuitable " and arrived would be going to hospital for the Burgess. lasted from 12.30 until after 2.30 try coolly and ruthlessly for twenty Browning's villa (" What's become home in the Queen Mary on May 4. baby; he asked if ~e could come - champagne and oysters at t k 11th t· i e .rme n of Waring? ") north-east of Venice, A f,ew days later I ran into him down and visit my friends for some Wheeler's, then some more solid years a nd ye w_or a_ And so for many years they will be in the street. He came up with his part of the till!-e. They had be~n food at Schmidt's; he was at work executive capac1t1es for their own. seen until the mystery is solved, I think that Burgess was a Marxusual shaggy, snarling-playful very kind to him when he was 111, till 5.30 and he went home by his if it ever is, haunting the Old manner and said he was just back and he was now in effect making usual train. But it may be that ist in his mental processes and an World's pleasure-traps about the the telephone call which Burgess anti-Marxist individualist in his from America. them a favourable report. . season of their disappearance, received at 5.30 was some kind of personality. Maclean, it may be, After spending the afternoon m "Where were you?" had something on his conscience, bringing with them strawberries his office he went off to Charing s o s from Maclean. "Washington." During May Burgess had had his which however, was a pa1ticularly and hot weather and escapist Cross and caught his usual train "What was it like?" to Sevenoaks. That evening worries, but he had been offered tende; one; possil:.lly,above all, he leanings: a portent 000167 • dle "Absolutely frightful." Burgess arrived at Donald's house an important jol:.lon a newspaper had a fear about his mental summer's spring. "Why?" at Tatsfield-he had driven down and he was going out to dinner to condition. World copyright : re'"r:rrrnmr""in clinch this on the day he vanished. So many explanations of their whole or part f" I in a hired car-and was introduced of McCarthy." "Because ~'1!tflFtm:lfa I Office, where his reputation soon mounted. Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the Foreign Office in 1944, and was in the Far-Eastern Department in 1948. ! 0 T - - -, r I I W T A T W w I �f " ----'-I ,_ ....... THE SUNDAY TIMES, SEPTEMBER 21. 1952 ---------------------------------------------------------------------~ THE MISSING HOSE who become obsessed with a puzzle are· not very likely to solve it. Here is one about which I have brooded tor a year and would like to unburden myself. Something of what I have put down may cause pain; but that I must risk, because where people are concerned the truth can never be ascertained without painful things being mid, and because I feel that what I put down may lead to somebody remembering the fact or phrase which wlll suddenly bring it all into focus. T DIPLOMATS pattern in Burgess's rel<ttinn,shios. In romantic friendship he liked to dommate, but ms mtellectua1 ; admiration was usually kept for those who were older than himself. !'here were also cromes with whom he preferred to drink and argue. In June, 1944, he had been transferred to the News Department of the Foreign Office, in 1946 to the office of the Minister of State. Mr. Hector McNeil, in 1947 to B branch (Foreign Office), and in 1948 to the Far-Eastern Department of the Foreign Office. In 1944, the year that Guy Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the rore1gn Ulhce uonald Maclean was posted to Washington as actmg First l:iecretary. On 111:; return in 1948 he gave -I!. dinner-part} to his friends. It was a delightful evening, he had become a good host, his charm was based not on vanity but on sincerity, and he would discuss foreign affairs as a student, not • an expert. He enjoyed the magazine that I then edited, which was , a blue rag to Burgess, a weak injec- ! tion of culture into a society , alreadv dead On his return from Washingtr11.j he was appointed Counsellor m ~ ca.no. " 1n Dona.ta IV1a.c1eau .l see a courage and a love of justice; I see a soul that could not be deflected 1 from the straight course; and I see j in it that deep, affection for his ' friends which he always manifested." The worc!,s of Rtanlt"v Baldwin about the father seemed to 1 be coming true of the son. A I Counsellor at thirty-five, ne seemed / in a fair way to equal his parent's distinction. by Cyri,l Connolly Maclean in 1913. The one reached his favourite authors were Mrs. the bourgeoisie entirely surrounded Cambridge by way of Eton and Gaskell and Balzac and, later on, by Communists, like the Alcazar of Trinity, the other, two years later, Mr. E. M. Forster. " Lenin had said Toledo. by Gresham's School and Trinity , Oneshaken day Burgess's friendimpressed. came to and yet Hall. They knew each other "t somewhere that he had learnt more her Cambridge and were both about France from Balzac's novels Guy had confided to him that ue members of the left-wing circle than trom au rnswry-oooll.:; put was not just a member but a secret there. But there is no evid- together. Accordingly Balzac was agent of the Communist Party, and ence of that oppressive parental the greatest writer of all times." he had then invited him to join in this work. The friend had refused authority which drives young men (Koestler.) Donald was seldom heard to talk with concern; and for her part the to revolt. politic::;. Guy never seemed to stop. novelist felt that • Burgess's He was the type of bumptious Fascism was suddenly explained : Pre-War Cambridge Marxist who saw himself as Saint- as a secret agent he must have Just, who enjoyed making the flesh been told to investigate the British of his bourgeois listeners creep by Fascists and hoped to pass· as one. Marxists his picture of the justice which Even so, it was impossible to feel If I did not believe (by instinct T was more than ten years since history would mete out to them. quite certain. for it would be in rather than reason) that the two the end of the first world war, Grubby, intemperate and promis- keeping with Burgess's neurotic people about whom I am going to write may well have been victims of and a new generation was growing cuous. he loved to moralise over his power-drive that he should pretend up which found no outlet in home friends and satirise their smug to be an under-cover man. some unforeseen calamity, the Years afterwards the novelist puzzle would not exist and I should politics for the adventurous or class - unconscious behaviour, so altruistic impulses of the adole- reckless of the reckoning in store. was told that he had spent several have nothing to say. I have had access to no secrets. scent. Marxism satisfied .both the But when bedtime came, very late, days wrestling with his conscience I have not talked to many of the rebelliousness of youth and its and it was the moment to put the at the time of the Soviet-German analyses away, the word "Prepos- pact and had decided to give up people I should like to, I offer no craving for dogma. The Carnbrictge Communists sub- terous" dying on his lips, he would the whole business. This may well solution, only a few suggestions, a stituted a new father or super-ego imply a dispensation under which haw• been true. • meditation on human complexity the •old one, and accepted a this one house at least, this family, Here we have to decide whether which leads to murky bypaths but for new justice and a stricter these guests, might be spared the Burgess visited Germanv as a which, I hope, will show that no authority. They felt they had worst consequences. thanks to the secret Communist, a Nazi symone has any right to jump to exposed the weaknesses of Liberal• protection of their brilliant pathiser or as an observer for our unfavourable conclusions about ism' alohg with their elders' ignor- hunger-marching friend whose own Intelligence Services or-at people of whom they know nothing. ance of economic affairs. To this position would bP sr> ~ommanding various levels of his opportunismgeneration Communism made an in the happy worke_rs' Utopia. as all thJ·ee. On one occasion he appeal. standmg tor It was the time when Abyssinia took some Boy Scouts over to a A Matter of Choice intellectual love, liberty and social justice and mattered, before the Russian rally at Gol<>gne. for a new approach to life .and purges had taken place and the In January, 1939, he left the or Necessity art. Yet it was connected with a especial bitterness of Communist B.B.C., and in the autumn of 1940 HE disappearamoe, t.owards the political party, and this party is controversy had arisen. There were he was doing confidential work for end of May last year, of Guy not inclined to relinquish its hold. very few ex-Communists. and the the War Office. At this time he was "The Comintern," says Arthur party's claim to represent the arrested for being drunk in charge Burgess and Donald Maclean 1s a Koestler, " carried on a white-slave extreme left-wing was not disputed. of a car and acquitted because he mystery which cannot be solved traffic whose victims ,were young Unlike all other political parties, was working fourteen hours a day A Breakdown m while so many factors remain idealists flirtin\l and had just unknown, and therefore any with violence. ' I I been in an airCairo explanation can be based only on The feelings of FIRST . M r . .. , raid. a balance of probabilities. HIS IS THE instalment of By January, N 1950 word began to reach us Such solutions fall into two cate- such young men , l d • • d G 1941 h gories, according as they presup- are described in that all was not so well. It was Connolly s persona an intimate stu y of uy one; mar! Int~! pose the disappearance to be a numerous nov~ls said that vona1ct, whose hlgl1 and poems. or m B D ld M h b Liberal principles had received full matter of choice or of necessity. • such tracts as urgess and ona ac ean, t e two mem ers B.B.C., and there scope in enlightened Washington, A voluntary flight might be poliMr. Stephen / h F . Off. ff h . h d d he remained for had been so disheartened by the tical, as that of Hess to Scotland, Spender's " Foro t e orezgn zce sta w o vanis e towar s three years in or of a private and psychological poverty and corruption of the nature, as when two boys run away Middle East that he had had some the end of May last year. It will be read with :~g~ean of breakdown. It seems that from school. involved • l • b h d • h I ments. His posi- kind The compelled exit, the forced They he adopted a theory that sufficient no bet.raval of partzcu ar interest y t ose concerne wit t ie tion became one move, implies escape under duress, the writers' own • • • 'd l • l t hat greatly alcohol could release in one a the threat being either of private country, and the I pecu l'iar pro bl ems arising in an age o z eo ogica appealed to him, second personality which, though blackmail or of public exposure; it might simulate the destructive dose of Marxism conflict which is often pro7'ected on the plane of involving 11i m element, worked only good by helpor again it might be the result of was seldom • eventually in an imperious recall by a Power ing people to acknowledge the truth which regarded one or both of the le~ak a t w e re private personality. A second and concluding ~t~~~ w~i~\ ';i~~ about themselves and reveal their two diplomats as in danger or as affinities. Donald entered these_ two young article will appear next week o r g a nisations, latent having become too dangerous. into the spirit of the investigation men like? Donald • until he was able There remains a possibility Maclean w as L _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _] to represent the and took as his alter ego t,he name ' that they were sent abroad on a s an d y - haired, Foreign Office. of " Gordon " from an export gin secret mission, and another that tall, with great latent physical Communism then offered the con- He helped, for instance, to remove with a tusky wild boar on the label. they were lured abroad and then strength, When night tell his new self took but fat and rather solation of a religion. the anti-Russian bias from Poles kidnapped. possession. He stampedea one 01 flabby. Meeting him, one was During the Spanish War I saw whom we were training for There are stmply not enough two parties, but got into more of both amiability and much less of Burgess, who had now sabotage. facts to exclude any of these conscious He did not seem joined the B.B.C. in Bristol. A We now see the outline of the serioui: trouble when. in thP comexplanations, nor can we even pre- aweakness. animal but resembled terrible thing had happened-he ideal personalities of Burgess and pany of a friend, he broke into the r sume that the behaviour of both thepolitical clever helpless youth in a had become a Fascist! Still sneer- Maclean. on the unstable founda.- first apartment to hand in a block Maclean and Burgess is covered by Huxley novel, an outsize Cherubino ing at the bourgeois intellectual, he tions of their adolescence they were of flats and sharpened his tusks on the same explanation. The most on amorous experience but now vaunted the intensely modern erecting the selves whom they the furniture. striking fact----the suddenness of intent Then on a boating trip on the clumsy to succeed. The realism of the Nazi leaders: his would like to be, the father figures their disappearance-suggests a too shy and of an august atmosphere admiration for economic ruthless- of their day-dreams, the finished Nile, with some twenty people in panic, but even this suddenness shadow the party, he seized a rifle from an lay heavy on him, and he sought ness and the short cut to power Imagos. With his black hat and could have been counterfeited. The refuge on the more impetuous and had swung him to the opposite umbrella, his brief-case under his otrtc1ous sentry and. began to 1mpenispontaneous thoroughness of the emancipated fringes of.Bloomsbury extreme. He claimed to have arm-O.H.M.S.-Donald is "Sir the safety of those nearest him by search would seem to indicate that and Chelsea. Such a young man attended a Nuremberg Rally. Donald Maclean," the Tyrrell, the swinging it wildly. A Secretary at the Foreign Office first accepted the ~an be set right by the devotion of Maclean. however, a strong sup- Eyre Crowe of the second world the Embassy intervened, and in the theory of kidnapping, and so would an intelligent, older woman, and it porter of the Spanish Republic, war, the last great Liberal diplo- scuffle received a broken leg. The tend to exclude the notion of a a misfortune that Donald was seemed suddenly to have acquired matist, terror of the unjust and two men returned home on sick secret mission (unless self-imposed), was just not quite able to inspire such a backbone. morally and physically. hope of the weak. "If it wasn't leave. while Mrs. Maclean wh" was while a high French police official an charming, clever His appearance greatly improved, for you, Sir Donald," snarled on the boating trip, went to Spain has maintained that it would have and attachment; affectionate, he was still too his fat disappeared, and he had Ribbentrop, " we might still have for a rest with her two sons. been impossible for the two visitors unformed. become a personage. In 1935 he won the peace." What was the nature of Donald's to France to elude the dra~-net Guy Burgess, though he preferred had passed into the Foreign Burgess, of course, is a \)OWer outburst? It was not just overspread for them ,..,ithout the' protection" of a political organisation. the company of the able to the Office, and from 1938 he was at behind the scenes : a brigadier in work, but over-strain; the etfort ot artistic, also moved on the edge of the Embassy in Paris. mufti, Brigadier Brilliftnt.. D.S.O .. being " Sir Donald," the wholP There are, ho;wever, countries I remember some arguments F.R.S., the famous historian, with paraphernalia of " O.H.M.S.," had where it might 1:iepossible for two the same world. He was of a very able-bodied men to obtain work and different physique, tall - medium with him. I had felt a great sym- boyish grin and cold blue eyes, been too much for him and he had now for special reverted to his adolescence, or to still escape notice, but they are not in height, with blue eyes, an in- pa thy for the Spanish Anarchists, seconded With long stride and his ideal of Paris days, the free and so easily reached from the station quisitive nose, sensual mouth, curly with whom he was extremely duties. hair and alert fox-terrier expressevere, as with all the other nonhunched shoulders, untidy, chain- solitary young sculptor working all atRennes, in Brittany, whence they vanished on May 26, 1951. One sion. He was immensely energetic, Communist factions, and I detected smoking, he talks-walks and talks night in his attic. The return of must also consider the possibility a great talker, reader, boaster, in his reproaches the familiar -while the whole devilish simpli- the repressed is familiar to psychowalker, who swam like an otter and priggish tone of the Marxist, the city of his plan unfolds and the analysts, and there was also now a that they are dead. As one oi the many who knew drank, not like a feckless under- resonance of the " Father Found." men from M.I. this and M.I. that. brief return to his early sexual both, and as one of the few who graduate, as Donald was apt to do, At the same time he could switch S.I.S. and S.O.E., listen dumb- ambivalence. " Gordon" had given " My God, Brilliant, I " Sir Donald " the sack. The spoke with Maclean on his last dav but like some Rabelaisian bottle- to a magisterial defence of Cham- founded. in England, I should like to swiper whose thirst was unquench- berlain's foreign policy and seemed believe you're right----it could be enraged junior partner would no able. able to hold the two self-righteous done." The Bri~adier looked at his longer put up with him. approach the subject from a difpoints of view simultaneously. watch and a chilled blue eye fixed ferent standpoint. Let us put aside His evenings in Paris were the chief of the Secret Service., the facts of which we know so little Contrasts in Their usually spent in the Left-Bank "At this moment, sir," and there Six ,Months' Leave for and consider the personalities cafes with a little group of hard- was pack-ice in his voice, "my involved. In so far as one indiCharacters Maclean working painters and sculptors. chaps are doing it." vidual can ever understand During the daytime he, too, another, we may find that we have physical type to which worked very hard, and it was now ACK in London he had six grounds to eliminate some of these THE Burgess's War-Time months' leave to get well and to Donald Maclean, despite his that he began to build up his explanations and so narrow down make up his mind about the future. the value of X, as we shall name puppy fat, belonged was that of reputation in the Foreign Office, Life He was still drinking and was now the factor responsible for their the elongated, schizophrenic, sad- and we must remember that it undergoing treatment from a grew very high indeed. joint disapp~arance. countenanced Don Q u i x o t ewoman psycho-analyst. Hii; appearN 1940 Donald Maclean had marDonald had many admirable I introverted and diffident, an Scottish qualities. He was respon- . ried in Paris an American girl ance was frightening : he had lost Looking Back to idealist and a dreamer given to sible and painstaking, logical and as delightful as her name, Melinda his serenity, his hands would who bore him two sons. tremble, his face was usually a sudden outbursts of aggression; resolute in argument, judicious Marling, Childhood brought both sweetness and livid yellow and he looked as if he whereas Guy Burgess, despite and even-tempered and, I should She understanding into his life. Guy had spent the night sitting up in\ an admirable son and WO facts distinguish Burgess his intelligence. was a round-faced, imagine, Though he remained brother. He had grown much Burgess, however, as the war went . a tunnel. . and Maclean from the so-called g o 1d e n - pated Sancho Panza, handsomer, and his tall figure, his on. led a more• troubled existence. detached and amiable as ever. it ·" atomic " spies-first, they are extrovert. A new friend whom he had made was clear that he was miserable manic, grave long face and noble brow, his not known to have committed cynical and exhibitionist, avidly dark suit, black hat and umbrella was taken prisoner-of-war, and it and in a very bad way. In conany crime, second, they are curious, yetargumentative, vague were severe and distinguished. One was noted that he had become versation a kind of. shutter would members of the governing class, of and incompetent.sometimes With all his felt now that he was a rock, that if much more insulting and destruc- fall as if he had returned to the high bureaucracy. the "they" moreover, Guy Burgess one were in trouble he would help tive when he drank-he seemed to some basic and incommunicable who rule the " we " to whom toughness. intensely to be liked and and not just let one down with a hit on the unforgivable thing to anxiety. refugees like Fuchs and Pontecorvo wanted say to everyone. His mental a good conver- reprimand. Some of his friends urged him to and humble figures like Nunn May was indeed likeable, sadism. which sometimes led to his resign, pointing out that since he and an enthusiastic belong. If traitors thev be, then sationalist getting knocked out, did not of his friends. Beneath disliked the life and disagreed with they are traitors to themselves. builder-up exclude great kindness to those in the policy he could not go back " terribilita " of his Marxist White Hope of the But. as m all cases where people the trouble. Above all, he disliked without it all happening again. analyses one divined the affectionseem to act against their own ate moral cowardice of the public anyone to get out of his clutches: Others assured him that he would Foreign Office political interests. we must go schoolboy. he was an affectionate bully soon be well enough to return to back to childhood. capable of acts of generosity, like a work, which would prove the best An old Etontan, an " Apostle " Politics begin in the nursery; no REMEMBER, at the beginning magnate of the Dark Ages. thing for himself and his family. who had taken a First In History one is born patriotic or unpatriotic, of the war, mentioning to one the same time he was drink- The Foreign Office had to weigh right-wing or left-win15, and it is at Cambridge, and was tempted to of our most famous diplomatic ingAtand living extravagantly. He his years of hard work against the child whose craving for love become a don, he yet seemed an fond of luxury and display, of the outburst, which they put down is unsatisfied, whose desire for adventurer with a first-class mind, representatives that Donald was a was suites at Claridges and fast cars who would always be in the know, friend of mine and receiving a which he drove abominably. He to the strain of long hours ant: power is thwarted, or whose innate formfll cncial rlnties in Cairo and sense of justice is warped, that a framer of secret policies, a glance of incredulity. Satisfied to the febrile war-time Washington. His rep • a eventually may try to become a financial wizard already. and a that this indeed was so, he belonged cafe-society of the temporary Civil penetrating mind, sou 000168 t revolutionary or a dictator. In future editor, at least, of " The explained that Maclean was Servant. Maclean to the secret and quiet industry tur Times." Though he enjoyed a England wa attacp. s iritual values citadel of the permanent. The psycmatnst's re""',.,.,,......,,...,..., •as indifferent a white hope, a "puer aureus" more encouraging, and by I 1 I T T I z t:ifrt ~f6ira11;~1y, f I B I T I �the bourgeoisie entirf)pj'ff{lffoiffie/&d.ed ~ret'lw~~tpJ!YRfrns1t-wttd~homby Communists, llb:llulllel'ltlti.-O~n ~Ll1fe'fOl'.l'.#~k-r/lcAfli:!iili m~rmatUin Toledo. In June. 1944. he had 6een tr.1.ns. One day Burgess's friend came to fern>cl to the News Department of her shaken and yet impressed. the Foreign Office, in 1946 to the Guy naa conticted Lo him that ne office of the Minister of State. Mr. was not just a member but a secret Hector McNeil, in 1947 to B branch agent of the Communist Party, and (Foreign Office), and in 1948 to the he had then invited him to join in Far-Eastern Department of the this work. The friend had refused Foreign Office. with concern: and tor her part the In 1944, the year that Guy Burnovelist . felt that Burgess's gess went from the B.B.C. 'to the Fascism was suddenly explained: rore1gn uthce iJonald Maclean was Pre-War Cambridge as a secret _agent_ he must gave posted to Washington as actbeen_told to mvest1gate the_ Bnt1sh mg First ::iecretary. un 111:; Marxists Fascists and hoped to pass as one. return in 1948 he gave "Even so, it was impossible to feel dinner-partt to his friends. It T was more than ten years since quite certain, for it would be in was a delightful evening, he had the end of the first world war, keeping with Burgess's neurotic become a good host, his charm was and a new generation was growing power-drive that he should pretend based not on vanity but on up which found no outlet in home to be an under-cover man. sincerity, and he would discuss politics for the adventurous or Years afterwards the novelist foreign affairs as a student, not altruistic impulses of the adoleW8.$ told that he had spent several an expert. He enjoyed the magascent. Marxism satisfied both the days wrestling with his conscience zine that I then edited, which was rebepiousnesds of youth and its at the time of the Soviet-German a blue rag to Burgess, a weak injeccravmg for ogma. pact and had decided to give up tion of culture into a society The Cambrictge Communists subthe whole business. This may well ah·Padv dead stituted a new father or super-ego havP been true. _ On his return from washingtc'. for the old one, and accepted a Here we _h!J,Ve to decide whether he was appointed Counsellor 1,i new justice and a stricter Burgess v1s1ted. Germany as a <;ai10. .. ln lJonam .tvucw,rn J. see a authority. They felt they had secre~ Communist. a Nazi sym- courage and a love of justice; I see a exposed the weaknesses of Liberalpath1ser o~ as an observer for our soul that could not be deflected , ism' ong with their elders' ignorown Intelligence _Serv1cest or-at from the straight course; and I see I ance of economic affairs. To this various levels of his oppor u;11sm- in it that deep, affection for his generation Communism made an as all three. On one occasion he friends which he always manitook some Boy Scouts over to a fegted." The wordf' of Rtan\ev l A Matter of Choice intellectual appeal. standing for love, liberty and social justice and rally at Go~ne. Baldwin about the father seemed to for a new approach to life .and In Janua~y, 1939, he left the be coming tl'Ue of the son. A or Necessi:ty a1t. Yet It was connected with a B.B.C., an!