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SUL SALLE al comme J cratic socialists should re- .antine the question of who should own what. But never under the unrealistic con- cept which Eastman seems to accept: that all property, whether in land, “‘Tescurces, stocks, borids, tools or consumer's goods, has the same moral varrant aod the same impor- tance to freedom. it is, moreover, unrealistic nen- sense to assume that such imperfect Iiberty as was given under nine- teenth-century capitalism was modi- fied or destroyed by socialism or} socialistic liberalism. To the degre present conditione—il will fare b under a mixed economy, giving scope to many of the varied incentives’ which make men work. But always nder dominant devotion to-the prin- . Viking, 247 pp. $3.75. One of the best of the cold war's true-life mysteries is the Cage of the Missing Diplomats. It began in 1951 that freedom. was impaired or altered, it was the victim of inescapable de- velopments of our economic and = when Donald Duart Maclean, head technological progress under the of the Atnerican Department of the ... _profit system and of our organization ~~ British Foreign Office, left his manor into absolute nationalist states. Fried- near London one evening, was last rich Hayek's ireedam and Eastman’s seen next morning in France, and would almost certainly have fallen then disappeared. With him dis- before an American fascism except appeared Guy de Moncy Burgess, a for New