=!m the aut1:1mn of 1940 Counsellor at thirty-tive, he seemed he was domg confidei:it1~l work for in a fair way to equal his parent's HE disappearance, towards the political party, and this party is inclined to relinquish its hold. the War Office._At this t1qie he was distinction. end of May last year, of Guy not "The Comintern," says Arthur arrested for bemg drunk m charge Burgess and Donald Maclean is a Koestler, " carried on a white-slave of a car and acquitted because he mystery which cannot be solved traffic whose victims ,were young was working fourteen hours a day A Breakdown in while so many factors remain idealists flirtm\l and had just unknown, and therefore any with violence. ( - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 7 been in an airCairo explanation can be based only on The feelings of FIRST Mr. raid a balance of probabilities. such young men HIS IS THE instalment of By January, N 1950 word began to reach us Such solutions fall into two catedescribed in 1941, he gories, according as they presup- are all was not so well. It was novels Connolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy was saidthatthat pose the disappearance to be a _numerous uona1d, wnu.se mgh and poems. or in once more in the matter of choice or of necessity. Liberal principles had received full such tracts as Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members B.B.C., and there scope in enlightened Washington, A voluntary flight might be poli- M r. Ste p h e n . . . he remained for had been so disheartened tical, as that of Hess to Scotland, by the Spender's .. Forof the Forezgn Offzce staff who vanzshed towards three• years in or of a private and psychological poverty and corruption of the Middle East that he had had some nature, as when two boys run away t:'.ttira11~~~ the end of May last year. It will be read with :~~g~ean!:tfr~: of breakdown. It seems that from school. involved • ,_ • b h d • l h ments. His posi- kind The compelled exit, the forced They he adopted a theory that sufficient no betraval of partzcuwr interest y t ose concerne wzt i t e tion became one move, implies escape under duress, the writers' own alcohol could release in one a • • • f 'd l • l th a t greatly the threat being either of private country, and the I pecu iar pro bl ems arzszng in an age o z eo ogzca appealed to him, second personality which, though blackmail or of public exposure; it might simulate the destructive • o f ten pro7ecte • d on t he p lane o f involving or again it might be the result of dose w a s of sMarxism e 1d O m con fl'zct w h'ic h zs eventually himin element, worked only good by helpan imperious recall by a Power ing people to acknowledge the truth th about al. private personality A second and concludincr o liaison work wi which regarded one or both of the le th themselves and reveal their W h a t w e r e • highly s e c r e t two diplomats as in danger or as latent affinities. Donald entered these two young article will appear next week o r g a nisations, having become too dangerous. like? Donald • until he was able into the spirit of the investigation There remains a possibility men Maclean w as L _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _J to represent the and took as his alter ego the name that they were sent abroad on a s a n d y - haired, Foreign Office. of " Gordon " from an export gin secret mission, and another that tall, with great latent physical Communism then offered the con- He helped, for instance, to remove with a tusky wild boar on the label. they were lured abroad and then strength, When night tell his new self took but fat and rather solation of a religion. the anti-Russian bias from Poles kidnapped. Meeting him. one was During the Spanish War I saw whom we were training for possession. He siampectea one 01 There are stmply not enough flabby. two parties, but got into more both amiability and much less of Burgess, who had now sabotage. facts to exclude any of these conscious of He did not seem joined the B.B.C. in Bristol. A We now see the outline bf the serioul' trouble when. in t-hP comI explanations, nor can we even pre- aweakness. animal but resembled terrible thing had happened-he ideal personalities of Burgess and pany of a friend, he broke into the sume that the behaviour of both thepolitical clever helpless youth in a had become a Fascist! Still sneer- Maclean. On the unstable founda- first apartment to hand in a block Maclean and Burgess is covered by Huxley novel, an outsize Cherubino ing at the bourgeois intellectual, he tions of their adolescence they were of flats and sharpened his tusks on the same explanation. The most on amorous experience but now vaunted the intensely modern erecting the selves whom they the furniture. striking fact-the suddenness of intent Then on a boating trip on the shy and clumsy to succeed. The realism of the ~azi leaders: his would like to be, the father figures their disappearance-suggests a too shadow of an august atmosphere admiration for economic ruthless- of their day-dreams, the finished Nile, with some twenty people in panic, but even this suddenness lay heavy on him, and he sought ness and the short cut to power Imagos. With his black hat and the party, he seized a rifle from an could have been counterfeited. The refuge on the more impetuous and had swung him to the opposite umbrella. his brief-case under his otlic1oussentry-and began to 1mpenJ . spontaneous thoroughness of the emancipated of.Bloomsbury extreme. He claimed to have arm-0.H.M.S.-Donald is "Sir the safety of those nearest him by 1 search would seem to indicate that and Chelsea. fringes a young man attended a Nuremberg Rally. Donald Maclean," the Tyrrell, the swinging it wildly. A Secretary at the Foreign Office first accepted the ran be set rightSuch by the devotion of Maclean. however, a strong sup- Eyre Crowe of the second world the Embassy intervened, and in the theory of kidnapping, and so would an intelligent, older and it porter of the Spanish Republic, war, the last great Liberal diplo- scuffle received a broken leg. The tend to exclude the notion of a was a misfortune thatwoman, Donald was seemed suddenly to have acquired matist, terror of the unjust and two men returned home on sick secret mission (unless self-imposed), just not quite able to inspire such a backbone, morallv and physically, hope of the weak: "If 1t wasn't leave, while Mrs. Maclean wb" wAs while a high French police official an attachment; clever His appearance greatly improved, for you, Sir Donald," snarled on the boating trip, went to Spain has maintained that it would have and affectionate, charming, he was still too his fat disappeared, and he had Ribbentrop, " we might still have for a rest with her two sons. been impossible for the two visitors become a personage. In 1935 he won the peace." What was the nature of Donald's to France to elude the dra~-net unformed. Guy Burgess, though he preferred had passed into the Foreign 'Burgess, of course, ls a power outburst? It was not just overspread for them without the ' prothe company of the able to the Office. and from 1938 he was at behind the scenes : a brigadier in worK. but over-strain: the e!fort ot tection" of a p01itical organisation. mufti, Brigadier Brilliant. D.S.O. being " Sir Donald." the who1P There are. ho;wever, countries artistic, also moved on the edge of the Embassy in Paris. I remember some arguments F.R.S., the famous historian, with paraphernalia of " O.H.M.S.," had where it might lle possible !or two the same world. He was of a very different physique, tall medium with him. I had felt a great symboyish grin and cold blue eyes, been too much for him and he had able-bodied men to obtaih work and now for special reverted to his adolescence, or to still escape notice, but they are not in height, with blue eyes. an in- pa thy for the Spanish Anarchists. seconded With long stride and his ideal of Paris days, the free and so easily reached from the station quisitive nose, sensual mouth, curly with whom he was extremely duties. at Rennes, in Brittany, whence they hair_ and alert fox-terrier expres- severe, as with all the other non- hunched shoulders, untidy, chain- solitary young sculptor working all vanished on May 26, 1951. One sion. He was immensely energetic, Communist factions. and I detected smoking, he talKs-walks and talks night in his attic. The return of must also consider the possibility a great talker, reader, boaster. in his reproaches the familiar -while the whole devilish simpli- the repressed is familiar to psychowalker, who swam like an otter and priggish tone of the Marxist, the city of his plan unfolds and the analysts, and there was also now a that they are dead. As one o1 the many who knew drank, not like a feckless under- resonance of the " Father Found.'' men from M.I. this and M.I. that, brief return to his early sexual both. and as one of the few who graduate, as Donald was apt to do, At the same time he could switch S.I.S. and S.0.E.. listen dumb- ambivalence. " Gordon " had given "My God, Brilliant, I " Sir Donald " the sack. The spoke with Maclean on his last dav but like some Rabelaisian bottle- to a magisterial defence of Cham- founded. could be enraged junior partner would no in England, I should like to swiper whose thirst was unquench- berlain's foreign policy and seemed believe you're right-it able to hold the two self-righteous done." The Brigadier looked at his longer put up with him. approach the subject from a dif- able. points of view simultaneously. watch and a chilled blue eye fixed ferent standpoint. Let us put aside His evenings in Paris were the chief of the Secret Service., the facts of which we know so little Contrasts in Their usually spent in the Left-Bank "At this moment. sir," and there Six -Months' Leave for and consider the personalities cafes with a little group of hard- was pack-ice in his voice, " my involved. In so far as one indiCharacters Maclean working painters and. sculptors. chaps are doing it." vidual can ever understand During the daytime he, too, another, we may find that we have . . ACK in London he had six grounds to eliminate some of these THE physical type to which worked very hard, and it was now Burgess's War-Time months' leave to get well and to explanations and so narrow down . Donald Maclean, despite his that he began to build up his make up his mind about the future. the value of X, as we shall na~e puppy fat, belonged was that of reputation in the Foreign Office, Life , He was still drinking and was now and we must remember that it th_e fa~tor responsible for their the elongated, schizophrenic, sadundergoing treatment from a grew very high indeed. Jomt disappearance. countenanced Don Q u i x o t eN 1940 Donald Maclean had mar- woman psycho-analyst, His apoParDonald had many admirable introverted and diffident, an Scottish qualities. He was respon- - ried in Paris an American girl ance was frightening : he had lost Looking Back to idealist and a dreamer given to sible and painstaking, logical and as delightful as her name. Melinda his serenity, his hands would who bore him two sons. tremble, his face was usually a sudden outbursts of aggression: resolute in argument, judicious Marling, Childhood She brought both sweetness and livid yellow and he looked as if h,e whereas Guy Burgess, despite and even-tempered and, I should understanding into his life. Guy had spent the night sitting up in, an admirable son and WO facts distinguish Burgess his intelligence. was a round-faced, imagine, Burgess, however, as the war went a tunnel. Though he remained brother. He had grown much and Maclean from the so-called g o 1den - pated Sancho Panza, handsomer, and his tall figure, his on, led a more -troubled existence. detached and amiable as ever, it " atomic " spies-first, they are extrovert. manic. grave long face and noble brow, his A new friend whom he had made was clear that he was miserable not known to have committed cynical and exhibitionist, avidly dark suit, black hat and umbrella was taken prisoner-of-war, and it and in a very bad way. In conany crime, second, they are curious, yetargumentative, vague were severe and distinguished. One was noted that he had become versation a kind of shutter would members of the governing class, of and incompetent.sometimes With all his felt now that he was a rock, that if much more insulting and destruc- fall as if he had returned to the high bureaucracy, the "they" moreover, Guy Burgess one were in trouble he would help tive when he drank-he seemed to some basic and incommunicable who rule the " we " to whom toughness, intensely to be liked and and not just let one down with a hit on the unforgivable thing to anxiety. refugees like Fuchs and Pontecorvo wanted say to everyone. His mental Some of his friends urged him to a good conver- reprimand. and humble figures like Nunn May was indeed likeable, sadism. which sometimes led to his resi~n, pointing out that since he 1 and an enthusiastic belong. If traitors thev be. then sationalist getting knocked out, did not disliked the life and disagreed with builder-up of his friends. Beneath they are traitors to themselves. exclude great kindness to those in the policy he could not go back of his Marxist White Hope of the But. as m all caBes where people the " terribilita" trouble. Above all. he disliked without 1t all happening agaln. one divined the affectionseem to act against their own analyses anyone to get out of his clutches: Others assured him that he would ate moral cowardice of the public Foreign Office political interests, we must go schoolboy. he was an affectionate bully soon be well enough to return to back to childhood. capable of acts of generosity, like a work, which would prove the best An old Etonian, an " Apostle " Politics begin in the nursery; no REMEMBER, at the beginning magnate of the Dark Ages. thing for himself and his family. who had taken a First In History one is born patriotic or unpatriotic, o! the war, mentioning to one the same time he was drink- The Foreign Office had to WPigh right-wing or left-win~. and it is at Cambridge, and was tempted to of our most famous diplomatic ingAtand living extravagantly. He his years of hard work against become a don. ne yet seemed an the child whose cravmg for love fond of luxury and display, of the outburst. which they put down is unsatisfied, whose desire for adventurer with a first-class mind, representatives that Donald was a was suites at Claridges and fast cars the strain of long hours anci power is thwarted, or whose innate who would always be in the know, friend of mine and receiving a which he drove abominably. He to formril 0 ocial rluties in Cairo and sense of justice is warped, that a framer of secret policies. a glance of incredulity. Satisfied belonged to the febrile war-time Washington. His reputation for a financial wizard already. and a eventually may try to become a that this indeed was so, he cafe-society of the temporary Civil penetrating mind, sound judgment revolutionary or a dictator. In future editor, at least, of " The explained that Maclean was Servant. Maclean to the secret and quiet industry turned the scale. Though he enjoyed a England wa attach spiritual values Times." citadel of the permanent. The psycmatnst's reports became a white hope, a " puer aureus" alone to c hi 1 d ho o d and bout of luxury, he was indifferent more encouraging, and by the to appearances and even hostile The position of Russia as an ally adolescence, dismissing political of the Service whose attainactions of a subversive nature as to his own. Unlike Donald, he ments and responsibilities were had made things easier for Com- autumn the decision was taken. On who at first were able to November 6, after a particularly youthful escapades. But in fact concealed his sexual diffidence by well beyond his years. Unlike munists, i::erve their own and their adopted heavy ni~ht, Donald went back to such behaviour in the young is over-confidence. Burgess he was without vanity. I country without a conflict. the Foreign Office as head of the often revealing because it exWhat was common to both Burdistinction Waverers returned to their allegi- American Division (a position lei<s presses the true meaning of the gess and Maclean at this time was think the simplest relationship with the father in their instability; both were able between them is that if you had ance and those who had never onerous than it sounds and which its most critical phase. and ambitious young men of high given Maclean a letter, he would wavered were suddenly respected. involved no social duties), and he Guy Burgess lost his father at an intelligence and good connections have posted it. Burgess would Burgess now had a friend, a foreign bought a house near Westerham 1 •early age, and his mother (to who were somehow parodies of probably have forgotten it or diplomat, whom he considered the for his wife and children, to which whom .he is devoted) remarried; what they set out to be. Nobody opened it and then returned t.o tell most interesting man he had ever he hoped to return almost every met and with whom he carried on evening, avoiding the temptations Maclean is the child of distin- could take them quite seriously; you what you should have said. guished Liberal parents; his they were two characters in a late Burgess and a great friend of his a verbal crusade in favour of Com- of the city. father, who was then President Russian novel. Laurel and Hardy would sometimes stay with a munism, each taking a different [To be cont 000169 of the Board of Education, died engaged to play Talleyrand and talented and beautiful woman. a line with the potential convert, one when he was nineteen. the younger Pitt. Burgess, incident- novelist who, in those days, rough. one smooth. Burgess wai; uorn in 1911, ally, was a great reader of fiction; resembled an irreducible bastion of We may distinguish a. certain oded tor a year and would e to unburden myself. Something of' what I have put down may cause pain; but that I must risk, because where people are concerned the truth can never be ascertained without painful things being mid, and because I feel that what I put down may lead to somebody remembering the fact or phrase which will suddenly bring It all into focus. If I did not believe (by instinct rather than reason) that the two people about whom I am going to write may well have been victims of some unforeseen calamity, the puzzle would not exist and I should have nothing to say. I have had access to no secrets. I have not talked to many of the people I should like to, I offer no solution, only a few suggestions, a. meditation on human complexity which leads to murky bypaths but which, I hope, will show that no one has any right to jump to unfavourable conclusions about people of whom they know nothing. 1 Maclean in 1913. The one reached Cambridge by way of Eton and Trinity, the other, two years later, by Gresham's School and Trinity Hall. They knew each other :at. Cambridge and were both members of the left-wing circle there. But there is no evidence of that oppressive parental authority which drives young men to revolt. I T his favourite authors were Mrs. Gaskell and Balzac and, later on, Mr. E. M. Forster. "Lenin had said somewhere that he had 1earnt more about France from Balzac's novels th an !rom au rnswry-book:, put together. Accordingly Balzac was the greatest writer of all times." (Koestler.) Donald was seldom heard to talk polit1c:;, Guy never seemed to stop. He was the type of bumptious Marxist who saw himself as SaintJust, who enjoyed making the flesh of his bourgeois listeners creep by his picture of the _justice which history would mete out to them. Grubby, intemperate and promiscuous, he loved to moralise over his friends and satirise their smug class - unconiscious behaviour, so reckle:;s of the reckoning in store. But when bedtime came, very late, aanndalyitsews asawtahye, mthoemwen rtdtc?.pPurtept h~ 0 05 terous" dying on hfs lips, he would imply a dispensation under which this one house at least, this family, these guests, might be spared the worst consequences, thanks to the protection of their brilliant hunger-marching friend whose po.c;i•ion would bP so commanding m the happy workers' Utopia. It was the time when Abyssinia mattered, before the Russian purges had taken place and the especial bitterness of Communist controversy had arisen. There were very few ex-Communists. and the party's claim to represent the extreme left-wing was not disouted. Unlike all other political parties. I T I z· l B I T I �- -- -- - --------------------------;:;D-oc_u_m_e_n~t-d;7'is-c/;-.o-se-d7"u_n_d7"e-r":'1th'"'e,..A~c-c-es-s"'!t-o""Jn-,-or_m_a'"'t'"'10-n""A~c"!'tDocument divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces a /'information • THE SUNDAY TIMES. SEPTEl\lBER T.HE MISSING HOSE who become obsessed with a puzzle are not very likely to solve it. Here is one about which I have brooded tor a year and would like to unburden myself. Something of what I have put down may cause pain; but that I must risk, oecause where people are concerned the truth can never be ascertained without painful things being said, and because I feel that what I put down may lead to somebody remembering the fact or phrase which will suddenly bring it all into focus. T 21. 1952 DIPLOMATS by Cyril Connolly Maclean in 1913. The one reached Cambridge by way of Eton and Trinity, the other, two years later, by Gresham's School and Trinity Hall. They knew each other At Cambridge and were both members of the left-wing circle there. But there is no evidence of that oppressive parental authority which drives young men to revolt. the bourgeoisie entirely surrounded by Communists, like the Alcazar of Toledo. day Burgess's friend came to herOneshaken and yet impressed. Guy nact conficted to him that ne was not just a member but a secret agent of the Communist Party, and he had then invited him to join in t.his work. The friend had refused with concern: and for her part the novelist felt that Burgess's Fascism was suddenly explained : Pre-War Cambridge as a secret agent be must have been told to investigate the British Fascists and tioped to pass as one. l\.farxists Even so, It was impossible to feel If I did not believe (by instinct T was more than ten years since quite certain, for it would be in rather than reason) that the two the end of the first world war, keeping with Burgess's neurotic people about whom I am going to power-drive that he should pretend write may well have been victims of and a new generation was growing up which found no outlet in home to be an under-cover man. some unforeseen calamity, the Years afterwards the novelist puzzle would not exist and I should politics for the adventurous or altruistic impulses of the adolewas told that he had spent several have nothing to say. days wrestling with his conscience I have had access to no secrets. scent. Marxism satisfied both the rebelliousness of youth and its at the time of the Soviet-German I have not talked to many of the craving for dogma. pact and had decided to give up people I should like to, I offer no The Cambrictge communists subthe whole business. This may well solution, only a few suggestions, a a new father or super-ego havP been true. meditation on human complexity stituted the old one, and accepted a Here we have to decide whether which leads to murky bypaths but for new justice and a stricter Burgess visited Germany as a which, I hope, will show that no authority. They felt they had secret Communist, a Nazi,,. svmone has any right to jump to exposed the weaknesses of Liberalpathiser or as an observer cor our unfavourable conclusions a b o u t ism along with their elders' ignorown Intelligence _Services1 or-at people of whom they know nothing. ance of economic affairs. To this various levels of hIS opponunismgener;i.tion Communism made an as all three. On one occasion he took some Boy Soout.s over to a A •Matter of Choice intellectual appeal, standing for love, liberty and social justice and rally at Cologne. • for a new approach to life and In January, 1939, he left the or Necessity art. Yet it was connected with a B.B.C., and in the autumn of 1940 he was doing confidential work for HE disappearance, towards the political party, and this party is not inclined to relinquish its hold. the War Office. At this time he was end of May last year, of Guy "The Comintern," says Arthur arrested for being drunk in charge Burgess and Donald Maclean is a Koestler, "carried on a white-slave of a car and acquitted because he mystery which cannot be solved traffic whose victims were young was working fourteen hours a day A Breakdown in while so many factors remain idealists flirting and had just unknown, and therefore any with violence.'' I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I been in an airCairo explanation can be based only on The feelings of FIRST . M r. raid. a balance of probabilities. such young men HIS IS THE instalment of By January, N 1950 word began to reach us i Such solutions fall into two cateConno ll y , s persona l an d intimate • • d f G uy 1941, he was gories, according as they presup- are described in that all was not so well. It was numerous novE:ls stu y o once more in the said that Donald, whuse nigh pose the disappearance to be a and poems. or in B l D ld M z h b Liberal had received full matter of choice or of ne'cessity. such tracts as urgess anc ona ac ean, t e ·two mem ers B.B.C., and there scope inprinciples enlightened Washington, A voluntary flight might be poliMr. Stephen / h F . Off" ff h . J d d he remained for been so disheartened by the tical, as that of Hess to Scotland, Spender's " Foro t e orezgn ice sta w o vanis ie towar . s three years in had poverty and corruption of the or of a private and psychological Middle East that he had had some nature, as when two boys run-away i".f;~ra11~~~ the end of May last year. It will be read with :~~~~ean kind of breakdown. It seems that from school. They involved • la • b l d • h h ments. His posiThe compelled exit, the forced no betraval of particu r interest y t iose concerne wit t e tion became one he adopted a theory that sufficient move, implies escape under duress, the writers' own · pro blems arising • • in • an age oI i"deo l.ogica • l that greatly alcohol could release in one a the threat being either of private country, and the I pecu 1tar appealed to him, second personality which, though blackmail or of public exposure; it might simulate the destructive dose of seldom Marxism conflict which is often pro7·ected on the plane of involving himin element, worked only good by help. or again it might be the result of was eventually an imperious recall by a Power people to ac~nowledge the truth th ing private personality. A second and concluding ~ liaison which regarded one or both of the letwhal.a t were about themselves and reveal their highly work s e cwi r e t latent affinities. Donald entered two diplomats as in danger or as these two young tl t. [ t k• Or g a nisations, having become too dangerous. men like? Donald r ice wi appear nex wee until he was able into the spirit of the Investigation There remains a possibility Maclean was L _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _j to represent the and took as hiis alter ego the name that they were sent abroad on a s a n d y - haired, Foreign Office. of " Gordon " from an export gin secret mission, and another that tall, with great latent physical Communism then offered the con- He helped, for instance, to remove with a tusky wild boar on the label. they were lured abroad and then strength, When ni_ght fell his new self took but fat and rather solation of a religion. the anti-Russian bias from Poles kidnapped. possession. He stampedect one or flabby. Meeting him, one was During the Spanish War I saw whom we were training for There are simply not enough two parties, but got into more of both amiability and much less of Burgess, who had now sabotage. , facts to exclude any of these conscious He did not seem joined the B.B.C. in Bristol. A We now see the outline o! the serious trouble when. in thP com, explanations, nor can we even pre- aweakness. pany of a friend, he broke into the animal but resembled terrible thing had happened-he ideal personalities of Burgess and sume that the behaviour of both thepolitical clever helpless youth in a had become a Fascist! Still sneer- Maclean. On the unstable founda- first apartment to hand in a block Maclean and Burgess is covered by Huxley novel, an outsize Cherubino ing at the bourgeois intellectual, he tions of their adolescence they were of flats and sharpened his tusks on the same explanation. The most intent on experience but now vaunted the intensely modern erecting the selves whom they the furniture. fact-the suddenness of too shy andamorous I striking Then on a boating trip on the to succeed. The realism of the Nazi leaders: his would like to be, the father figures their disappearance-suggests a shadow of clumsy an august atmosphere admiration for economic ruthless- of their day-dreamsb the finished Nile, with some twenty people in panic, but even this suddenness lay. heavy on the party, he seized a nfle from an him, and he sought ness and the short cut to power Imagos. With his lack hat and could have been counterfeited. The refuge on the more impetuous and had swung him to the opposite umbrella, his brief-case under his ollicious sentry and began to 11npe.n1 spontaneous thoroughness of the emancipated fringes of Bloomsbury extreme. He claimed to have arm-O.H.M.S.-Donald is "Sir the safety of those nearest him by search would seem to indicate that Chelsea. Such a young man attended a Nuremberg Rally. Donald Maclean," the Tyrrell, the swinging it wildly. A Secretary at the Foreign Office first accepted the and can be set right by the devotion of Maclean. however, a strong sup. Eyre Crowe of the second world the Embassy intervened, and in the theory of kidnapping, and so would intelligent, older woman, and it porter of the Spanish Republic, war, the last great Liberal diplo- scuffle received a broken leg. The tend to exclude the notion of a an was a misfortune that Donald was seemed suddenly to have acquired matist, terror of the un.lust and two men • returned home on sick secret mission (unless self-imposed), just not quite able to inspire such a backbone. morally and physicallv. hope of the weak. " If it wasn't leave, while Mrs. Maclean wbn wAs while a high French police official an attachment; clever His appearance greatly improved, for you, Sir Donald," snarled on the boating trip, went to Spain has maintained that it would have and affectionate, charming, he was still too his fat disappeared, and he had Ribbentrop, " we might still have for a rest with her two sons. been impossible for the two visitors unformed. become a personage. In 1935 he won the peace." What was the nature of Donald's to France to elude the drag-net It was not just overGuy Burgess, though he preferred had passed into the Foreign Burgess, of course, is a J?OWer outburst? spread for them wit.hout the "protection" of a political organisation. the company of the able to the Office. and from 1938 he was at behind the scenes : a brigadier in work, but over-strain; the etfort ot being " Sir Donald," thP who1P artistic, also moved on the edge of the Embassy in Paris. mufti, Brigadier Brilliant. D.S.O .. There are, however, countries I remember some arguments F.R.S., the faµ1ous historian, with- paraphernalia of " O.H.M.S.," had where it might be possible for two the same world. He was of a very able-bodied men to obtain work and different physique, tall - medium with him. I had felt a great sym- boyish grin and cold blue eyes, been too much for him and he had· still escape notice, but they are not in height, with blue eyes, an in- pathy for the Spanish Anarchists, s e c on d e d now for special reverted to his adolescence, or to With long stride and his ideal of Paris days, the free and so easily reached from the station quisitive nose, 5ensual mouth, curly with whom he was extremely duties. atRennes, in Brittany, whence they hair and alert fox-terrier expres- severe, as with all the other non- hunched shoulders, untidy, chain- solitary young sculptor working all vanished on May 26, 1951. One sion. He was immensely energetic, Communist factions, and I detected smoking, he talkS-walks and talks night in his attic. The return of must also consider the possibility a great talker, reader, boaster, in his reproaches the familiar -while the whole devilish simpli- the repressed is familiar to psychowalker, who swam like an otter and priggish tone of the Marxist, the city of his plan unfolds and the analysts, and there was also now a that they are dead. As one oi the many who knew drank, not like a feckless under- resonance of the "Father Found." men from M.I. this and M.I. that, brief return to his early sexual both. and as one of the few who graduate, as Donald was apt to do, At the same time he could switch S.I.S. and S.O.E., listen dumb- ambivalence. " Gordon " had given " My God, Brilliant, I " Sir Donald " the sack. The spoke with Maclean on his last av but like some Rabelaisian bottle- to a magisterial defence of Cham- founded. could be enraged junior partner would no in England, I should like to swiper whose thirst was unquench- berlain's foreign policy and seemed believe you're right-it able. able to hold the two self-righteous done." The Bril}adier looked at his longer put up with him. approach the subject from a difpoints of view simultaneously. watch and a chilled blue eye fixed ferent standpoint. Let us put aside His evenings in Paris were the chief of the Secret Service. the facts of which we know so little Contrasts in Their usually spent in the Left-Bank " At this moment, sir," and there Six ,Months' Leave for and consider the personalities cafes with a little group of hard- was pack-ic.e in his voice, "my involved. In so far as one indiCharacters Maclean working painters and sculptors. chaps are doing it." vidual can ever understand During the daytime he, too, another, we may find that we have THE physical type to which ACK in London he had six worked very hard, and it was now grounds to eliminate some of these Burgess's War-Time months' leave to get well and to Donald Maclean, despite his that he began to build up his explanations and so narrow down make up his mind about the future. the value of X, as we shall name puppy fat,, belonged was that of reputation in the Foreign Office, Life He was still drinking and was now the factor responsible for their the elongated, schizophrenic, sad- and we must remember that it grew very high indeed. undergoing treatment from a joint disappearance. countenanced Don Q u i x o t eN 1940 Donald Maclean had marwoman psycho-analyst. His apoParDonald had many admirable introverted and diffident, an Scottish qualities. He was responried in Paris an American girl ance was frightening : he had lost Looking Back to idealist and a dreamer given to sible and painstaking, logical and as delightful as her name, Melinda his serenity, his hands would who bore him two sons. tremble his face was usually a sudden outbursts of aggression; resolute in argument, judicious Marling, Childhood She brought both sweetness and livid yellow and he looked as if he whereas Guy Burgess, despite and even-tempered and, I should understanding into his life. Guy had spent the night sitting up in an admirable son and WO facts distinguish Burgess his intelligence, was a round-faced, imagine, brother. He had grown much Burgess, however, as the war went a tunnel. Though he remained and Maclean from the so-called g o 1 de n - pated Sancho Panza, handsomer, and his tall figure, his on, led a more troubled existence. detached and amiable as ever, it " atomic " spies-first, they are exhibitionist, manic, grave long face and noble brow, his A new friend whom he had made was clear that he was miserable not known to have committed extrovert, avidly dark suit, black hat and umbrella was taken prisoner-of-war, and it and in a very bad way. In conany crime, second, they are cynical andyetargumentative, sometimes vague were severe and distinguished. One was noted that he had become versation a kmd of shutter would 1 members of the governing class, of curious, and incompetent. With all his felt now that he was a rock, that if much more insulting and destruc- fall as if he had returned to the high bureaucracy, the '.'they" toughness, moreover, Guy Burgess one were in trouble he would help tive w.pen he drank-he seemed to some basic and incommunicablEf who rule the " we" to whom wanted intensely liked and and not just let one down with a hit on the unforgivable thing to anxiety. refugees like Fuchs and Pontecorvo was indeed likeable,to abe say to everyone. His mental conver- reprimand. Some of his friends urged him to and humble figures like Nunn May sationalist and an good sadism, which sometimes led to his resign, pointing out· that since he enthusiastic I belong. If traitors they be, then builder-up of his friends. getting knocked out, did not Beneath disliked the life and disagreed with they are traitors to themselves. exclude great kindness to those in the polic:y he could not go back " terribilita " of his Marxist White Hope of the But. as m all cases where people the trouble. Above all. . he disliked without 1t all happening again. analyses one divined the affectionseem to act against their own ate moral cowardice of the public anyone to get out of his clutches: Others assured him that he would Foreign Office political interests, we must go schoolboy. he was an affectionate bully soon be well enough to return to back to childhood. capable of acts of generosity, like a work, which would prove the best An old Etonian, an "Apostle" Politics begin in the nursery; no REMEMBER, at the beginning magnate of the Dark Ages. thing for himself and his family. one is born patriotic or unpatriotic, who had taken a First in History of the war, mentioning to one the same time he was drink- The Foreign Office had to weigh right-wing or left-wing, and it is at Cambridge, and was tempted to of our· most famous diplomatic ingAtand living extravagantly. He his years of hard work against the child whose craving for love become a don, he yet seemed an fond of luxury and display, of the outburst, which th.e,M,.m.U..aa,il!irl is unsatisfied, whose desire for adventurer with a first-class mind, representatives tnat Donald was a was suites at and fast cars to the strain of long 000170 power is thwarted, or whose innate who would always be in the know, friend of mine and receiving a which he Claridges abominably. He formf!l ~nrial rluties i d sepse of justice is warped, that a framer of secret policies, a g;;::,nce of incredulity. Satisfied belonged todrove the febrile war-time Washington. His repu1"""....,_..""'-n a eventuallv mav trv to become a financial wizard already.,,,..,fl and u 1"f'1l-i.l'.:i. that this indeed was so, he cafe-society of_the t~mp~rary Civi~ penetrating mind, sound judgment + I T his favourite authors were Mrs. Gaskell and Balzac •and, later on, Mr. E. M. Forster. "Lenin had said somewhere tha.t he had learnt more about France from Balzac's novels than trom a11 mswry-oook::, put together. Accordingly· Balzac was the greatest. writer of all times." (Koestler.) Donald was seldom heard to talk politic,;, Guy never seemed to stop. He was the type of bumptious Marxist who saw himself as SaintJust, who enjoyed making the flesh of his bourgeois listeners creep by hjs picture of the .iustice 'which history would mete out to them. Grubby, intemperate and promiscuous. he loved to moralise over his friends and satirise their smug class - unconscious behaviour, so reckless of the reckoning in store. But when bedtime came, very late, and it was the moment to put the analyses away, the word " Preposterous" dying on his lips, he would imply a dispensation under which this one house at least, this family, these guests, might be spared the worst consequences. thanks to the protection of their brilliant hunger-marching friend whose position would bP so rommanding in the happy workers' Utopia. It was tl1e time w11en Aoys~n!a mattered, before the Russian purges had taken place and the especial bitterness of Communist controversy had arisen. There were very few ex-Communists, and the party's claim to represent the extreme left-wing was not disputed. Unlike all other political parties, pattern in Burgess's rehtinnshi'os. In romantic friendship he liked to dominate, but nis mtellectua:l. admiration was usually kept for those who were older than himself. !'here were also cronies with whom he preferred to drink and argue. In June, 1944. he had been transferred to the News Department of the Foreign Office, in 1946 to the office of the Minister of State, Mr. Hector McNeil, in 1947 to B branch (Foreign Office), and in 1948 to the Far-Eastern Department of the Foreign Office. In 1944, the year that Guy Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the .l:'·oreignoffice. Oonald Maclean was posted to Washington as actmg First Secretary. On 111:; return in 1948 he gave a dinner-part;\- to his friends. It was a delightful evening, he had become a good host, his charm was based not on vanity but on sincerity, and he would discuss foreign affairs as a student, not an expert. He enJoyed the magazine that I then edited, which was a blue rag to Burgess, a weak injection of culture into a society alreadv dead On his return from Washington he was appointed Counsellor in Gairo. " in Dona.JctMa.c1ei:t.11.1 see a courage and a love of justice; I see a soul that could not be deflected from the straight course; and I see in it that deep affection for his friends which he always manifested." The wordR of Rtanlev Baldwin about the father seemed to be coming true of the son. A Counsellor at thirty-five, he seemed in a fair way to equal his parent's distinction. T I !e~frt ·u 1 1 1 B I T J ..I" J.. -...:1:.£.......... ... ... , ............ ~ ~ • l • , :f: ..] :I,].,.,.. ,..,,.,~,.., �very likely to solve it. Here is one about which I have brooded tor a year and would like to unburden myself. something of what I have put down may cause pain; but that I must risk. oecause where people are concerned the truth can never be ascertained without painful things being said, and because I feel that what I put down may lead to somebody remembering the fact or phrase which will suddenly bring it all into focus. If I did not believe (by instinct rather than reason) that the two people about whom I am going to write may well have been victims of some unforeseen calamity, the puzzle would not exist and I should have nothing to say. I have had access to no secrets. I have not talked to many of the people I should like to, I offer no solution, only a few suggestions, a meditation on human complexity which leads to murky bypaths but which, I hope, will show that no one has any right to jump to unfavourable conclusions about people of whom they know nothing. BBLZilllll&illbtt 31 Document divulgue en 1 those who were older than himself. the bourgeoisie entirely surrounded £hen· were also cronies with whom by Communists, like the Alcazar of he preferred to drink and argue. Toledo. In June, 1944, he had been transOne day Burgess's friend came to !erred to the News Department of her shaken and yet impresse<i. the Foreign Office, in 1946 to the Guy naa confiaed to him that ne office of the Minister of State, Mr. was not just a member but a secret Hector McNeil, in 1947 to B branch agent of the Communist Party, and (Foreign Office), and in 1948 to the he had then invited him to join in Far-Eastern Department of the t.his work. The friend. had refused Foreign Office. with concern: and for her part the In 1944, the year that Guy Burnovelist felt that Burgess's gess went from the B.B.C. to the Fascism was suddenly explained : r·oreign office. Donald Maclean was Pre-War Cambridge as a secret agent he must have posted to Washington as actbeen told to investigate the British mg First Secretary. On m:, Fascists and hoped to pass as one. return in 1948 he gave a Marxists Even so, it was impossible to feel dinner-part\ to his friends. It T was more than ten years since quite certain. for it would be in was a delightful evening, he had the end of the first world war, keeping with Burgess's neurotic become a good host, his charm was and a new generation was growing power-drive that he should pretend based not on vanity but on up which found no outlet in home to be an under-cover man. sincerity, and he would discuss politics for the adventurous or Years afterwards the novelist foreign affairs as a student, not altruistic impulses of the adolewas told th~t he had spent several an expert. He enjoyed the magascent. Marxism satisfied both the days wrestlmg with his conscience zine that I then edited, which was rebelliousness of youth and its at the time of the Soviet German a bl ue rag t O Bur gess , a weak i·niec · , • cravmg for dogma. pact and .had decided to • give up tion of culture into a society The Cambrictge Communists subthe whole business. This may well alreadv dead stituted a new father or super-ego ha.VPbeen true. . on his return from Washington for the old one, and accepted a Here we _have to decide whether he was appointed counsellor in new justice and a stricter Burgess visited. Germany as a uairo. " ln Dona.1aMacieau .1 .see a authority,. They felt they had secret• Commumst • a Nazrcsvm- courage and a love of justice; I see a d expose the weaknesses of Liberalpath1ser 01: as an obse;-ver or our soul that could not be deflected ism al1ng 'th ,thew elders' ignorOWJ?: Intelligence _Servicesl o_r-at from the straight course; and I see ance ot· economic a airs. To this va11ou.sle_velsof his oppor u~nsm- in it that deep affection for his generll, ion Communism made an as all thJee. On one occas10n he friends which he always man1took some Boy Scouts over to a fested." The wordi; of Rtanlev A Matter of Choice intellectual appeal, stanctmg for love, liberty and social justice and rally at Cologne. • Baldwin about the father seemed to for a new approach to life and In January, 1939, he left the be coming true of the son. A or Necessity art. Yet it was connected with a B.B.C., an~ m the autumn of 1940 counsellor at thirty-five, he seemed he was domg conflde:,:iti~lwork for in a fair way to equal his parent's HE disappearanoe, towards the political partyi. and this party is not inclined to relinquish its hold. the War Office.. At this t~e he was distinction. end of May last year, of Guy "The Comintern," says Arthur arrested for bemg drunk m charge Burgess and Donald Maclean Is a Koestler, " carried on a white-slave of a car and acquitted because he mystery which cannot be solved traffic whose victims were young was working fourteen hours a day A Breakdown in while so many factors remain unknown, and therefore any ~i~lis~io?~~~~& I I ~~~ i~a~n j~~~ Cairo explanation can be based only on The feelings of raid a balance of probabilities. such young men HIS IS THE FIRST instalment of Mr. By January, N 1950 word began to reach us Such solutions fall into two catedescribed in 1941, he . wthas that all was not so well. It was gories, according as they presup- are numerous novels Connolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy that Uonald, whuse nigh pose the disappearance to be a and poems, or in once more m e saict Liberal had received full matter of choice or of ne·cessity. such tracts as Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members B.B.C., and there scope inprinciples Washington, A voluntary flight might be poli- Mr. Stephen . . . he remained for had been enlightened so disheartened by the tical, as that of Hess to Scotland, Spender's " Forof the Foreign Off ice staff who vanished towards three years in poverty and corruption of the or of a private and psychological 0 Middle East that he had had some nature, as when two boys run-away r'.f6~ral;~~~ the end of May last year. It will be read with ::~~eancfe~ kind of breakdown. It seems that from school. involved t icu • lar in • t eres t b y t ,iose 1 d wi"tl th e men ts. His posiadopted a theory that sufficient The compelled exit, the forced They no betraval of par concerne • i tion became one he alcohol could release in one a move, implies escape under duress. the writers' own z • bl • • • f "d l • l t h at greatly second which, though the threat being either of private country, and the pecu iar pro ems arising in an age o z eo .ogica appealed to him, it mightpersonality simulate the destructive blackmail or of public exposure; dose of Marxism conflict which is often pro7'ected on the plane of involving hi.m element, worked only good by helpor again it might be the result of was seldom eventually in people to ac~nowledge the truth an imperious recall by a Power th ing private personality • A second and concludin<1 liaison about themselves and reveal their which regarded one or both of the letwhal.at were e, highly work s e Cwi r e t latent affinities. Donald entered two diplomats as in danger or as these two young article will appear next week o r ~ a nisations, into the spirit of the investigation having become too dangerous. men like? Donald • until he was able There remains a possibility Maclean w as L _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _J to represent the Mid took as .hrisalter ego the name I that they were sent abroad on a s a n d y - haired, Foreign Office. of " Gordon " from an export gin secret mission, and another that tall, with great latent physical Communism then offered the con- He helped, for instance, to remove with a tusky wild boar on the label. they were lured abroad and then strength, When night fell his new self took but fat and rather solation of a religion. the anti-Russian bias from Poles kidnapped. flabby. Meeting him, one was During the Spanish War I saw whom we were training for possession. He stampeded one or There are simply not enough two parties, but got into more of both amiability and much less of Burgess, who had now sabotage. facts to exclude any of these conscious serious t1'0uble when. in thP comHe did not seem joined the B.B.C. in Bristol. A We now see the outline of the pany explanations, nor can we even pre- aweakness. of a friend, he broke into the animal but resembled terrible thing had happened-he ideal personalities of Burgess and first apartment sume that the behaviour of both thepolitical to hand in a block clever helpless youth in a had become a Fascist! Still sneerMaclean. On the unstable foundaMaclean and Burgess is covered by Huxley novel, an outsize Cherubino ing at the bourgeois intellectual, he tions of their adolescence they were of flats and sharpened his tusks on the same explanation. The most intent the furniture. amorous experience but now vaunted the intensely modern erecting the selves whom· they striking fact-the suddenness of too shy on Then on a boating trip on the clumsy' to succeed. The realism of the Nazi leaders: his would like to be, the father figures their disappearance-suggests a shadow and Nile, with some twenty: people in of an august atmosphere admiration for economic ruthlessof their day-dreams, the finished panic, but even this suddenness lay heavy on him, and he sought ness and the short cut to power Imagos. With his black hat and the party, he seized a rifle from an could have been counterfeited. The refuge on the more impetuous and had swung him to the opposite umbrella, his brief-case under his ollic1oussentry and began to 1mpen1 spontaneous thoroughness of the emancipated fringes of Bloomsbury extreme. He claimed to have arm-O.H.M.S.-Donald Is "Sir the safety of those nearest bim by search would seem to indicate that Chelsea. Such a young man attended a Nuremberg Rally. Donald Maclean," the Tyrrell, the swinging it wildly. A Secretary at the Foreign Office first accepted the and r.an be set right by the devotion of Maclean, however, a strong supEyre Crowe of the second world the Embassy intervened, and in the theory of kidnapping, and so would an intelligent, older woman, and it porter of the Spanish Republic, war, the last great Liberal diploscuffle received a broken leg. The tend to exclude the notion of a was that Donald was seemed suddenly to have acquired matist, terror of the unjust and two men • returned home on sick secret mission (unless self-imposed), just anotmisfortune quite able to inspire such a backbone, morally and physicallv. hope of the weak. " If it wasn't leave, while Mrs. Maclean wh<>wAi; while a high French police official an attachment; clever His appearance greatly improved, for you, Sir Donald," snarled on the boating trip, went to Spain has maintained that it would have and affectionate, charming, he was still too his fat disappeared, and he had Ribbentrop, " we might still have for a rest with her two sons. been impossible for the two visitors unformed. become a personage. In 1935 he won the peace." What was the nature of Donald's to France to elude the dra~-net It was not just overGuy Burgess, though he preferred had passed into the Foreign • Burgess, of course, is a i;>ower outburst? spread for them without the ' prowork, but over-strain; the elfort ot tection" of a political organisation. the company of the able to the Office. and from 1938 he was at behind the scenes : a brigadier in being " Sir Donald," thP whnlP artistic, also moved on the edge of the Embassy in Paris. mufti, Brigadier Brilliant. D.S.O., There are, however, countries I remember some arguments F.R.S., the fap,.ous historian, with• paraphernalia of " O.H.M.S.," had where it might be possible for two the same world. He was of a very too much for him and he had • able-bodied men to obtain work and different physique, tall - medium with him. I had felt a great sym- boyish grin and cold blue eyes, been to his adolescence, or to still escape notice, but they are not in height, with blue eyes, an in- pathy for the Spanish Anarchists, s e c on de d now for special reverted his ideal of Paris days, the free and quisitive nose, sensual mouth, curly with whom he was extremely duties. With long stride and so easily reached from the station solitary young sculptor working all hair and alert fox-terrier expressevere, as with all the other nonhunched shoulders, untidy, chainatRennes, in Brittany, whence they night in his attic. The return of vanished on May 26, 1951. One sion. He was immensely energetic, Communist factions, and I detected smoking, he talks-walks and talks the repressed is familiar to psychomust also consider the possibility a great talker, reader, boaster, in his reproaches the familiar -while the whole devilish simpli- analysts, and there was also now a walker, who swam like an otter and priggish tone of the Marxist, the city of his plan unfolds and the that they are dead. brief return to his early sexual drank, not like a feckless under• resonance of the "Father Found." men from M.I. this and M.I. that. As one o1 the many who lmew graduate, as Donald was apt to do, At the same time he could switch S.I.S. and s.O.E., listen dumb- ambivalence. " Gordon" had given I both. and as one of the few who " My God. Brilliant, I " Sir Donald " the sack. The ' spoke with Maclean on his Ill.st dav but like some Rabelaisian bottle- to a magisterial defence of Cham- founded. could be enraged junior partner would no in England, I should like ., to swiper whose thirst was unquench- berlain's foreign policy and seemed believe you're right-it longer put up with him. able. able to hold the two self-righteous done." The Bri~adier looked at his approach the subject from a difpoints of view simultaneously. watch and a chilled blue eye fixed ferent standpoint. Let us put aside His evenings in Paris were the chief of the Secret Service. Six ,Months' Leave for the facts of which we know so little Contrasts in Their usually spent in the Left-Bank " At this moment, sir," and there and consider the personalities cafes with a little group of hard- was pack-ice in his voice, '' my involved. In so far as one indiCharacters Maclean working painters and sculptors. chaps are doing it." vidual can ever understand During the daytime he, too, another, we may find that we have THE physical type to which ACK in London he had six worked very hard, and it was now grounds to eliminate some of these Burgess's War-Time months' leave to get well and to Donald Maclean, despite his that he began to build up his explanations and so narrow down make up his mind about the future. the value of X, as we shall name puppy fat,, belonged was that of reputation in the Foreign Office, Life He was still drinking and was now the factor responsible for their the elongated, schizophrenic, sad- and we must remember that it undergoing treatment from a grew very high indeed. joint disappearance. countenanced Don Q u i x o t ewoman psycho-analyst. Hi1<apoParN 1940 Donald Maclean had marDonald had many admirable ried in Paris an American girl ance was frightening : he had lost introverted and diffident, an Scottish qualities. He was responLooking Back to idealist and a dreamer given to sible and painstaking, logical and as delightful as her name, Melinda his serenity, his hands would Marling, who bore him two sons. tremble. his face was usually a sudden outbursts of aggression; resolute in argument, judicious She brought Childhood both sweetness and livid yellow and he looked as if he whereas Guy Burgess, despite and even-tempered and. I should understanding into his life. Guy had spent the night sitting up in an admirable son and WO facts distinguish Burgess his intelligence. was a round-faced, imagine, brother. He had grown much Burge&s, however, as the war went a tunnel. Though he remained and Maclean from the so-called go 1de n - pated Sancho Panza, handsomer, and his tall figure, his on, led a, more troubled existence. detached and amiable as ever, it ' " atomic " spies-first, they are extrovert, grave long face noble brow, his A new friend whom he had made was clear that he was miserable exhibitionist, manic, not known to have committed cynical and argumentative, avidly dark suit, blackand hat and umbrella was taken prisoner-of-war, and it and in a very bad way. In conany crime, second, they are curious, yet sometimes vague were severe and distinguished. One was noted that he had become versation a kmd of shutter would members of the governing class, of and incompetent. With all his felt now that he was a rock, that if much more insulting and destruc- fall as if he had returned to 1 the high bureaucracy, the "they" moreover, Guy Burgess one were in trouble he would help tive wben he drank-he seemed to some basic and incommunicabll who rule the " we " to whom toughness, intensely to be liked and and not just let one down with a hit orl the unforgivable thing to anxiety. refugees like Fuchs and Pontecorvo wanted say to everyone. His mental Some of his friends urged him to a good conver- reprimand. and humble figures like Nunn May was indeed likeable, sadism, which sometimes led to his resi~n, painting out that since he and an enthusiastic belong. If traitors thev be, then sationalist getting knocked out, did not dishked the life and disagreed with of his friends. Beneath they are traitors to themselves. builder-up exclude great kindness to those in the policy he could not go back " terribilita " of his Marxist White Hope of the But. as m all cases where people the trouble. Above all. he disliked without 1t all happening again. analyses one divined the affectionseem to act against their own ate moral cowardice of the public anyone to get out of his clutches; Others assured him that he would Foreign Office political interests, we must go schoolboy. he was an affectionate bully soon be well enough to return to back to childhood. capable of acts of generosity, like a work, which would prove the best An old Etonian, an " Apostle " Politics begin in the nursery; no REMEMBER, at the beginning magnate of the Dark Ages. thing for himself and his family. one is born patriotic or unpatriotic, who had taken a First in History of the war, mentioning to one the same time he was drink- The Foreign Office had to weigh right-wing or left-wing, and it is at Cambridge, and was tempted to of our· most famous diplomatic ingAtand living extravagantly. He years of hard work against the child whose craving for love become a don, he yet seemed an representatives that Donald was a was fond of luxury and display, of his the outburst, which they put down is unsatisfied, whose desire for adventurer with a first-class mind, suites at Claridges and fast cars to the of long hours and power is thwarted, or whose innate who would always be in the know, friend of mine and receiving a which he drove abominably. He formii l strain ~nC'ialrluties in Cairo and se.pse of justice is warped, that a framer of secret policies, a g;~nce of incredulity. Satisfied belonged to the febrile war-time Washington. His reputation for a eventually may try to become a financial wizard already. and a that this indeed was so, he cafe-society of the temporary Civil penetrating mind, sound judgment revolutionary or a dictator. In future editor, at .Jeast, of " The explained Servant, Maclean to the secret that Maclean was and quiet industry turned the scale. , Times." Though he enjoyed a England wa attach spiritual values of the permanent. The psycniatnst's reports became alone to c h i 1d h o o d and bout of luxury, he was indifferent a white hope, a "puer aureus" citadel Th·e position of Russia as an ally more encouraging, and by the adolescence, dismissing political to appearances and even hostile of the Service whose attainautumn the decision was taken. On actions of a subversive nature as to his own. Unlike Donald, he ments and responsibilities were had made things easier for Com- November after a particularly youthful escapades. But in fact concealed his sexual diffidence by well beyond his years. Unlike munists, who at first were able to heavy night,6, Donald went back to i;erve their own and. their adopted such behaviour in the young is over-confidence. Burgess he was without vanity. I country wlthout a conflict. the Foreign Office al? head of the often revealing because it exWhat was common to both Bur- think American Division (a lei::s the simplest distinction presses the true meaning of the gess and Maclean at this time was between them is that if you had Waverers returned to their allegi- onerous than it soundsposition and which ance and those who had never relationship with the father in their instability; both were able no social duties), and he its most critical phase. and ambitious young men of high given Maclean a letter, he would wavered were suddenly respected. involved posted it. Burgess would Burgess now had a friend, a foreign bought a house near Westerham Guy Burgess lost his father at an intelligence and good connections have probably have forgotten it or for his wife and children, to which diplomat, whom he considered the early age, and his mother ( to who were somehow parodies of whom he is devoted) remarried; what they set out to be. Nobody opened it and then returned tn tell most interesting man he had ever he hoped to return almost every met and with whom he carried on evening. avoiding the temptations Maclean is the child of distin- could take them quite seriously; you what you should have said. Burgess and a great friend or his a verbal crusade in favour of Com- of the city. guished Liberal parents; his they were two characters in a late father, who was then President Russian novel, Laurel and Hardy would sometimes stay .with a munism. each taking a different [To be of tb Board of Education, died engaged to play Talleyrand and talented and beautiful woman. a line with the potential convert, one when e was nineteen. the younger Pitt. Burgess, incident- novelist who, in those days, rough. one smooth. We may distinguish a certain Burgess was oorn in 1911, ally, was a great reader of fiction; resembled an irreducible bastion of 1 1 1 Maclean in 1913. The one reached Cambridge by way of Eton and Trinity, the other, two years later, by Gresham's School and Trinity Hall. They knew each other At Cambridge and were both members of the left-wing circle there. But there is no evidence of that oppressive parental authority which drives young men to revolt. I T his favourite authors were Mrs. Gaskell and Balzac •and, later on, Mr. E. M. Forster. " Lenin had said somewhere that he had learnt more about France from Balzac's novels t11an trom aa rusiury-ooo~::, put together. Accordingly aalzac was the greatest writer of all times:· (Koestler.) Donald was seldom heard to talk polit1cs. Guy never seemed to stop. He was the type of bumptious Marxist who saw himself as SaintJust, who enjoyed making the flesh of his bourgeois listeners creep by his picture of the justice 'which history would mete out to them. Grubby, intemperate and promiscuous. he loved to moralise over his friends and satirise their smug class· unconscious behaviour, so reckless of the reckoning in store. But when bedtime came, very late, and it was the moment to" put the analyses away, the moi·d Prepos,. terous " dying on his lips, he would imply a dispensation under which this one house at least, this family, these guests. might be spared the worst consequences, thanks brilliant, to the protection of their hunger-marching friend whose position would bP <;() <'nmmanding .n tlle ltappy workers' Utopi·a. 1 It was t11e time when Anyssjnia mattered, before the Russian purges had taken place and the especial bitterness of Communist controversy had arisen. There were very few ex-Communists, and the party's claim to represent the extreme left-wing was not disputed. unlike all other political parties, T I £.1t 1 I 1 B I . - T J �_____ ....,....,.,..,,..,......,,___________________________ ...________________ ~--oo:;oc~u7i-m;e;,nrtt-;;dl/Jis~c/~o;;;se~dT:u-;;;n~dke,r the Access io lnfo~~otion Act Document divulgue en vertu de Jo Loi sur /'acces a /'information I THE SUNDAY TIMES. SEPTEMBER 28. 1952 ,, THE MISSING by Cyril Last week Mr. Connolly depicted the early lives of Guy Burgees and Donald Maclean, In 1935 Maclean passed into the Foreign Office, where his reputation soon mounted. Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the Foreign Office in 1944, and was in • the Far-Eastern Departme~t in 1948. DIPL.OMATS-II Connolly disappearance have been put f?rward that it is best to deal with a few of them like chess-openings. Let us first take one based on the theory of a voluntary escape. thought he had said MacArthur, to Mrs. Maclean as " Ronald Then he had confided in a 1. NON-POLITICAL: The two disand as; ed what he had to do Styles." Burgess had engaged the friend that at last he would be appeared on an alcoholic fugue, with it. car by telephone at about two able to settle down to his great to wander about like Verlaine a~d " Senator . McCarthy," said Bur- o'clock and then gone round, paid task, the addition of a final volume Rimbaud and to start a new life Lady Gwendolen Cecil's biogess. " Terrible atmosphere. All the deposit, and undergone a brief to , graphy of the Tory Prime Minister, together. This fits in Donald's characthese purges." driving test. At 5.30 he had Lord Salisbury, which he thought ter. He is saidwith to have disappeared He seemed very well and almost received a long telephone call at the best biography in English. once from a party for a few days jaunty, obviously pleased to be his flat. On June 7, as the hue and cry in Switzerland and been found livAfter a quiet and rather back even if he went around saying began in the Press, three telegrams In 1944 Maclean was quietly in the next village. he was convinced that America had sober dinner Donald and " Ronald " arrived : one from Guy Burgess ing Again, he once remarked to a posted to Washington as act• Donald to his mother in which he said friend gone mad and was determined on walked in the garden. that he wished he coulrl ing First Secretary, and on war. then said that they had to he was embarking on a long start a new life as a docker in thP his return four years later go to see a friend who lived During the winter Donald Mediterl'anean holiday; and two East _End, but that ration boo~~ was appointed Coun~ellor in Maclean had made a great effort nearby and that he might have to from Maclean, to his mother and identity cards now made it to fit into his new existence as stay away for the night. He and his wiie. To Lady Maclean impossible. Cairo. But in Cairo came Burgess also had a a commdter. Mrs. Maclean was promised that he would rettu'Il on he sent a brief message which reputation for disappearing, but a breakdown. On November the morrow and took only his brief- he signed with a childhood there would be much less reason expecting another child, and 6, 1950, after six months' Donald conscientiously refused to case with him when he left. name to his wife he wrote : .. Had for him to give up the ki~d of leave, he went back to the go to cocktail parties in order not to to !~ave unexpectedly, terribly existence to which he was addicted. Foreign Office as head of miss his evening train to Kent. By sorry. Am quite well now. Don't Neither could have lasting attracMidnight Arrival at May, however, he seemed to be the American Division. worry darling. I love you. •Please tion for the other, for• the fo~ce more about London of an evening, don't ~top loving me. Donald." All which united them would also dnve Southampton and it would be interesting if we three sound plausible but somehow them apart, and the wanderers NE day towards the end of could discover if there was any HE pair got into the hired car unreal, unless they were meant to would certainly have been heard of 1950 Donald Maclean sudden increase in these outings and drove to Southampton just be delivered at least a week before. again, for where they were m comafter the return of Guy Burgess. in time to reach the cross-Channel invited me to luncheon Having acquired a little more pany incidents would be bound t_o On one occasion in April, after vessel Fa,laise, which left at mid- background. let. us examine some arise; and the element of antiat his club and talked at length about the war in Korea. His some feint attacks, he knocked night on a special week-end cruise nf the theories With which we social aggression in such a flight down one of his greatest friends to Saint Malo and back by the began. It will be noticed even now would have caused them to leave argument was that what for taking the side of Whittaker Channel Islands, returning early on how very few facts we have. We some kind of stateme, mattered most in the world Chambers in the Hiss case. Monday morning. " What about suspect that Burgess and Maclean was people. The Koreans were Chambers, according to Donald, the car? " yelled a port garage were Communists at Cambridge, was a doubleA Twitch upo!} the people, but in the stage which we do not know even if they the war had reached both sides faced exhibitionThread ist too revolting ever met after had entirely forgotten this, and to be defended THIS IS THE CONCLUDING instalment of Mr. Cambridge. Both were exploiting them for their 2. (a) THEORIES WHICH IMPLY A by anyone. w e r e neurotic FORCED " A twitch upon the own prestige. It was essential Donald's drink- [ Connolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy p e r s o n alities thread.'' MOVE. The argument is that ing followed an to stop the war at all costs and with schizoand Maclean were both established Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members get them established as people phrenic charac- Burgess Communist agents, Maclean (or routine. Th e t e r i s t i c s. In both) again. was growing indiscreet and charming and of the Foreign Office Staff who vanished on May recent posts both unreliable, This was not the orthodox Com- amiable self was and that they were had behaved so recalled before munist view, according to which gradually 1 e ft one (or both) could 26, 1951. Their crucial last day in Englandrecklessly that give away others only the North Koreans were behind, and the who were more they had to be " people " and the South Koreans hand secret and more impor_tant; that which Maclean's birthday-is closely examined. I ______________ .J sent home, both (as Burgess maintained) had really patted his friend L were immediately imprisoned drank too much they started the war. Maclean went on on the or liquidated and may have got r,o back and then became to suggest that all colonial posses- became a flail. A change would attendant. Burgess cried : " Back violent and abusive, both might farther than an uncertain address sions in the Far East were morally come into his voice like the on Paris. If they had refused to go, Monday." • be described as abnormal, both in untenable, and when I pleaded that roll of drums for the cabaret. they would have been exposed to allegedly made confessions (many He had booked the two-berth we should be allowed to keep Hong- It took the form of an outthe British and brought disgrace kong and Malaya for their dollar- burst of indignation, often directed cabin at Victoria on the Wednesday years apart) of being Communist on their families. Even so, it is earning capacities he said that that against himself, in which the in his own name, and on that day agents, and both were notorious doubtful if experienced diplomats was precisely the reason why we embittered idealist would aban- had invited a young American, among their colleagues for their aged 38 and 40 would ~ign should give them up. as only then don all compromise and castigate whom he introduced to various anti-British arguments and were their own death-warrants withagainst authoritarianism could we prove ourselves in earnest all forms of humbug and pretence. people as " Miller " and whom he bitter out a murmur and depart without and lay the basis of future good As the last train left for Sevenoaks had met on the Queen Mary, and imperialism. Both had risen a farewell. when returning from Washington, fast under wartime conditions and relations. from faraway Charing Cross he to accompany him. (b) They both <or Maclean alone) But Burgess had yet maintained an underwould wave a large hand, in some let him down at tJ:ie last given information to the moment. graduate-like informality' in their had bar, ,to his companions. "Well, ~n~Russians at some time, perhaps Back at the Foreign seems to have had the idea appearance and habits and in the on how, you're all right. And you am Burgess one occasion only, and this was of a long holiday m France in his general bed-sitting room casualness pr'eying on Donald's conscience. all right." The elected smiled hap- mind, Office that was unconnected ot' their way ot' life. Both had two If the information was given in pily, but doubt was spreading like a with thebutweek-end jaunt. For this E talked for a little about how frown on Caligula. "Wait-I'm not Friday evening he had an impor- enemies. adolescence and alcohol, Washington, it might have been he felt at being back at work sure. Perhaps you aren't all right. tant dinner engagement which he and when they vanished each was valuable, and the leak would thought by his friends to have led have taken a long time to trace. and " Sir Donald " again, and he After all, you said this and this. never cancelled. the other astray. Burgess might have had wind in told me how fond he was of his col- In fact, you're very wrong. You At Saint Malo, where the boat Washington of this investigation leagues, how secure and womb-like won't do at all. (Bi//). And as for arrived at 10 a.m., the two stayed and even got himself sent home the Foreign Office seemed, and how you-you're the worst of the lot, on board, breakfasting and drinkAssociation that was through his erratic behaviour in well he had been treated. I men- but I suppose I must forgive you.'' ing beer till the others had left. order to warn Maclean on his tioned that I had at one time been <Bash.) Kept Secret Then at eleven they. too, went return. Burgess might perhaps intended for the Diplomatic Serashore, leaving behind Burgess·s at one time have been a kind vice and that . I had always Unexpected Visit from two suitcases. At the station, which HEY had everything in common, of private commissar to Maclean. regarded it since with some of the the Paris express had just left in fact, except each other; they After his carefree luncheon. then. wistfulness which he felt for literaMaclean (they would have had plenty ot were like two similar triangles sud- on that last Friday, Maclean was ture. We left rather late and he merged on the steps into a little AFTER a dinner-party on May 15 time to catch it) they took a taxi denly superimposed. When Donald somehow tipped off that exposure to Rennes, the junction some fifty was imminent. At 5.30 he telepin-striped shoal of hurrying six of us came back to my miles away. They did not speak met this liberator of irresponsibili- phones to his contact Burgess who officials, who welcomed him ties, when Don Quixote found his on the way, They gave no tip to house : it was divided into two, and says "Leave it all to me.'' I affectionatel.y. Sancho Panza, there was bound to the driver on the fare of 4,500 One evening at the end of that Donald occasionally spent the francs and they arrived at Rennes be a combustion. I winter a friend came round for a night in the other flat. Past mid- station , in time to catch the Then how w.11,s their association The Making of a drink. He said that he was in a night there was a battering on the express again. They were not difficulty : he had been up very late door and I let him in, sober-drunk, noticed on the train, which kept secret? I think myself that :Myth with Donald the night before, and the first time I had seen him in reached Paris, via Le Mans, they must have rene'X,ed the CamDonald had said to him, " What this legendary condition. He began between five and six. From that bridge friendship in t?l'e summer of HIS theory bristles with difficul1950, during Maclean's convalewould you do if I told you I was to wander round the room, blinking moment they have vanished. ties, but it does at least explain at the guests as he divided the a Communist agent?" scence, and that Burgess 'Yas part the sudden departure. And yet. like sheep from the goats, and then of what Maclean called his " ash- all who knew him, I am convinced " I don't know.'' went out to lie down to sleep in the Preparations for a can life," of which he was ashamed that Donald was not an active "Well, wouldn't you report me?., hall, stretched ottt on the stone and trying to cure himself. Hence Communist. He had a morbid in" I don't know. Who to? " floor under his overcoat like some Journeyr the secrecy: Were they Communist clination to suicide, and he would "Well, I am. Go on, report me.'' figure from a shelter sketch-book. HEN Burgess had booked the agents? Surely the first duty of a say that only his love for his chilHis friend had woken up with The departing guests had to make tickets on the Wednesday he secret agent is to escape detection, dren kept him from it. This love their way over him, and I noticed a confused feeling that something said the other name for the cabin express conventional views and was the one emotion which he felt that, although in apparent coma, unpleasant lay before him. It was without ambivalence, and he would would raise his long stiff leg like would probably be Miller; and on rise in his career. The more Com- not have taken any drastic step an absurd situation, for it was he Thursday night he seemed to be in munism they talked the less likely a drawbridge when· one of the impossible to be sure that Donald goats was trying to pass. I put him an agitated state "looking for the they were to be agents. And Bur- unless he had been convinced that was serious. My friend knew him to bed in his absent friend's flat friend who was going with him." gess talked a great deal. it was for the best as far as their happiness was concerned. so well that he could not believe it and gave him an Alka-Seltzer He seems to have spent much of was true. The whole incident breakfast Perhaps Burgess and Maclean Friday with Miller, fetching him in the morning. seemed preposterous in the light of Recklessness or are at last integrated. But, as the Green Park Hotel in the On May 25, the day when from day. Maclean said, what matters most morning and lunching with him. Burgess and Maclean left England, At Deception? is people, and that is what I two o'clock he rings up from I arranged to greet some friends in makes his case essentially tra~ic. club for the hired car. visits Burgess Recalled from Schmidt's before lunching down his Guy Burgess always enjoyed OULD this have been recklessgarage with Miller, parks the the street at the Etoile. We met in the ness or a subtle double bluff? being himself, and for a while car near his New Bond Street flat, Washington the road. Donald was with them, Both are just possible. Maclean, he lived his own dream, a realislooking rather creased and yellow, and goes shopping, buying a white N August, 1950, Guy Burgess had casual but diffident, We all stood mackintosh (he had no mackin- however, in the fifteen years in tic example of the " new type been posted to the Washington on the pavement. I said to him, tosh) a fibre suitcase and a good which I had come across him, of diplomat " who is always deEmbassy as Second Secretary; he "You're Cyril Connolly, aren't you? many nylon shirts which did not remained always devoted to the manded in wartime. But -Donald nonconformist but essentially non- Maclean, were it not for his lack had last visited Washington in -I'm Sir Donald Maclean"; this fit him. political little group of writers a~d of balance and emotional security, 1942. By the early spring of 1951 reference to our conversation at his At 5.25 he left Miller at his painters whom he had known m had the qualities of a great public things were not going so well for club was intended to efface our last hotel, saying " See you a~ 7.30.·• London and Paris. They were his servant. Yet with all his admirahim. The telegrams which he meeting. He seemed calm and He then went back to his flat. home. tion for people, he betrayed those drafted were often rejected as genial, and went off gaily to con- received the telephone call, and Nor did Burgess ever appear at who loved him, humiliated those being biased, there seemed tinue the - luncheon with his packed into two suitcas~s an?_ a nothing for him to do, he was friends, who were to rejoin me for brief-case four suits, his shuts, all calculating. " Guy would help who trusted him, and discredited not popular with his colleagues, coffee, blue jeans, socks. handkerc~iefs, anybody in distress. He would make those who thought like him .... But a split-second decision and carry once again we are condemning he was drinking heavily again, and his gaudy collection of tiesAt luncheon, they told me when and on one day, February 28, he they came back, he had been mel- an extensive wardrobe for two it out no matter what the conse- them unheard. Meanwhile a myth is slowly was stopped three times for speed- low and confidential; he had nights at sea. At seven he had a quences. He would certainly not do transfiguring them. At first they ing which led to an official com- talked about himself, about how last drink at his club. Later that ,anything to injure his country." Like most people who feel they were seen in Montmartre and plaint. Then he gave a lift to a much better he felt, how he didn't evening the American rang up the young man and let him take the have to visit his psycho-analyst so flat to know why he had not been have been starved of love, Burgess Montparnasse, •in Brussels and and Maclean desire~ to raise the Bayonne, on the high pass to wheel. There was an accident, and it often, and how he was determined fetched. temperature around Andorra, in a bar in Cannes and, turned out that the young man to take a hold on himself lest he Maclean's dav was apparently emotional had no driving licence. Burgess got into any trouble which might quite inactive. Burgess is the agent, them to something higher than with brimming glasses, in a gardenpleaded diplomatic immunity. At bring disgrace upon his children. Maclean the patient, and there is in the world outside, and found '1 restaurant of Prague. This year they about the same time an English nothing to show that Donal? in- drink a consolation. If we believe That day was his birthday. The visitor to the Embassy reported luncheon was his treat, and the tended going anywhere until he that emotional maladjustment was heard of playing ch 00 0172 the key to their personalities, it is Lubianka prison and him for anti-British talk. He was week after he was getting some wa.~ driven off from his house by recalled from Washington as compassionate leave, for his wife Burgess. His birthday luncheon hard to see how they coul_dpossess import-export business in Prag~e; "11PnPrJ:1.llv nni:mit h , " 0 T f I ------------7 W T T W C I �Last week depicted the early Cuy Blll"gcss and Maclean. In 1935 Maclean pa~sed into the Foreii:n Officl', whl're his reputation soon mounted. Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the Foreign Office in 1944, and was in \ the Far-Eastern Department in 1948. yr1 a few of them like chess-openings. Let us first take one based on the thought he had said MacArthur, to Mrs. Maclean as " Ronald Then he had confided in a theory of a voluntary escape. 1. NON-POLITICAL: The two dis- ' and asked what he had to do Styles." Burgess had engaged the friend that at last he would be appeared on an alcoholic fugue, with it. car by telephone at about two able to settle down to h!s great to wander about like Verlaine and "Senator McCarthy," said Bur- o'clock and then gone round, paid task, the addition of a final volume Rimbaud and to start a new life gess. " Terrible atmosphere. All the deposit, and undergone a brief to Lady Gwendolen Cecil's bio- together. , graphy of the Tory Prime Minister, these purges." driving test. At 5.30 he had Lord Salisbury, which he thought This fits in with Donald's character. He is said to have disappeared He seemed very well and almost received a long telephone call at the best biography in English. once from a party for a few days jaunty, obviously pleased to be his flat. On June 7, as the hue and cry in Switzerland and been found livback even if he went around saying After a quiet and rather began in the Press, three telegrams In 1944 Maclean was he was convinced that America had sober dinner Donald and " Ronald " arrived : one from Guy Burgess ing quietly in the next village. posted to Washington as actgone mad and was determined on walked in the garden. Donald to his mother in which he said Again, he once remarked to a ing First Secretary, and on war. then said that they had to he was embarking on a long friend that he wished he coulrl new life as a· docker in thP his return four years later During the winter Donald go to see a friend who lived i\foditerranean holiday; and two st.art .aEnd, but that ration books was appointed Counsellor in Maclean had made a great effort nearby and that he might have to from Maclean, to his mother Ea.st identity cards now made it, to fit into his new existence as stay away for the ri.ig·ht. He and his wife. To Lady Maclean and Cairo. But in Cairo came Burgess als'? had a a commdter. Mrs. Maclean was promised that he would return on hfl sent a brief message which impossible. a breakdown. On November reputation for disappearing, but expecting another child, and the morrow and took only his brief- he signed with a childhood there 6, 1950, after six months' would be much less reason Donald conscientiously refused to case with him when he left. name, to his wife he wrote : ••Had for him to give up the kind of leave, he went back to the go to cocktail parties in order not to to leave unexpectedly, terribly existence to which he was addicted. Foreign Office as head of miss his evening train to Kent. By sorry. Am quite well now. Don't Neither could have lasting attracMidnight Arrival at the American Division. May, however, he seemed to be worry, darling. I love you. ·Please tion for the other, for· the force more about London of an evening, don't stop loving me. Donald." All which united t11emwould also dnve Southampton and it would be interesting if we three sound plausible but somehow them apart, and the wanderers : NE day towards the end of could discover if there was any HE pair got into the hired car unreal, unless they were meant to would certainly have been heard of 1950 Donald Maclean sudden increase in these outings and drove to Southampton just be delivered at least a week before. again, for where they were in cominvited me to luncheon after th return of Guy Burgess. in time to reach the cross-Channel Having acquired a little more pany incidents would be bound t_o! at his club and talked at le:µgth on one occasion in April, after vessel Falai.se, which left at mid- hackground, let us examine some arise; and the element of 9?ti· some feint !1.ttacks, he knocked night on a special week-end cruise about the war in Korea. His nf the theories with which we aggression in such a flight • down one of his greatest friends to Saint Ma.lo and back by the began. It will be noticed even now social argument was that what for taking the side of Whittaker Channel Islands, returning early on how very few facts we have. We would have caused them to leave • some ki.nd of stateme, mattered most in the world Chambers in the Hiss case. Monday morning. " What about that Burgess and Maclean was people. The Koreans were Chambers, according to Donald, the car? " yelled a port garage .~uspect were Communists at Cambridge, people, but in the stage which was a doubleA Twitch upo!1 the we do not know the war had reached both sides faced exhibitioneven if they too revolting Thread ever met after had entirely forgotten this, and ist be defended I THIS IS THE CONCLUDING instalment of Mr. Cambridge. Both were exploiting them for their to by anyone. 2. (a) THEORIES WHICH IMPLY A w e r e neurotic FORCED MOVE. " A twitch own prestige. It was essential upon the Donald's drink- [ Connolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy p e r s o n alities thread." The argument is that ! to stop the war at all costs -and ing followed an with schizoestablished Burgess and Maclean were both Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members get them established as people phrenic characroutine. The again. t e r i s t i c s. In Communist agents, Maclean (or charming and of the Foreign Office Staff who vanished on May recent posts both both) was growing indiscreet and This was not the orthodox Com- amiable self was and that they were had behaved so unreliable, munist view, according to which gradually 1 e f t before one (or both) could 26, 1951. Their crucial last day in Englandrecklessly that recalled only the North Koreans were behind, and the they had to be give away others who were more , " people " and the South Koreans hand which Maclean' s birthday-is closely examined. ______________ _JI sent home, both secret and more important; that I (as Burgess maintained) had really patted his friend L were immediately imprisoned . drank too much they started the war. Maclean went on on the back or liquidated and may have got oo and then became farther to suggest that all colonial posses- became a flail. A change would than an uncertain address Burgess cried : " Back violent and abusive, both might sions in the Far East were morally come into his voice like the attendant. be described as abnormal, both in Paris. If they had refused to go, untenable, and when I pleaded that roll of drums for the cabaret. on Monday." , He had booked the two-berth allegedly made confessions (many they would have been exposed to we should be allowed to keep Hong- It took the form of an outBritish and brought disgrace kong and Malaya for their dollar- burst of indignation, often directed cabin at Victoria on the Wednesday years apart) of being Communist the their families. Even so, it is earning capacities he said that that against himself, in which the in his own name, and on that day agents, and both were notorious on doubtful experienced diplomats was precisely the reason why we embittered idealist would aban- had invited a young American, among their colleagues for their aged 38 if and 40 would ~ign should give them up, as only then don all compromise and castigate whom he introduced to various anti-British arguments and were their own death-warrants withagainst authoritarianism could we prove ourselves in earnest all forms of humbug and pretence. people as " Miller " and whom he bitter a murmur and depart without and lay the basis of future good As the last train left for Sevenoaks had met on the Queen Mary, and imperialism. Both had risen out a farewell. relations. from faraway Charing Cross he when returning from Washington, fast under wartime conditions and (b) They both <or Maclean alone> to accompany him. But Burgess had yet maintained an underwould wave a large hand, in some had given information to the let him down at tl:1e last moment. graduate-like informality in their bar, :to his companions. " Well, ~my. Russians at some time, perhaps Back at the Foreign how, you're all right. And you arfl Burgess seems to have had the idea appearance and habits and in the on one occasion only, and this was all right." The elected smiled hap- of a long holiday in France in his general bed-sitting room casualness preying on Donald's conscience. Office pily, but doubt was spreading like a mind, but thai was unconnected of their wav of life. Both had two If the information was given in the week-end jaunt. For this enemies. adolescence and alcohol, Washington, it might have been E talked for a little about how frown on Caligula. "Wait-I'm not with evening he had an impor- and when they vanished each was he felt at being back at work sure. Perhaps you aren't all right. Friday tant dinner engagement which he thought by his friends to have led valuable, and the leak would and " Sir Donald " again, and he After all, you said this and this. never have taken a long time to trace. cancelled. the other astray. told me how fond he was of his col- In fact, you're very wrong. You Burgess might have had wind in At Saint Malo, where the boat leagues, how secure and womb-like won't do at all. (Biff). And as for Washington of this investigation arrived at 10 a.m., the two stayed the Foreign Office seemed, and how you-you're the worst of the lot, even got himself sent home Association that was and well he had been treated. I men- but I suppose I must forgive you." on board, breakfasting and drinkthrough his erratic behaviour in ing beer till the others had left. tioned that I had at one time been (Bash.) order to warn Maclean on his . Then at eleven they, too, went Kept Secret intended for the Diplomatic Serreturn. Burgess might perhaps ashore, leaving behind Burgess·11 vice and that I had always at one time have been a kind Unexpected Visit from two suitcases. At the station, which HEY had everything in common, regarded it since with some of the of private commissar to Maclean. the Paris express had just left in fact, except each other; they After his carefree luncheon. then, wistfulness which he felt for literaMaclean \they would have had plenty ot ture. We left rather late and he were like two similar triangles sud- on that last Friday, Maclean. was merged on the steps lnto a little AFTER a dinner-party on May 15 time to catch it) they took a taxi denly superimposed. When Donald somehow tipped off that exposure to Rennes, the junction some fifty pin-striped shoal of hurrying six of us came back to my miles away. They did not speak met this liberator of irresponsibili- was imminent. At 5.30 he teleofficials, who welcomed him to his contact Burgess who house : it was divided into two, and on the way. They gave no tip to ties, when Don Quixote found his phones affectionatel.y. says " Leave it all to me." I the driver on the fare of 4,500 Sancho Panza, there was bound to Donald occasionally spent the One evening at the end of that be a combustion. francs and they aiTived at Rennes I night in the other flat. Past midwinter a friend came round for a in time to catch the Then how WAlS their association The A1aking of a f drink. He said that he was in a night there was a battering on the station express again. They were not kept secret? I think myself that difficulty : he had been up very late door a~d I let him in, sober-drunk, on the train, which they must have rene)ied the CamMyth with Donald the night before, and the first time I had seen him in noticed reached Paris, via Le Mans, Donald had said to him, " What this legendary condition. He began between five and six. From that bridge friendship in tHe summer of HIS theory bristles with difficulwould you do if I told you I was to wander round the room, blinking moment they have vanished. 1950, during Maclean's convaleties, but it does at least expl<tin at the guests as he divided the a Communist agent?" scence, and that Burgess was part the sudden departure. And yet. like sheep from the goats, and then "I don't know." of what Maclean called his " ash- all who knew him, I am convinced went out to lie down to sleep in the Preparations for a can life," of which he was ashamed that Donald was not an active "Well, wouldn't you report me?" hall, stretched otit on the stone and trying to cure himself. Hence Communist. He had a morbid in" I don't know. Who to? " floor under his overcoat like some Journey' the secrecy'. Were they Communist clination to suicide, and he would "Well, I am. Go on, report me." figure from a shelter sketch-book. HEN Burgess had booked the agents? Surely the first duty of a say that only his love for his chilHis friend had woken up with The departing guests had to make tickets on the Wednesday he secret agent is to escape detection, dren kept him from it. This love their way over him, and I noticed a confused feeling that something said the other name for the cabin express conventional views and was the one emotion which he felt that, although in apparent coma, unpleasant lay before him. It was would probably be Miller; and on rise in his career. The more Com- without ambivalence, and he would an absurd situation, for it was he would raise his loI).gstiff leg like Thursday night he seemed to be in munism they talked the less likely not have taken any drastic step a drawbridge when one of the impossible to be sure that Donald an agitated state " looking for the they were to be agents. And Bur- unless he had been convinced that was serious. My friend knew him goats was trying to pass. I put him friend who was going with him." gess talked a great deal. it was for the best as far as their to bed in his absent friend's flat so well that he could not believe it happiness was concerned. He seems to have spent much of was true. The whole incident and gave him an Alka-Seltzer Friday with Miller, fetching him Perhaps Burgess and Maclean seemed preposterous in the light of ,breakfast in the morning. the Green Park Hotel in the Recklessness or are at last integrated. But, as. On May 25, the day when from day. and lunching with him. Maclean said, what matters most Burgess and Maclean left England, morning Deception? two o'clock he rings up from is people, and that is what arranged to greet some friends in At club for the hired car, visits makes his case essentially tra~ic. Burgess Recalled from ISchmidt's before lunching down his OULD this have been reckless- Guy• Burgess always enjoyed garage with Miller, parks the the street at the Etoile. We met in the ness or a subtle double bluff? being himself, and for a while car near his New Bond Street flat, Washington the road. Donald was with them, and goes shopping, buying a wh!te Both are just possible. Maclean, he lived his own dream, a realis- , looking rather creased and yellow, however, in the fifteen years in tic example of the " new type N August, 1950,Guy Burgess had casual but diffident. We all stood mackitltosh (he had no mackinbeen posted to the Washington on the pavement. I said to him, tosh) a fibre suitcase and a good which I had come across him, of diplomat" who is always deEmbassy as Second Secretary; he "You're Cyril Connolly, aren·t you? many nylon shirts which did not remained always devoted to the manded in wartime. But -Donald nonconformist but essentially non- Maclean, were it not for his lack had last visited Washington in -I'm Sir Donald Maclean"; this fit him. 1942. By the early spring ~f 1951 reference to our conversation at his At 5.25 he left Miller at his political little group of writers and of balance and emotional security, things were not going so well for club was intended to efface our last hotel saying "See you at 7.30." painters whom he had known m had the qualities of a great public London and Paris. They were his servant. Yet with all his admirahim. The telegrams which he meeting. He seemed calm and He then went back to his flat. tion for people, he betrayed those drafted were often rejected as genial, and went off gaily to con- received the telephone call, and home. Nor did Burgess ever appear at who loved him, humiliated those being biased, there seemed tinue the luncheon with his packed into two s~itcas~s an~ a nothing for him to do, he was friends, who were to rejoin me for brief-case four suits, his shirts, all calculating. "Guy would help who trusted him, and discredited not popular with his colleagues, coffee. blue jeans socks, handkerchiefs, anybody in distress. He would make those who thought like him .... But a split-second decision and carry once again we are condemning he was drinking heavily again, and his ga'udy collection of tiesAt luncheon, they told me when and on one day, February 28, he they came back, he had been mel- an extensive wardrobe for two it out no matter what the conse- .them unheard. was stopped three times for speed- low and confidential; he had nights at sea. At seven he had a quences. He would certainly not do Meanwhile a myth is slowly Ing which led to an official com- talked about himself, about how last drink at his club. Later that ,anything to injure his country." transfiguring them. At first they plaint. Then he gave a lift to a Like most people who feel they were seen in Montmartre and better he felt, how he didn't evening the American rang up the have young man and let him take the much been starved of love, Burgess Montparnasse, in Brussels and flat to know why he had not been have to visit his psycho-analyst so wheel. There was an accident, and it often, and how he was determined fetched. and Maclean desire~ to raise the Bayonne, on the high pass to turned out that the young man temperature around Andorra, in a bar in Cannes and, Maclean's day was apparently emotional take a hold on himself lest he had no driving licence. Burgess to quite inactive. Burgess is the agent, them to something higher than with brimming glasses, in a gardengot into any trouble which might pleaded diplomatic immunity. At bring disgrace upon his children. Maclean the patient, and there is in the world outside, and found '1 restaurant of Prague. about the same time an English This year they have been That day was his birthday. The nothing to show that Donald in- drink a consolation. If we believe visitor to the Embassy reported luncheon was his treat, and the tended going anywhere until he that emotional maladjustment was heard of playing chess in the him for anti-British talk. He was week after he was getting some was driven off from his house by the key to their personalities, it is Lubianka prison and running ah recalled from Washington as compassionate leave, for his wife Burgess. His birthday luncheon hard to see how they could possess import-export business in Prague; " generally unsuitable " and arrived would be going to hospital for the lasted fram 12.30 until after 2.30 the control to serve a foreign coun- and Guy Burgess as visiting home in the Queen Mary on May 4. baby; he asked if he could come - champagne and oysters at try coolly and ruthlessly for twenty Browning's villa (" What's become A few days later I ran into him down and visit my friends for some Wheeler's, then some more solid years and yet w_o~kall the ~ime in of Waring? ") north-east of Venice. in the street. He came up with his part of the time. They had be~n food at Schmidt's; he was at work executive capacities for thell" own. And so for many years they will be usual shaggy, snarling-playful very kind to him when he was 111, till 5.30 and he went home by h:s I think that Burgess was a Marx- seen until the mystery is solved, manner and said he was just back and he was now in effect making usual train. But it may be that ist in his mental processes and an if it ever is, haunting the Old from America. the telephone call which Burgess anti-Marxist individualist in his World's pleasure-traps about the them a favourable report. After spending the afternoon in received at 5.30 was some kind of personality. Macleat?,, it m3:y be, season of their disappearance, "Where were you?" had something on his conscience, bringing with them strawberries his office he went off to Charing S O S from Maclean. "Washington." which, however, was a J?articularly and hot weather and escapist During May Burgess had had his Cross and caught his usual train "What was it like?" to Sevenoaks. That evening worries. but he had been offered tender one; possibl:y, above all, he leanings : a portent of the mi die " Absolutely frightful." 000173 Burgess arrived at Donald's house an important job on a newspaper had a fear about his mental summer's spring. "Why?" at Tatsfield-he had driven down and he was going out to dinner to condition. World copyright : 1·ea.,.,,_.,_.,..._.in So •many explanations of their I In a hired car-and was introduced clinch this on the day he vanished. whole or part to "Because of McCarthy." 0 T f I -------------, 1 1 W T T W I C I I �o ment disc osed un e Access to Information Act Document divulgue en vertu de la Loisur /'acces a /'information ,, THE SUND.AY TIMES. ·THE SEPTEl\lBER MISSING HOSE who become o sessed with a puzzle are not very likely to solve it. Here is one about which I have brooded tor a year and would Maclean in 1913. The one reached like to unburden myself. Some- Cambridge by way of Eton anrl the other, two years later, thing of what I have put down Trinity, by Gresham's School and Trinity may cause pain; but that I Hall. They knew each other "t and were both must risk, because where Cambridge people are concerned the truth members of the left-wing circle there. But there is no evidcan never be ascertained with- ence of that oppressive parental out painful things being i::ald, authority which drives young men and because I feel that what I to revolt. put down may lead to somebody remembering the fact or Pre-War Cambridge phrase which will suddenly Marxists bring it all into focus. T 21. 1952 DIPLOMATS by Cyril Connolly the bourgeoisie entirely surrounded by Communists, like the Alcazar of Toledo. One day Burgess's friend came to her shaken and yet impressed. Guy had contiaed to him that ne was not just a member but a secret agent of the Communist Party, and he had then invited him to join in this work. The friend had refused with concern: and tor her part the novelist felt that Burgess's Fascism was suddenly explained : as a secret agent he must have been told to investigate the British Fascists and hoped. to pass as one. Even so, it was impossible to feel If I did not believe (by instinct T was more than ten years since quite certain, for it would be in rather than reason) that the two the end of the first world war, keeping with Burgess's neurotic people about whom I am going to power-drive that he should pretPnd write may well have been victims of and a new generation was growing up which found no outlet in home to be an under-cover man. some unforeseen calamity, the Years afterwards the novelist puzzle would not exist and I should politics for the adventurous or altruistic impulses of the adolewas told that he had spent several have nothing to say. days wrestling with his conscience I have had access to no secrets. scent. Marxism satisfied both the at the time of the Soviet-German rebelliousness of youth and its I have not talked to many of the craving for dogma. pact and had decided to give up people I should like to, I offer no The Cambridge Communists subthe whole business. This mav well solution, only a few suggestions, a have been true. meditation on human complexity stituted a new father or super-ego Here we have to declde whether which leads to murky bypaths but for the old one, and accepted n Burgess visited Germany as a justice and a stricter which, I hope, will show that no new They felt they had secret Communist. a Nazi symone has any right to jump to authority. exposed the weaknesses of Liberalpathiser or as an observer for our unfavourable conclusions ab out own Intelligence Servicesl or-at people of whom they know nothing. ism along with their elders' ignorvarious levels of his oppor unismance of economic affairs. To this generation Communism made an as all three. On one occasion he took some Boy Scouts over to a intellectual appeal, standmg for .A Matter of Choice love, liberty and l;?OCialjustice and rally at Cologne. for a new appr6ach to life ¢nd In January, 1939, he left the or Necessity B.B.C., and in the autumn of 1940 art. Yet it was connected with a he was doing confidential work for HE disappearance, towards the political party, and this party is the War Office. At this time he was end of May last year, of Guy not inclined to relinquish its hold. arrested for being drunk in charge Burgess and Donald Maclean 1s a " The Comintern," says Arthur of a car and acquitted because he mystery which cannot be solved Koestler, " carried on a white-slave was working fourteen hours a day A Breakdown in while so many factors remain traffic whose victims were young idealists flirting had just k d th f un nown, an ere oreonly any I and been in an airCairo explanation can be based on with violence.'' raid. a balance of probabilities. t~~~g~i~ THIS IS THE FIRST instalment of Mr. By January, N 1950 word began to reach us Such solutions fall into two cate- are described in , Z d, , d fG 1941, he was that all was not so well. lt was gories. according as they presup- numerous novels Connolly s persona an intimate stu y o uy said that Donald, whu::;e mgh once more In the pose the disappearance to be a and poems, or in B d D ld 111 l t b Liberal principles had received full B.B.C., and there matter of choice or of necessity. such tracts as Urt!ess an ona two mem ers 1r ac ean, tne A voluntary flight might be poli• M v • he remained for scope in enlightened Washington, so disheartened by the tlcal, as that of Hess to Scotland, Sp~nd~;,; of the Foreign Office staff who vanished towards three years in had been and or of a private and psychological corruption of the European propa- poverty Middle East that he had had some nature,aswhentwoboysrunaway r:r;1ral1~~~ the end of Maylast year. !twill be readwith ganda depart- kind of breakdown. It seems that ments. His posifrom school. They involved • l · by t hose concerne d wit· h t he adopted a theory that sufficient The compelled exit, the forced no betraval of particu ar interest tion became one he could release in one a move, implies escape under duress. the writers' own z· bl •• • ·d l · z that greatly alcohol personality which, though the threat being either of private country, and the I pecu iar pro ems arising in an age o i eo ogica appealed to him, second blackmail or of public exposure; it might simulate the destructive involving him 0 worked only good by helpor again it might be the result of ~ of s1!t'J~~ conflict which is often. projected on the plane of eventually i n element, an imperious recall by a Power 1 h people to acknowledge the truth liaison work with ing about themselves reveal their which regarded one or both of the a t were private personality. A second and concluding highly s e Cr e t latent affinities. and Donald entered o r g a nisations, into the spirit of tb.e ii~~~!p~~~~! fto icrai:e~i~rs. 0 r as th ese_two young article will appear next week investigation until he was able and took as hi« alter ego There remains a possibility menlike? t.he name Maclean Donald was I_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ - - •_J to represent the of that th ey were sen t a broa d on a s a n d y _ haired, " Gordon " from an export gin Foreign Office. secret mission, and another that tall, with great latent physical Communism then offered the con- He helped, for instance, to remove with a tusky wild boar on the label. When night tell his new self took they were lured abroad and then strength, but fat and rather the anti-Russian bias from Poles solation of a religion. kidnapped. for possession. He stampede<:! one v1 During the Spanish War I saw whom we were training There are simply not enough fla bby. Meet·mg h.im, one was much two parties, but 11:ot into more less of Burgess, who had now sabotage. facts to exclude any of these conscious of both amiability and ser:ou.s trouble when. in th,, comA weakness. He did not seem joined the B.B.C. in Bristol. We now see the outline of the pany of a friend, he broke into the explanations, nor can we even pre- a political animal but resembled terrible thing had happened-he ideal personalities of Burgess and first apartment to hand in a block sume that the behaviour of both the clever helpless youth in a had become a Fascist! Still sneer- Maclean. On the unstable foundaMaclean and Burgess is covered by Huxley novel, an outsize Cherubino ing at the bourgeois intellectual, he tions of their adolescence they were of flats and sharpened his tusks on the same explanation. The most 1 t the furniture. vaunted the intensely modern erecting the selves whom they striking fact-the suddenness of n ent on amorous experience but now of the Nazi leaders: his would like to be, the father figures Then on a boating trip on the their disappearance-suggests a too shy and clumsy to succeed. The realism admiration for economic ruthless- of their day-dreamsb the finished Nile, with some twenty people in panic, but even this suddenness shadow of an august atmosphere and the short cut to power Imagos. With his lack hat and the party, he seized a rifle from an could have been counterfeited. The lay heavy on him, and he sought ness swung him to the opposite umbrella, his brief-case under his ottlc1oussentrv and began to 1mperu spontaneous thoroughness of the refuge. on the ~ore impetuous and .. had extreme. claimed to have arm-O.H.M.S.-Donald is " Sir the safety of "those nearest him by search would seem to indicate that emancipated frmges of Bloomsbury attended a He Nuremberg Rally. . and Chelsea. Such a young man Donald Maclean," the Tyrrell, the swinging it wildly. A Secretary at the Fore1g~ Office _firstaccepted the , ran be set right by the devotion of Maclean, however, a strong sup- Eyre Crowe of the second world the Embas~y intervened, and in the theory of k1dnappmg, and _sowould an intelligent, older woman, and it porter of the Spanish Republic, war, the last great Liberal diplo- scuffle received a broken leg. The . tend to. e:;cclude the not~on of a was a misfortune that Donald was seemed suddenly to have acquired matist, terror of the unjust and two men returned home on sick secret m1s~1on(unless self-impose~). just not quite able to inspire such a backbone, morallv and physicall:v. hope of the weak. " If 1t wasn't leave, while Mrs. Maclean who was while a high French police official tt hm . h · 1 has maintained that it would have an a ac . ent, c armmg, _cever His appearance greatly improved, for you, Sir Donald," snarled on the boating trip, went to Spain been impossible for the two visitors and affect10nate, he was still too his fat disappeared, and he had Ribbentrop, "we might still have for a rest with her two sons. become a personage. In 1935 he won the peace." What was the nature of Donald's to France to elude the dra~-net unformed. had passed into the Foreign It was not just overBurgess, of course, is a power outburst? spread for them without the • proGuy Burgess, though he preferred Office, and from 1938 he was at work, but over-strain; the effort ot behind the scenes : a brigadier in tection " of a political organisation. the_ cpmpany of the able to the mufti, Brigadier BrilliRnt. D.S.O .. being " Sir Donald," the wholP There are, however, countries art1St1c, also moved on the edge of the Embassy in Paris. I remember som~ arguments F.R.S., the famous historian, with paraphernalia of " O.H.M.S.," had where it might be possible for two tJ:?.esame worlq. He was of a very able-bodied men to obtain work and 91ffer~nt ph:ys1que, tall - medtum with him. I had felt· a great sym- boyish grin and cold blue eyes, been too much for him and he had pathy for the Spanish Anarchists, s e con d e d now for special reverted to his adolescence, or to still escape notice, but they are not m . ~eight, with blue eyes, an inWith long stride and his ideal of Paris days, the free and so easily reached from the station qu!s1t1ve nose, &ensual m_outh, curly with whom he was extremely duties. atRennes, in Brittany, whence they h_a1r and aler~ fox-terrier exprE;S- severe. as with all the other non- hunched shoulders, untidy, chain- solitary young sculptor working all vanished on May 26, 1951. One s1on. He was rmmensely energetic, Communist factions, and I detected smoking, he talks-walks and talks night in his attic. The return of must also consider the possibility a great talker, r_eader, boaster, in his reproaches the familiar -while the whole devilish simpli- the repressed is familiar to psychothat they are dead. walker, who s_wamlike an otter and priggish tone of the Marxist, the city of his plan unfolds and the analysts. and there was also now a As one o1 the many who knew clrll,nk, not like a feckless under- resonance of the " Father Found.·• men from M.I. this and M.I. that, brief return to his early sexual both, and as one of the few who grad~ate, as Donald w~s apt to do, At the same time he could switch S.I.S. and. S.O.E., listen dumb- ambivalence. "Gordon" had given " My God, Brilliant, I " Sir Donald " the sack. The , spoke with Maclean on his last dav bu~ llke some ~abela1S1an bottle- to a magisterial defence of Cham- founded. in England, I should like to sw1per whose thirst was unquench- berlain's foreign policy and seemed believe you're right-it could be enraged junior partner would no able to hold the two self-righteous done." The Brigadier looked at his longer put up with him. approach the subject from a dif- able. points of view simultaneously. watch and a chilled blue eye fixed ferent standpoint. Let us put aside His evenings in Paris were the chief of the Secret Service. the facts of which we know so little Contrasts in Their "At this moment, sir," and there Six -Months' Leave for usually spent in the Left-Bank and consider the personalities cafes with a little group of hard- was pack-ice in his voice, " my involved. In so far as one indiCharacters Maclean working painters and sculptors. chaps are doing it." vidual can ever understand During the daytime he, too, another, we may find that we have THE physical type to which ACK in London he had six worked very hard, and it was now grounds to eliminate some of these Burgess's War-Time Donald Maclean, despite his that he began to build up his months' leave to get well and to explanations and so narrow down make up his mind about the future. the value of X, as we shall name puppy fat, belonged was that of reputation in the Foreign Office, Life He was still d1inking and was now the factor responsible for their the elongated, schizophrenic, sad- and we must remember that it grew very high indeed. undergoing treatment from a joint disappearance. countenanced Don Q u i x o t eN 1940 Donald Maclean had marwoman psycho-analyst. Hi!' apoearDonald had many admirable introverted and diffident, an Scottish qualities. He was responried in Paris an American girl ance was frightening : he had lost Looking Back to idealist and a dreamer given to sible and painstaking, logical and as clelightful as her name. Melinda his serenity, his hands would Marling, who bore him two sons. tremble, his face was usually a sudden outbursts of aggression; resolute in argument, judicious She brought Childhood sweetness and livid yellow and he looked as if he whereas Guy Burgess, despite and even-tempered and, I should understanding both into his life. Guy had spent the night sitting up in imagine, an admirable son and WO facts distinguish Burgess his intelligence. was a round-faced. Though he remained brother. He had grown much Burgess. however, as the war went a tunnel. and Maclean from the so-called g o 1d e n - pated Sancho Panza, handsomer, and his tall figure, his on, led a more troubled existence. detached and amlable as ever, it "atomic" spies-first, they are extrovert, A new friend whom he had made was clear that he was miserable manic, grave long face and noble brow, his not known to have committed cynical and exhibitionist, avidly dark suit, black hat and umbrella was taken prisoner-of-war, and it and in a very bad way. .In conany crime, second, . they are curious, yetargumentative, vague were severe and distinguished. One was noted that he had become versation a kind of shutter would members of the governing class, of and incompetent.sometimes With all his felt now that he was a rock, that if much more insulting and destruc- fall as if he had returned to the high bureaucracy, the "they" toughness, moreover, Guy Burgess one were in trouble he would help tive when he drank-he seemed to some basic and incommunicable who rule the " we " to whom intensely to be liked and and not just let one down with a hit on the unforgivable thing to anxiety. refugees like Fuchs and Pontecorvo wanted say to everyone. His mental Some of his friends urged him to a good conver- reprimand. and humble figures like Nunn May was indeed likeable, sadism, which sometimes lecl to his resign, pointing out that since he and an enthusiastic belong. If traitors they be, then sationalist getting knocked out, did not d • n1 e an d d"JSagreed with builder-up of his friends. Beneath they are traitors to themselves. exclude great kindness to those in the islikpolicy ed th e he "terribilita" of his Marxist \Vhite Hope of the could not go back l3ut. as m all cases where people the trouble. Above all. J:le disliked without 1t all happening again. analyses one divined the affectionseem to act against their own ate anyone to get out of. his clutches; Others assured him that he would moral cowardice of the public Foreign Office political interests, we must go schoolboy. he was an affect1ona~e bully soon be well enough to return to back to childhood. capable of acts of generosity, like a . work, which would prove the best An old Etonlan. an " Apostle " Politics begin in the nursery; no REMEMBER, at the beginning magnate of the Dark Ages. thing for himself and his family. who had taken a First in History one is born patriotic or unpatriotic, of the war, mentioning to one . At the ~ame time he was drink- 'J'.he Foreign Office had to weigh ·right-wing or left-wing, and it is at Cambridge, and was tempted to of our most famous diplomatic mg and hving extravagantly. He his years of hard work against the child whose craving for love become a don, he yet seemed an fond of lu?-ury and display, of the outburst, which they put down is unsatisfied, whose desire for adventurer with a first-class mind, representatives that Donald was a was smtes at Clandges and fast cars to , the strain of long hours and power is thwarted, or whose innate who would always be in the know, friend of mine and receiving a which he drove abominably. He forrncil "ocial rluties ---....d sense of justice is warped, that a framer of secret policies, a glance of incredulity. Satisfied belonged febrile war-time Washington. His rep 000174 a eventually may try to become a flhancial wizard already. ancl a that this indeed was so, he cafe-societyto ofthe the temporary Civil penetrating mind, sou~ ___ .-;nt future editor, at least, of ". The revolutionary or a qictator. In that Maclean was Servant, Maclean to the secret and quiet industry turne e sea e. Times." Though he enj<? ed a explained rm nen '' e ch1atnst's reoorts became I T ;!ii his favourite authors were Mrs. Gaskell and Balzac and, later on, Mr. E.·M. Forster." Lenin had said somewhere that he had learnt more about France from Balzac's novels Lhan trom au mswry-ooolrn put together. Accordingly Balzac was the greatest writer of all times." <Koestler.) Donald was i;eldom heard to talk po11t1cs,Guy never seemed to stop. He was the type of bumptious Marxist who saw himself as SaintJust, who enjoyed making the flesh of his bourgeois listeners creep by his picture of the justice which history would mete out to them. Grubby, intemperate and promiscuous. he loved to moralise over his friends and satirise their smug class - unconscious behaviour, so reckless of the reckoning in store. But when bedtime came, very late, and it was the moment to put the analyses away, the word "Preposterous " dying on his lips, he would imply a dispensation under which this one house at least, this family, these guests, might be spared the worst consequences. thanks to the protection of their brilliant hunger-marching friend whose position would bl' so rommanding in the happy workers' Utopia. It was the time when Aoyssinia mattered, before the Russian purges had taken place and the especial bitterness of Communist controversy had arisen. There were very few ex-Commumsts, and the party's claim to represent the extreme left-wing was not disputed. Unlike all other political parties. pattern in Burgess's rel,i,ti"rtsahins. In romantic friendship he liked to dommate, but ms mtellectua1 admiration was usually kept for those who were older than himself. l'here were also cromes with whom he preferred to drink and argue. In June, 1944, he had been transferred to the News Department of the Foreign Office, in 1946 to the office of the Minister of State. Mr. Hector McNeil, in 1947 to B branch \Foreign Office), and in 1948 to the Far-Eastern Department of the Foreign Office. In 1944, the year that Guy Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the r·ore1gn Ulbce uona.ld Maclean was posted to Washington as actmg First Secretary. <Jn m.:s return in 1948 he gave a dinner-part~ to his friends. It was a delightful evening. he had become a good host, his cl'\arm was based not on •vanity but on sincerity, and he would discuss foreign affairs as a student, not an expert. He enjoyed the magazine that I then edited, which was a blue rag to Burgess, a weak injection of culture into a society alreadv dead On his return from Washington he was appointed Coup.sellor in <Ja.i.ro. ·• 1n DonaJa Ma.c1ea.11.l see a courage and a love of justice; I see a soul that could not be deflected from the straight course; and I see in it that deep affection for his friends which he always manifested." The wor<i!': of Rtanlev Baldwin about the father seemed to be coming true of the son. A Counsellor at tl;l.irty-five,he seemect in a fair way to equal his parent's distinction. r -- ---- --------------- I ~.1½,~i f !~ e\lli B I T I �re is one about which I have brooded 1or a year and would like to unburden myself. Something of what I have put down may cause pain; but that I must risk, because where people are concerned the truth can never be ascertained without painful things being zald, and because I feel that what I put down may lead to somebody remembering the fact or phrase which will suddenly bring it all into focus. If I did not believe (by Instinct rather than reason) that the two people about whom I am going to write may well have been victims of some unforeseen calamity, the puzzle would not exist and I should have nothing to say. I have had access to no secrets. I have not talked to m of the people I should like to, offer no solution. only a few suggestions, a meditation on human complexity which leads to murky bypaths but which, I hope, will show that no one has any right to jump to unfavourable conclusions about people of whom they know nothing. A Matter of Choice or Necessity HE disappearance, towards the end of May last year, of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean is a mystery which cannot be solved while so many factors remain unknown, and therefore any explanation can be based only on a balance of probabilities. Such solutions fall into two categories, according as they presuppose the disappearance to be a matter of choice or of necessity. A voluntary flight might be polltical, as that of Hess to Scotland, or of a private and psychological nature, as when two boys run away from school. The compelled exit, the forced move, implies escape under duress, the threat being either of private blackmail or of public exposure; or again it might be the result of an imperious recall by a Power which regarded one or both of the two diplomats as in danger or as having become too dangerous. There remains a possibility that they were sent abroad on a secret mission, and another that they were lured abroad and then kidnapped. There are stmply not enough facts to exclude any of these explanations, nor can we even presume that the behaviour of both Maclean and Burgess is covered by the same explanation. The most striking fact-the suddenness of their disappearance-suggests a panic, but even this suddenness could have been counterfeited. The spontaneous thoroughness of the search would seem to indicate that .the Foreign Office first accepted the theory of kidnapping, and so would tend to exclude the notion of a secret mission (unless self-imposed), while a high French police official has maintained that it would have been impossible for the two visitors to France to elude the dra~-net spread Ior them without the ' protection " of a political organisation. There are, however, countries where it might be possible for two able-bodied men to obtain work and still escape notice, but they are not so easily reached from the station atRennes, in Brittany, whence they vanished on May 26, 1951. One must also consider the possibility that they are dead. As one o1 the many who knew both. and as one of the few who spoke with Maclean on his last dav in England, I should like to approach the subject from a different standpoint. Let us put aside the facts of which we know so little and consider the personalitie5 involved. In so far as one individual can ever understand another, we ma:y find that we have grounds to eliminate some of these explanations and so narrow down the value of X, as we shall name the factor responsible for their joint disappearance. T Looking Back to Childhood WO facts distinguish Burgess T and Maclean from the so-called "atomic" spies-first. they are not known to have committed any crime, second, they are members of the governing cla.'is, of the high bureaucracy, the "they" who rule the " we " to whom refugees like Fuchs and Pontecorvo and humble figures like Nunn May belong. If traitors thev be, then they are traitors to themselves. But. as m all cases where people seem to act against their own political interests, we must go back to childhood. Politics begin in the nursery; no one is born patriotic or unpatriotic, right-wing or left-win~, and it is the child whose cravmg for love is unsatisfied, whose desire for power is thwarted, or whose innate sense of justice is warped, that eventually may try to become a revolutionary or a dictator. In England w~ attach spiritual values alone to ch iIdh ood and adolescence, dismissing political actions of a subversive nature as youthful escapades. But in fact such behaviour in the young is often revealing because it expresses the true meaning of. the elationship with the father in its most critical phase. Guy Burgess lost his father at an arly age, and his mother (to horn he is devoted) remarried· Maclean is the child of distinguished Liberal parents; his father. who wa.'i then President f the Board of Education, died hen he was nineteen. Burgess wai; oorn in 1911, Maclean in 1913. The one reached Cambridge by way of Eton anri Trinity, the other, two years later, by Gresham's School and Trinity Hall. They knew each other At. Cambridge and were both members of the left-wing circle there. But there 1s no evidence of that oppressive parental authority which drives young men to revolt. ocument isc osed irO. f: o'nce{f. I /i\'iW1l IOfk Document divulgue en ~1'1ttln>1,Mare'adfitltI~~~lf. his favourite authors were Mrs. the bourgeoisie entirely surrounded Gaskell and Balzac and, later on, by Communists, like the Alcazar of · l ad id Toledo. "M r. E • M. F ors t er. " Lemn 1 sa One day Burgess's friend came to somewhere that he had learnt more her shaken and yet impressed. about France from Balzac's novels Guy had confided 00 him tnat ne th an tram au rustury-oooi-i; put was not just a member but a secret together. Accordingly Balzac was agent of the Communist Party, and the greatest writer of an times.·• he had then invited him to join in <Koestler.> this work. The friend had refused 0tnc~.ldGwuyo.sr{5eevledrom eehmeaerddtotosttalopk. with ~oncern: and for her part th,e 5 PO 1 ~ novelist felt that Burgess s He was the type of bumptious Fascism was suddenly explained: Pre-War Cambridge Marxist who saw himself as Saint- as a secret _agent_ he must ~ve Just. who enjoyed making the flesh been_told to mvest1gate the British Marxists of his bourgeois listeners creep by Fascists and hoped,_to pa.'iSas one. his picture of the justice which Even so, it was impossible to feel IT riias m~re lr~n Jent years since gJ:~iy, ~~~~~~~~ie o~~iopr~h~~ iuite certa!n, for it W/>Uldbe in e en o et. rs world "'.ar, cuous, he loved to morali'se over hi·s eeplngd .with Burgess s neurotic an d a new genera 10n was growmg power- rive that he should pretend up which found no outlet in home friends and satirise their smug to be an under-cover man. politics for the adventurous or class - unconscious behaviour, so Years afterwards the novel!st altruistic impulses of the adole- reckless of the reckoning in store. was told th?,t he had spent several scent. Marxism satisfied both the But when bedtime came, very late, days wrestlmg with his conscience rebelliousness of youth and its and it was the moment to put the at the time of the Soviet-German craving for dogma. analyses away, the word .. Prepos- pact and had decided to give up The Camb1idge Communists sub- terous " dying on his lips, he would the whole business. This may well stituted a new father or super-ego im_ply a dispem;ation under which haw• been true this one house at least. this family. • • for the_ otl~ one, and accepted a 'liese '"tests. mi·gllt be spared the Here we _h;we to decide whether new Jus ice and a stricter O b' Burgess v1s1ted Germany as a authority. They felt they had worst consequences. thanks brilliant, to the secret. Communist • a Nazi. symprotection of their f~o:rin~h~i'f~ar;e1~<;~~d~;.s:i;.,i~~;i: hunger-marching friend whose g;~hli~le?lig!~c~n g~~rcr:: (~~ o~r ance of economic affairs. To this PO.'lition would bP so commanding various levels of his opportuni~-;;; . ~ he generation Communism mane an l·n the happy workei·s' utop 1·a. as all three. on one occasion intellectual appeal. standmg for It was the tlme when APyssinta took some Boy Scouts over to a love, liberty and ~ocial justice and mattered, before the Russian rally at Cologne. for a new apprd'ach to llfe ,.and purges had taken place and the In January, 1939, he left the art. Yet it was connected with a especial bitterness of Communist B.B.C., an~ m the autumn of 1940 political party, and this P,arty is controversy had arisen. There were he was domg confidential work for not inclined to relinquish its hold. very few ex-Communists. and the the War Office._At this t~e he was " The Comintern," says Arthur party's claim to represent the arrested for bemg drunk m charge Koestler, "carried on a white-slave extreme left-wing was not disouted. of a car and acquitted because he traffic whose victims were young Unlike all other political parties, was working fourteen hours a day idealists flirtinl! and 'had just with violence.~ I - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I be~n in an airThe feelings o! FIRST raid such young men HIS IS THE instalment of Mr. By January, are described in 1941, he . was numerous novels Connolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy and poems. or in one~ more m the such tracts as Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members B.B.C., and there M r. S t e p h e n . . . he remained for Spender's "Forof the Foreign Office staff who vanished towards three years in R for l'here were also cronies with wt1om he preferred to drink and argue. In June, 1944, he had been transferred to the News Department of the Foreign Office, in 1946 to the office of the Minister of State. Mr. Hector McNeil, in 1947 to B branch (Foreign Office), and in 1948 to the Far-Eastern Department of the Foreign Office. In 1944, the year that Guy Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the J:<ore1gnu1hce uonald Maclean was posted to Washington as actmg First Secretary. on m» return in 1948 he gave a dinner-parh to his friends. It was a delightful evening, he had become a good host, his charm was based not on •vanity -1but on sincerity, and he would discuss foreign affairs as a student, not an expert. He enjoyed the magazine that I then edited, which wa.5 a blue rag to Burgess, a weak inJection of culture into a society alrradv dean • f was h'mg to n On 1us return rom he was appointed Counsellor in uain.>. " in DonaJa .Ma.cieai1 J. see a • I see a courage and a love of justice; soul th that st could not be de91cted from e raight course; an see in it thatwhich deep heaffection his friends always for manifested." The words of Rtanln Baldwin about the father seemed to be c.oming true of the son. A counsellor at to.irty-five, ne seemeo in a fair way to equal his parent's distinction. A Breakdown in T Cairo N 1950 word began to reach us I that all was not so well. It was said that Donald, whu.se mgn Liberal principles had received full scope in enlightened Washington, had been so disheartened by the poverty and corruption of the 0 Middle East that he had had some r:r;1ral1~~~ the end of May last year. It will be read with :~~~~ean!e~ kind of breakdown. It seems that he adopted a theory that sufficient J~eybetr~~~~lv~1 particular interest by those concerned with the gi;itgec!1~/g~~ alcohol could release in one a the writers' own l' bl . • • l • l t hat greatly second personality which, though country, and the I pecu zar pro ems arzszng in an age o z eo ogzca appealed to him, it might simulate the destructive 0 element, worked only good by help~ of conflict which is often projected on the plane of h \~ ing people to acknowledge the truth th th le al. private personality A second and concludina liaison work Wi themselves and reveal their W h a t w ere • o highly s e c r et about latent affinities. Donald entered these two young article will appear next tveek. organisations, men like? Donald until he was able into the spirit of tl\e investigation Maclean w as L _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _J to represent the and took as hi.« alter ego t.t1ename s a n d y - haired, Foreign Office. of " Gordon " from an export gin tall, with great latent physical Communism then offered the con- He helped, for Instance, to remove with a tusky wild boar on the label. When night iell his new self took strength, but fat and rather solation of a religion. the anti-Russian bias from Poles flabby. Meeting him, one was During the Spanish War I saw whom we were training for poosess1on. He stampedea one 01 two parties, but got into more conscious of both amiability and much less of Burgess, who had now sabotage. weakness. He did not seem joined the B.B.C. in Bristol. A We now see the outline o! the serioui, trouble when. in t.hP coma political animal but resembled terrible thing had happened-he ideal personalities of Burgess and pany of a friend, he broke into the the clever helpless youth in a had become a Fascist! Still sneer- Maclean. On the unstable founda- first apartment to hand in a block Huxley novel, an outsize Cherubino ing at the bourgeois intellectual, he tions of their adolescence they were of flats and sharpened his tusks on intent on amorous experience but now vaunted the intensely modern erecting the selves whom they the furniture. Then on a boating trip on the too shy and clumsy to succeed. The realism of the Naii leaders: his would like to be, the father fi~ures shadow of an august atmosphere admiration for economic ruthless- of their day-dreams, the fimshed Nile, with some twenty people in lay heavy on him, and he sought ness and the short cut to power Imagos. With his black hat and the party, he seized a rifle from an refuge on the more impetuous and had swung him to the opposite umbrella, his brief-case under his ottic1oussentry and began to 1mperu emancipated fringes of Bloomsbury extreme. He claimed to have arm-0.H.M.S.-Donald is "Sir the safety of those nearest him by and Chelsea. Such a young man attended a Nuremberg Rally Donald Maclean," the Tyrrell, the swinging it wildly. A Secretary at ran be set right by the devotion of Maclean. however, a strong sup- Eyre Crowe of the second world the Embassy intervened, and in the an intelligent, older woman, and it porter of the Spanish Republic, war, the last great Liberal diplo- scuffle received a broken leg. The was a misfortune that Donald was seemed suddenly to have acquired matist, terror of the unjust and two men returned home on sick just not quite able to inspire such a backbone, morallv and physically. hope of the weak. "If 1t wasn't leave, while Mrs. Maclean who wRs an attachment; charming, clever His appearance greatly improved, for you, Sir Donald," snarled an the boating trip, went to Spain and affectionate, he was still too his fat disappeared, and he had Ribbentrop, "we might still have for a rest with her two sons. unformed. becpme a personage. In 1935 he won the peace." What was the nature of Donald's Guy Burgess, though he preferred had passed into the Foreign Burgess. of course, is a rower outburst? It was not just overthe company of the able to the Office. and from 1938 he was at behind the scenes : a brigadier in work, but over-strain; the effort of artistic, also moved on the edge o! the Embassy in Paris. mufti, Brigadier Brilliant. D.S.O .. being " Sir Donald." the wholP the same world. He was of a very I remember some arguments F.R.S., the famous historian, with paraphernalia of " O.H.M.S.,'' had different physique, tall - medtum with him. I had felt- a great sym- boyish grin and cold blue eyes, been too much for him and he had in height, with blue eyes, an in- pathy for the Spanish Anarchists, s e con d e d now for special reverted to his adolescence, or to quisitive nose, sensual mouth, curly with whom he was extremely duties. With long stride and his ideal of Paris days, the free and hair and alert fox-terrier expres- severe. as with all the other non- hunched shoulders, untidy, chain- solitary young sculptor working all sion. He was immensely energetic, Communist factions, and I detected smoking, he talks--walks and talks night in his attic. The return of a great talker, reader, boaster, in his reproaches the familiar -while the whole devilish simpli- the repressed is familiar to psychowalker, who swam like an otter and priggish tone of the Marxist, the city of his plan unfolds and the analysts, and there was also now a dri:i,nk, not like a feckless under- resonance of the " Father Found.'' men from M.I. this and M.I. that. brief return to his early sexual graduate, as Donald was apt to do, At the same time he could switch S.I.S. and. S.O.E., listen dumb- ambivalence. " Gordon " had given but like some Rabelaisian bottle- to a magisterial defence of Cham- founded. " My God, Brilliant, I " Sir Donald " the sack. The swiper whose thirst was unquench- berlain's foreign policy and seemed believe you're right-it could be enraged junior partner would no able. able to hold the two self-righteous done." The Brigadier looked at his longer put up with him. points of view simultaneously. watch and a chilled blue eye fixed His evenings in Paris were the chief of the Secret ·service. Contrasts in Their usually spent in the Left-Bank "At this moment, sir," and there Six Months' Leave for cafes with a little group of hard- was pack-ice in his voice, " my Characters Maclean working painters and sculptors. chaps are doing it." During the daytime he. too, THE physical type to which worked very hard, and it was now ACK in London he had six Burgess's War-Time Donald Maclean, despite his that he began to build up his months' leave to get well and to make up his mind about the future. puppy fat, belonged was that of reputation in the Foreign Office, Life and we must remember that it He was still drinking and was now the elongated, schizophrenic, sad- grew very high indeed. undergoing treatment from a couptenanced Don Q u i x o t eN 1940 Donald Maclean had mar- woman psycho-analyst. Hli: appearDonald had many admirable introverted and diffident, an Scottish qualities. He was responried in Paris an American girl ance was frightening : he had lost idealist and a dreamer given to sible and painstaking, logical and as delightful as her name. Melinda his serenity, his hands would Marling, who bore him two sons. tremble. his face was usually a resolute in argument, judicious sudden outbursts of aggression; She brought both sweetness and livid yellow and he looked as if he whereas Guy Burgess, despite and even-tempered and, I should understanding into his life. Guy had spent the night sitting up in an admirable son and his intelligence. was a round-faced. imagine, brother. He had grown much Burgess, however, as the war went a tunnel. Thou~h he remained g o I den - pated Sancho Panza, handsomer, and his tall figure, his on, led a more troubled existence. detached and amiable as ever, it extrovert. exhibitionist. manic, grave long face and noble brow, his A new friend whom he had made was clear that he was miserable cynical and argumentative, avidly dark suit, black hat and umbrella was taken prisoner-of-war, and it and in a very bad way. ,In concurious, yet sometimes vague were severe and distinguished. One was noted that he had become versation a kmd of shutter would and incompetent. With all his felt now that he was a rock, that if much more insulting and destruc- fall as if he had returned to toughness, moreover, Guy Burgess one were in trouble he would help tive when he drank-he seemed to some basic and incommunicable wanted intensely to be liked and and not just let one down with a hit on the unforgivable thing to anxiety. say to everyone. His mental Some of his friends urged him to was indeed likeable, a good conver- reprimand. sadism, which sometimes led to his resi~n. pointing out that since he sationalist and an enthusiastic getting knocked out, did not ct· 11k d th l"f d di d ith builder-up of his friends. Beneath exclude great kindness to those in the is polic:y e e heI ecould an sagree w the " terribilita " of his Marxist White Hope of the not go back trouble. Above all. J:ie disliked without t all happening again. analyses one divined the affection1 anyone to get out of.his clutrhes; Others assured him that he would ate moral cowardice of the public Foreign Office he was an affectionate ~ully soon be well enough to return to schoolboy. capable of acts of g~neros1ty, like a . wqrk, whic~ would prove the best An old Etontan, "an " Apostle " at the beginning magnate of the ~ark Ages. thmg for _himself and his family. who had taken a First in History I REMEMBER, of the war, mentioning to one At the same time he was drink- The F0re1gn Office had to wei~h at Cambridge, and was tem,pted to He his years of hard work against become a don, he yet seemed an of our most famous diplomatic ing and living extravagantly. adventurer with a first-class mind, representatives that Donald was a w~ fond of lUJ<Uryand display, of the outburst, which they put down who would always be in the know, friend of mine and receiving a sm~es at Clandges and fast cars to .the strain of long hours and he drove abominably. He form~l ~ncial nuties in Cairo and a framer of secret policies. a glance of incredulity. Satisfied which belonged to the febrile war-time Washington. His reputation for a flhancial wizard already. ancl a that this indeed was so, he cafe-society of the temporary Civil penetrating mind, sound judgment future editor, at least, of " The that Maclean was S_ervant. Maclean to the secret and quiet industry turned the scale. Times." Though he enjoyed a explained The psychiatrist's reports became bout of luxury, he was indifferent a white hope, a " puer aureus " citadel of the permanent. The position of Russia as an ally more encouraging, and by the to appearances and even hostile of the Service whose attainto his own. Unlike Donald. he ments and responsibilities were had made things easier for Com- autumn the decision was taken. On concealed his sexual diffidence by munists, who at first were able to November 6, after a particularly well beyond his years. Unlike serve their own and their adopted heavy night, Donald went back to over-confidence. Burgess he was without vanity. I country without a conflict. the Foreign Office as head of the What was common to both Burgess and Maclean at this time was think the simplest distinction Waverers returned to their allegi- American Division (a position leits their instability; both were able between them is that if you had ance and those who had never onerous than it sounds and which and ambitious young men of high given Maclean a letter, he would wavered were suddenly respected. involved no social duties), and he intelligence and good connections have posted it. ·Burgess would Burgess now had a friend, a foreign bought a house near Westerham who were somehow parodies of probably have forgotten it or diplomat. whom he considered the for his wife and children, to which what they set out to be. Nobody opened it and then returned tn tell most interesting man he had ever he hoped to return almost every met and with whom he carried on evening, avoiding the temptations could take them quite seriously; you what you should have said. Burgess and a great friend or his a verbal crusade in favour of Com- of the city. they were two characters in a late T Russian novel. Laurel and Hardv would sometimes stay with a munism. each taking a different [ O be cont 000175 engaged to play Talleyrand and talented and beautiful woman. a line with the potential convert, one the younger Pitt. Burgess. incident- novelist who, in those days, rough. one smooth. World copyriqht: re ii.---~--' in ally, was a great reader of fiction; resembled an irreducible bastion of We may distinguish a certain whole or part orbidden. frt f ·a !~ s~fg~s~ ~~!~\~~fly B I �Documeht divulgue en vertu de lo Loi sur l'occes a !'information /, " 1----,.-~,~--~l_~T~H~E~iS;U;N~~D~A~Y~;T~.I;]l;E~S~,=S=E=~P::T::. ~-El~B~E~R;::2~8~.;1~9;5;2;;;;;;;;;~=~;;;;;~=-----~~1\ ... THE Last week Mr. Connolly deJJicted the early lives of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean. In 1935 Maclean pas~cd into the Foreign Office, where his reputation soon mounted. Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the Foreign Office in 1944, and was in the Far-Eastern Department in 1948. In 1944 Maelean was posted to Washington as acting First Secretary, and on his return four years later was appointed Counsellor in Cairo. But in Cairo came a breakdown. On November 6, 1950, after six months' leave, he went back to the :Foreign Office as head of the American Division. NE day towards the end of 1950 Donald Maclean invited me to luncheon at his club and talked at length His about the war in Korea. argument was that what mattered most in the world was people. The Koreans were people, but in the stage which the war had reached both sides had entirely forgotten this, and were exploiting them for their own prestige. It was essential to stop the war at all costs and get them established as people again. This was not the orthodox Communist view, according to which only the North Koreans were ' people " and the South Koreans (as Burgess maintained) had really started the war. Maclean went on to suggest that all colonial possessions in the Far East were morally untenable, and when I pleaded that we should be allowed to keep Hongkong and Malaya for their dollarearning capacities he said that that was precisely the reason why we should give them up, as only then could we prove ourselves in earnest and lay the basis of future good ; relations. 0 Back at the Foreign Office E talked for a little about how he felt at being back at work and " Sir Donald " again, and he told me how fond he was of his colleagues, how secure and womb-like the Foreign Office seemed, and how well he had been treated. I mentioned that I had at one time been intended for the Diplomatic Service and that I had always regarded it since with some of the wistfulness which he felt for literature. We left rather late and he merged on the steps into a little pin-striped shoal of hurrymg officials, who welcomed him affectionately. One evening at the end of that winter a friend came round for a drink. He said that he was in a difficulty : he had been up very late with Donald the night before, and Donald had said to him, " What would you do if I told you I was a Communist agent?" "I don't know." "Well, wouldn't you report me?" " I don't know. Who to? " "Well, I am. Go on, report me." His friend had woken up with a confused feeling that something unpleasant lay before him. It was an absurd situation, for it was impossible to be sure that Donald was serious. My friend knew him so well that he could not believe it was true. The whole incident seemed preposterous in the light of day. W Burgess Recalled Washington from August, 1950, Guy Burgess had INbeen posted to ihe Washington Embassy as Secona Secretary; he had last visited Washington Jn 1942. By the early spring of 1951 things were not going so well for him. The telegrams which he drafted were often rejected as being biased, there seemed nothing for him to do, he was not popular with his colleagues, he was drinking heavily again, and on one day, February 28, he was stopped three times for speeding, which led to an official complaint. Then he gave a 11ft to a young man and let him take the wheel. There was an accident, and it turned out that the young man had no driving licence. Burgess pleaded diplomatic immunity. At about the same time an English visitor to the Embassy reported MISSING by Cyril 7 DIPLOMATS-II Connolly disappearance have been put forward that it is best to deal with a few of them like chess-openings. Let us first take one based on the theory of a voluntary escape. 1. NON-POLITICAL.The two dis- thought he had said MacArthur, to Mrs. Maclean as " Ronald Then he had confided in a and asked what he had to do Styles." Burgess had engaged the friend that at last he would be appeared on an alcoholic fugue, with it. car by telephone at about two able to settle down to his great to wander about like Ver«;iine and "Senator McCarthy," said Bur- o'clock and then gone round, paid task, the addition of a final volume Rimbaud and to start a'iinew life All the deposit, and undergone a brief to Lady Gwendolen Cecil's bio- together. gess. " Terrible atmosphere. This fits in with Dena.Id's characthese purges." driving test. At 5.30 he had graphy of the Tory Prime Minister, ter. He is said to have disappeared He seemed very well and almost received a long telephone call at Lord Salisbury, which he thought the best biography in English. once from a party for a few days jaunty, obviously pleased to be his flat. On June 7, as ·the hue and cry in Switzerland and been found hvback even if he went around saying After a quiet and -rather began in the Press, three telegrams ing quietly in the next village. he was convinced that America had sober dinner Donald and " Ronald " arrived: one from Guy Burgess Again, he once remarked to a gone mad and was determined on walked in the garden. Donald to his mother in which he said friend that he wishl"d he coulr1 war. then said that they had to he was embarking on a long st.art a new life as a docker in thP During the winter Donald go to see a friend who lived Mediterranean holiday: and two East End, but that ration boo~,; Maclean had made a great effort nearby and that he might have to from Maclea.1. to his mother . and identity cards now made it. He and his wife. To ~Lady Maclean impossible. to fit into his new existence as stay away for the night. Burgess also had a a commuter. Mrs. Maclean was promised that he would return on hP. sent a brief message which reputation for disappearmg. but the morrow and took only his briefexpecting another child, and he signed with a childhood there would be much less reason Donald conscientiously refused to case with him when he left. name. to his wife he wrote: ••Had for him to give up the kind of go to cocktail parties in order not to to leave unexpectedly, terribly existence to which he was addicted. miss his evening train to Kent. By sorry. Am quite well now. Don't Neither could have lasting attracMidnight Arrival at May, however, he seemed to be worry darling. I love you. Please tion for the other, for the fo~CP. more about London of an evening, don't ~top loving me. Donald." All which united them would also dnVI" Southampton and it would be interesting if we three sound plausible but somehow them apart, and the wanderers could discover if there was any rfHE pair got into the hired car unreal, unless they were meant to would certainly have been hel!-rd of sudden increase in these outings and drove to Southampton just be delivered at least a week before. again, for where they were m comafter the return of Guy Burgess. in time to reach the cross-Channel Having acquired a little more pany incidents would be bound t_o On one occasion in April, after vessel Falaise, which left at mid- hackground, let us examine some arise; and the element of antisome feint attacks. he knocked night on a special week-end cruise nf the theories with which we social aggression in such a flight down one of his greatest friends to Saint Malo and back by the began. It will be noticed even now would have caused them to leave for taking the side of Whittaker Channel Islands. retul'ning early on how very few facts we have. We some kind of statement. Chambers in the Hiss case. Monday morning. " What about suspect that Burg~ss and Ma~lean Chambers, according to Donald. the car? " yelled a port garage were CommunistJi. at Cambridge, was a doubleA Twitch upon the we do not know faced exhibitioneven if they ist too revolting Thread ever met after to be defended THIS IS THE CONCLUDING instalment of Mr. Cambridge. Both 2. (a) THEORIES WHICH IMPLY A by anyone. w e r e neurotic FORCED MOVE. " A twitch upon the Donald's drink- I Connolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy p e rs on alities thread." The argument is that ing followed an I "with schizoand Maclean were both established Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members phrenic charac- Burgess Communist agents, Maclean (or routine. The teristics. In both) charming and was growing indiscreet and of the Foreign Office Staff who vanished on May recent posts both amiable self was unreliable, and that they were so had behaved gradually Ief t 26, 1951. Their crucial last day in Englandrecklessly that recalled before one (or both) could behind, and the away others who were more they had to be give hand which secret and more important; that Maclean's birthday-is closely examined. I sent home, both patted his friend L ______________ _J ct'rank too much they were immediately imprisoned on the back and then became or liquidated and may have got PO became a flail. A change would attendant. Burgess cried: " Back violent and abusive, both might farther than an uncertain address come into his voice like the on Monday." • be described as abnormal, both in Paris. If they had refused to go, roll of drums for the cabaret. allegedly made confessions (many they would have been exposed to He had booked the two-berth It took the form of an outat Victoria on the Wednesday years apart) of being Communist the British and brought disgrace burst of indignation, often directed cabin on their families. Even so, it is against himself, in which the in his own name, and on that day agents, and both were notorious doubtful if experienced diplomats among their colleagues for their aged 38 and 40 would sign embittered idealist would aban- had invited a young American, whom he introduced to various anti-British arguments and were don all compromise and castigate withtheir own death-warrants against authoritarianism all forms of humbug and pretence. people as " Miller " and whom he bitter out a murmur and depart without had met on the Queen Mary, and imperialism. Both had risen As the last train left for Sevenoaks fast under wartime conditions and a farewell. from faraway Charing Cross he when returning from Washington, (b) They both (or Maclean alon'c!) to accompany him. But Burgess had yet maintained an underwould wave a large hand, in some had given fnfonnation to the let him down at the last moment. graduate-like informality in their bar, to his companions. " Well, anyRussians at some time, perhaps Burgess seems to have had the idea appearance and habits and in the how, you're all right. And you am on one occasion only, and this was all right." The elected smiled hap- of a long holiday m France ih his general bed-sitting room casualness preying on Donald's conscience. thao was unconnected mind, but of their way of life. Both had two pily, but doubt was spreading like a If the information was given m frown on Caligula. "Wait-I'm not with the week-end jaunt. For thi'l enemies, adolescence and alcohol, Washington, it might have been Friday evening he had an impor- and when they vanished each was valuable, and the leak would sure. Perhaps you aren't all right. tant engagement which he thought by his friends to have led have taken a long time to trace. After all, you said this and this. never dinner cancelled. the other astray. In fact, you're very wrong. You Burgess might have had wind in At Saint Malo, where the boat won't do at all. (Bit!). And as for Washington of this investigation you-you're the worst of the lot, arrived at 10 a.m., the two stayed and even got himself sent home Association that was through but I suppose I must forgive you." on board, breakfasting and drinkhis erratic behaviour in ing beer till the others had left. (Bash.) order to warn Maclean on his Kept Secret Then at eleven they, too, went return. Burgess might perhaps ashore, leaving behind Burgess·i; at one time have been a kind Unexpected Visit from two suitcases. At the station, which HEY had everything in common, of private commissar to Maclean. the Paris express had just left in fact, except each other; they After his carefree luncheon. then, Maclean ( they would have had plenty of were like two similar triangles sud- on that last Friday, Maclean was time to catch it) they took a taxi denly superimposed. When Donald somehow tipped off that exposure AFTER a dinner-party on May 15 to Rennes, the junction some fift.y was imminent. At 5.30 he telesix of us came back to my miles away. They did not speak met this liberator of irresponsibili- phones to his contact Burgess who house: it was divided into two, and on the way. They gave no tip to ties, when Don Quixote found his says "Leave it all to me." Donald occasionally spent the the driver on the fare of 4,500 Sancho Panza, there was bound to night in the other flat. Past mid- francs and they arrived at Rennes be a combustion. The l\faking of a Then how was their association night there was a battering on the station in time to catoh the express again. They were not kept secret? I think myself that door and I let him in, sober-drunk, on the train, which they must have renewed the CamMyth the first time I had seen him in noticed Paris, via Le Mans, bridge friendship in the summer of this legendary condition. He began reached HIS theory bristles with difficulbetween five and six. From that to wander round the room, blinking 1950, during Maclean's convaleties, but it does at least explain at the guests as he divided the moment they have vanished. scence, and that Burgess was part the sudden departure. And yet, like sheep from the goats, and then of what Maclean called his " ash- all who knew him, I am convinced went out to lie down to sleep in the Preparations for a that Donald was not an active can life," of which he was ashamed hall, stretched out on the stone and trying to cure himself. Hence Communist. He had a morbid infloor under his overcoat like some Journey the secrecy. Were they Communist clination to suicide, and he would figure from a shelter sketch-book. HEN Burgess had booked the agents? Surely the first duty of a say that only his love for his chilThe departing guests had to make tickets on the Wednesday he secret agent is to escape detection, dren kept him from it. This love their way over him, and I noticed views and was the one emotion which he felt that, although in apparent coma, said the other name for the cabin express conventional ambivalence, and he would he would raise his long stiff leg like would probably be Miller; and on rise in his career. The more Com- without a drawbridge when one of the Thursday night he seemed to be in munism they talked the less likely not have taken any drastic step goats was trying to pass. I put him an agitated state " looking for the they were to be agents. And Bur- unless he had been convinced that it was for the best as far as their to bed in his absent friend's flat friend who was going with him." gess talked a great deal. happiness was concerned. • and gave him an Alka-Seltzer He seems to have spent much of Friday with Miller, fetching him Perhaps Burgess and Maclean breakfast in the morning. Recklessness or Green Park Hotel in the are at last integrated. But, as On May 25, the day when from the and lunching with him. Maclean said, what matters most Burgess and Maclean left England, morning Deception? is people, and that is what At two o'clock he rings up from I arranged to greet some friends in his for the hired car, visits makes his case essentially tragic. Schmidt's before lunching down the club OULD this have been reckless- Guy Burgess garage with Miller, parks the always enjoyed the street at the Etoile. We met in ness or a subtle double bluff? being himself, and for a while near his New Bond Street flat, the road. Donald was with them, car Both are just possible. Maclean, he lived his own dream, a realislooking rather creased and yellow, and goes shopping, buying a wh~te however, in the fifteen years in tic example of the " new type casual but diffident. We all stood mackintosh (he had no mackm- whi.::h I had come across him, of diplomat " who is always deon the pavement. I said to him, tosh) a fibre suitcase and a good remained always devoted to the manded in wartime. But Donald "You're Cyril Connolly, aren't you? many nylon shirts which did not nonconformist but essentially non- Maclean, were it not for his lack -I'm Sir Donald Maclean"; this fit him. political little group of writers and of balance and emotional security, At 5.25 he left Miller at his reference to our conversation at his painters whom he had known in, had the qualities of a great public club was intended to efface our last hotel saying "See you at 7.30." London and Paris. They were his servant. Yet with all his admirameeting. He Sifmed calm and He then went back to his flat, home. tion for people, he betrayed those genial, and went off gaily to con- received the telephone call, and did Burgess ever appear at who loved him, humiliated those tinue the luncheon with his packed into two suitcases an~ a allNor calcul1J,ting. "9-uy would help who trusted him, and discredited friends, who were to rejoin me for brief-case four smts, his shuts, anybody in distress. He would make those who thought like him .... But blue jeans. socks, h~ndkerc~1efs, coffee. a split-second decision and carry once again we are condemning 1 At luncheon. they told me when and his gaudy col ect10n of tiesit out no matter what the conse- them unheard. they came back, he had been mel- an extensive wardrobe for two quences. He would certainly not do Meanwhile a myth is slowly low and confidential; he had nights at sea. At seven he had a anything to injure his country." transfiguring them. At first they talked about himself, about how last drink at his club. Later that Like most people who feel they were seen in Montmartre and evening the American rang up the much better he felt, how he didn't been starved of love, Burgess Montparnasse, in Brussels and have to visit his psycho-analyst so flat to know why he had not been have and Maclean desired to raise the Bayonne, on the high pass to fetched. often, and how he was determined emotional temperature around Andorra, in a bar in Cannes and, Maclean's day was apparently to take a hold on himself lest he 1to something higher than with brimming glasses • got into any trouble which might quite inactive. Burgess is the agen_t, them Maclean the patient, and there is in the world outside, and found •1 restaurant of Prague. 000176 bring disgrace upon his children. This year they L--..,... .... ~n That day was his birthday. The nothing to show that Donald in- drink a consolation. If we believe luncheon was his treat, and the tended going anywhere until he that emotional_ maladjust~ent _was heard of playing chess in the r I -------------, T T W C �or11meat d;..ctc:se~r:tll.: Aeee Document divulgue en vertu de lo Loi sur /'occes a /'information Last week Mr. Connolly depicted the early lives of Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean. In 1935 Maclean passed into the Foreign Office, where his reputation soon mounted. Burgess went from the B.B.C. to the Foreign Office in 1944, and was in the Far-Eastern Department in 1948. by Cyril Connolly disappearance have been put forward that it is best to deal with a few of them like chess-openings. Let us first take one based on the theory of a voluntary escape. Then he had confided in a thought he had said MacArthur, to Mrs. Maclean as "Ronald 1. NON-POLITICAL. The two disand asked what he had to do Styles." Burgess had engaged the friend that at last he would be appeared on an alcoholic fugue. with it. car by telephone at about two able to settle down to his great to wander about like Verlq,ine and '' Senator McCarthy," said Bur- o'clock and then gone round, paid task, the addition of a final volume Rirnbaud and to start a "new life gess. "Terrible atmosphere. All the deposit, and undergone a brief to Lady Gwendolen Cecil's bio- together. graphy of the Tory Prime Minister, This fits in with Denald's characthese purges." driving test. At 5.30 he had Lord Salisbury, which he thought ter. He is said to have disappeared He seemed very well and almost received a long telephone call at the best biography in English. once from a party for a few days jaunty, obviously pleased to be his. flat. On June 7, as •the hue and cry in Switzerland and been found livback even if he went around saying After a quiet and rather began in the Press, three telegrams In 1944 Maclean was in the next village. he was convinced that America had sober dinner Donald and " Ronald " arrived : one from Guy Burgess ing quietly he once remarked to a posted to W ashin_gton as act• gone mad and was determined on walked in the 12'arden. Donald to his mother in which he said Again, that he wished he coulcl ing First Secretary, and on war. then said that they had to he was embarking on a long friend st.art a new life as a docker in thP his return four years later During the winter Donald go to see a friend who lived Mediterranean holiday·; and two East End, but that ration boo~1. was appointed Counsellor in Maclean had made a great effort nearby and that he might have to from Maclea.1, to his mother . and identity cards now made 1t. to fit into his new existence as stay away for the night. He and his wiie. To ~Lady Maclean impossible. Cairo. But in Cairo came Burgess also had a a commuter. Mrs. Maclean was promised that he would return on hP. sent a brief message which reputation for disappearing. but a breakdown. On Novc1uber expecting another child, and the morrow and took only his brief- he signed with a childhood there would be much less reason 6, 1950, after six months' Donald conscientiously refused to case with him when he left. name. to his wife he wrote : ••Had for him to give up the kind 01' leave, he went back to the go to cocktail parties in order not to to leave unexpectedly, terribly existence to which he was addicted. :Foreign Office as head of iss his evening train to Kent. By sorry. Am quite well now. Don't Neither could have lasting attracMidnight Arrival at May, however, he seemed to. be the American Division. worry darling. I love you. Please tion for the other, for the fo~ce more about London of an evenmg, don't ~top loving me. Donald." All which united them would also dnvr Southampton and it would be interesting if we three sound plausible but somehow them apart, and the wanderers NE day towards the end of could discover if there was any HE pair got into the hired car unreal, unless they were meant to would certainly have been he~rd of 1950 Donald Maclean sudden increase in these outings and drove to Southampton just be delivered at least a week before. again, for where they were m comafter the return of Guy Burgess. in time to reach the cross-Channel invited me to luncheon Having acquired a little more pany incidents would be bound t.o . On one occasion in April, after vessel Falaise, which left at mid- hackground, let us examine some arise; and the element of anti- , at his club and talked at length about the war in Korea. His some feint attacks. he knocked night on a special week-end cruise nf the theories with which we social aggression in such a flight down one of his greatest friends to Saint Malo and back by the began. It will be noticed even now would have caused them to leave argument was that what for taking the side of Whittaker Channel Islands, returning early on how very few facts we have. We some kind of statement. mattered most in the world Chambers in the Hiss case. Monday morning. "What about suspect that Burgess and Ma~lean was people. The Koreans were Chambers, according to Donald, the car? " yelled a port garage were Communists. at Cambridge, was a doubleA Twitch upon the people, but in the stage which we do not know faced exhibitioneven if they the war had reached both sides Thread ist too revolting ever met after had entirely forgotten this, and to be defended THIS IS THE CONCLUDING instalment of Mr. Cambridge. Both were exploiting them for their 2. (a) THEORIES WHICH IMPLY A by anyone. w e r e neurotic FORCED MOVE. " A twitch upon the own prestige. It was essential Donald's drinkConnolly' s personal and intimate study of Guy p e r s o n alities thread." The argument is that ing followed an to stop the war at all costs and with schizoBurgess and Maclean were both established Burgess and Donald Maclean, the two members phrenic charac- Communist agents, Maclean get them established as people (or routine. T h e t e r i s t i c s. In again. both) was growing indiscreet and charming and of the Foreign Office Staff who vanished on May recent posts both This was not the orthodox Com- amiable self was and that they were had behaved so unreliable, munist view, according to which gradually recalled before one (or both) could 1 e ft 26, 1951. Their crucial last day in Englandrecklessly that only the North Koreans were behind, and the away others who were more they had to be give "people" and the South Koreans secret and more important; that hand which Maclean's birthday-is closely examined. s~nt home, both (as Burgess maintained) had really patted his friend L ______________ _J drank too much they were immediately imprisoned started the war. Maclean went on on and may have got no the back and then became or liquidated to suggest that all colonial posses- became a flail. A change would than an uncertain address attendant. Burgess cried: "Back violent and abusive, both might farther sions in the Far East were morally come into his voice like the on Monday." • be described as abnormal, both in Paris. If they had refused to go, untenable, and when I pleaded that roll of drums for the cabaret. allegedly made confessions (many they would have been exposed to He had booked the two-berth we should be allowed to keep Hong- It took the form of an outthe British and brought disgrace kong and Malaya for their dollar- burst of indignation, often directed cabin at Victoria on the Wednesday years apart) of being Communist on their families. Even so, it is in his own name, and on that day agents, and both were notorious earning capacities he said that that against himself, in which the if experienced diplomats among their colleagues for their doubtful was precisely the reason why we embittered idealist would aban- had invited a young American, aged 38 and 40 would ~ign whom he introduced to various anti-British arguments and were their should give them up, as only then don all compromise and castigate own death-warrants withas " Miller " and whom he bitter against authoritarianism could we prove ourselves in earnest all forrn:s of humbug and pretence. people out a murmur and depart without had met on the Queen Mary, and imperialism. Both had risen and lay the basis of future good As the last train left for Sevenoaks returning from Washington, fast under wartime conditions and a farewell. relations. from faraway Charing Cross he when (b) They both (or Maclean alon~J to accompany him. But Burgess an underwould wave a large hand, in some let him down at the last moment. had yet maintained given fnformation to the graduate-like informality in their had bar, to his companions. "Well, anyRussians at some time, perhaps Back at the Foreign Burgess seems to have had the idea appearance and habits and in the how, you're all right. And you am of a long holiday m France ih his on one occasion only, and this was general bed-sitting room casualness preying on Donald's conscience. all right." The elected smiled hap- mind, but thao was unconnected Office of their way of life. Both had two If the information was given in pily, but doubt was spreading like a with the week-end jaunt. For this not Friday evening he had an impor- enemies. adolescence and alcohol, Washington, it might have been• E talked for a little about how frown on Caligula. "Wait-I'm and when they vanished each was valuable, and the leak would he felt at being back at work sure. Perhaps you aren't all right. tant dinner engagement which he thought by his friends to have led have taken a long time to trace. and " Sir Donald " again, and he After all, you said this and this. never cancelled. the other astray. Burgess might have had wind in told me how fond he was of his col- In fact, you're very wrong. You At Saint Malo, where the boat Washington of this investigation leagues, how secure and womb-like won't do at all. (Bi//). And as for arrived at 10 a.m., the two stayed and even got himself sent home the worst of the lot, the Foreign Office seemed, and how you-you're Association that was through his erratic behaviour in well he had been treated. I men- but I suppose I must forgive you." on board, breakfasting and drinking beer till the others had left. (Bash.) order to warn Maclean on his tioned that I had at one time been Kept Secret Then at eleven they, too, went return. Burgess might perhaps intended for the Diplomatic Serashore, leaving behind Burgess'1. at one time have been a kind vice and that I had always Visit from two suitcases. At the station, which HEY had everything in common, of private commissar to Maclean. regarded it since with some of the Unexpected the Paris express had just left in fact, except each other; they After his carefree luncheon. then, wistfulness which he felt for literaMaclean (they would have had plenty of were like two similar triangles sud- on that last Friday, Maclean was ture. We left rather late and he time to catch it) they took a taxi merged on the steps into a little FTER a dinner-party on May 15 to Rennes, the junction some fift.y denly superimposed. When Donald somehow tipped off that exposure was imminent. At 5.30 he telepin-striped shoal of hurrying six of us came back to my miles away. They did not speak met this liberator of irresponsibiliofficials, who welcomed hm1 ties, when Don Quixote found his phones to his contact Burgess who on the way. They gave no tip to house : it was divided into two, and says "Leave it all to me." affectionately. Donald occasionally spent the the driver on the fare of 4,500 Sancho Panza, there was bound to One evening at the end of that francs and they arrived at Rennes be a combustion. night in the other flat. Past midwinter a friend came round for a station in time to oatcih the The Making of a Then how was their association drink. He said that he was in a night there was a battering on the express again. They were not kept secret? I think myself that difficulty: he had been up very late door and I let him in, sober-drunk, noticed on the train, which they must have renewed the CamMyth with Donald the night before, and the first time I had seen him in reached Paris, via Le Mans, Donald had said to him, " What this legendary condition. He began between five and six. From that bridge friendship in the summer of HIS theory bristles with difficul1950, during Maclean's convalewould you do if I told you I was to wander round the room, blinking moment they have vanished. ties, but it does at least explain at the guests as he divided the a Communist agent?" scence, and that Burgess was part the sudden departure. And yet, like sheep from the goats, and then of what Maclean called his " ash- all who knew him, I am convinced "I don't know." went out to lie down to sleep in the Preparations for a can life," of which he was ashamed that Donald was not an active "Well, wouldn't you report me?" hall, stretched out on the stone and trying to cure himself. Hence Communist. He had a morbid in"I don't know. Who to?" floor under his overcoat like some Journey clination to suicide, and he would the secrecy. Were they Communist "Well, I am. Go on, report me." figure from a shelter sketch-book. HEN Burgess had booked the agents? Surely the first duty of a say that only his love for his chilHis friend had woken up with The departing guests had to make tickets on the Wednesday he secret agent is to escape detection, dren kept him from it. This love a confused feeling that something their way over him, and I noticed said the other name for the cabin express conventional views and was the one emotion which he felt unpleasant lay before him. It was that, although in apparent coma, would probably be Miller; and on rise in his career. The more Com- without ambivalence, and he would an absurd situation, for it was he would raise his long stiff leg like Thursday night he seemed to be in munism they talked the less likely not have taken any drastic step impossible to be sure that Donald a drnwbridge when one of the an agitated state " looking for the they were to be agents. And Bur- unless he had been convinced that it was for the best as far as their was serious. My friend knew him goats was trying to pass. I put him friend who was going with him." gess talked a great deal. happiness was concerned. • so well that he could not believe it to bed in his absent friend's flat He seems to have spent much of and gave him an Alka-Seltzer was true. The whole incident Perhaps Burgess and Maclean Friday with Miller. fetching him breakfast in the morning. seemed preposterous in the light of Recklessness or are at last integrated. But, as from the Green Park Hotel in the On May 25, the day when day. Maclean said, what matters most and lunching with him. Burgess and Maclean left England, morning Deception? is people, and that is what At two o'clock he rings up from I arranged to greet some friends in makes his case essentially tragic. club for the hired car, visits Burgess Recalled from Schmidt's before lunching down his OULD this have been reckless- Guy Burgess always enjoyed garage with Miller, parks the the street at the Etoile. We met in the ness or a subtle double bluff? being himself, and for a while car near his New Bond Street flat, Washington the road. Donald was with them, and he lived his own dream, a realisgoes shopping, buying a wh~te Both are just possible. Maclean, looking rather creased and yellow, N August, 1950, Guy Burgess had casual but diffident. We all stood mackintosh (he had no mackm- however, in the fifteen years in tic example of the " new type which I had come across him, of diplomat" who is always debeen posted to the Washington on the pavement. I said to him, tosh) a fibre su1tcase and a good Embassy as Second Secretary; he "You're Cyril Connolly, aren't you? many nylon shirts which did not remained always devoted to the manded in wartime. But Donald nonconformist but essentially non- Maclean, were it not for his lack had last visited Washington in -I'm Sir Donald Maclean"; this fit him. political little group of writers and of balance and emotional security, 1942. By the early spring of 1951 reference to our conversation at his At 5.25 he left Miller at his painters whom he had known in, had the qualities of a great public things were not going so well for club was intended to efface our last hotel saying "See you at 7.30." London and Paris. They were his servant. Yet with all his admirahim. The telegrams which he meeting. He then went back to his flat, He s~med calm and tion for people, he betrayed those drafted were often rejected as genial, and went off gaily to con- received the telephone call, and home. Nor did Burgess ever appear at who loved him, humiliated those being biased, there seemed tinue packed into two suitcases an9a the luncheon with his nothing for him to do, he was friends, who were to rejoin me for brief-case four suits, his sh!l'ts, all calcul~ting. "Guy would help who trusted him, and discredited anybody in distress. He would make those who thought like him .... But not popular with his colleagu~s, coffee. blue jeans, socks, handkercI:iefs, a split-second decision and carry once again we are condemning he was drinking heavily agam, and his gaudy collection of tiesAt luncheon, they told me when and on one day, February 28, he they came back, he had been mel- an extensive wardrobe for two it out no matter what the conse- them unheard. quences. He would certainly not do Meanwhile a myth is slowly was stopped three times for speed- low and confidential; he had nights at sea. At seven he had a transfiguring them. A first they ing, which led to an official com- talked about himself, about how last drink at his club. Later that anything to injure his country." and Like most people who feel they were seen in Montmartre plaint. Then he gave a llft to a much better he felt, how he didn·t evening the American rang up the in Brussels and young man and let him take the have to visit his psycho-analyst so flat to know why he had not been have been starved of love, Burgess Montparnasse, and Maclean desired to raise the Bayonne, on the high pass to wheel. There was an accident, and it often, and how he was determined fetched. emotional temperature around Andorra, in a bar in Cannes and, turned out that the young man to take a hold on himself lest he Maclean's day was apparently had no driving licence. Burgess got into any trouble which might quite inactive. Burgess is the agen.t, them to something higher than with brimming glasses, in a gardenpleaded diplomatic immunity. At bring disgrace upon his children. Maclean the patient, and there is in the world outside, and found •1 restaurant of Prague. drink a consolation. If we believe This year they have been about the same time an English That day was his birthday. The nothing to show that Donald in- that emotional maladjustment was heard of playing chess in the visitor to the Embassy reported luncheon was his treat. and the tended going anywhere until he him for anti-British talk. He was week after he was getting some was driven off from his house by the key to their personalities, i! is Lubianka prison and running an recalled from Washington as compassionate leave, for his wife Burgess. His birthday luncheon hard to see how they could possess import-export business in Prague; " generally unsuitable" and arrived would be going to hospital for the lasted from 12.30 until after 2.30 the control to serve a foreign coun- and Guy Burgess as visiting home in the Queen Mary on May 4. baby; he asked if he could come - champagne and oysters at try coolly and ruthlessly for twenty Browning's villa (" Wbat's becbme A few days later I ran into him down and visit my fnends for some Wheeler's then some more solid years and yet w_ork all the time in of Waring? ") north-east of Venice. in the street. He came up with his part of the time. They had be~n food at Schmidt's; he was at work executive capacities for their own. And so for many years they will be I think that Burgess was a Marx- seen until the mystery is solved, usu·a1 shaggy. snarling-playful very kind to him when he was ill, till 5.30 and he went home by his manner and said he was just back and he was now in effect making usual train. But it may be that ist in his mental processes and an if it ever is, haunting the Old individualist in his World's pleasure-traps about the the telephone call which Burgess anti-Marxist from America. them a favourable'report. Maclean, it may be, season of their disappearance, After spending the afternoon in received at 5.30 was some kind of' personality. " Where were you?" had something on his conscience, bringing with them strawberries S O S from Maclean. his office he went off to Charing "Washington." and hot weather and escapist During May Burgess had had his which, however, was a particularly Cross and caught his usual train "What was it like?" to Sevenoaks. That evening worries, but he had been offered tender one; possibly, above all, he 1eanings: a portent of ,the middle " Absolutely frightful." had a fear about his mental summer's spring. 000177 Burgess arrived at Donald's house an important job on a newspaper "Why?" World copyright : re in at Tatsfield-he had driven down and he was going out to dinner to condition. whole or part frirl'lffl1!1!7r-so many explanations of their clinch this on the day he vanished. I in a hi1 ed car-and was introduced "Because of McCarthy." 0 T ---. f I I W T A T W C I � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource CDMB Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CDMB00011 Title A name given to the resource Office of the High Commissioner for Canada, London to USSEA, Status of Missing Foreign Office Officials, MacLean and Burgess, 2 October 1952 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 02-Oct-52 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived LAC RG25/R219 2017-0440-5 Box 11 File 7-5-Burg Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Library and Archives Canada Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource Canadian Crown Subject The topic of the resource MacLean/Burgess Description An account of the resource A-2023-02971 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Canada Declassified Type The nature or genre of the resource Access to Information Request Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English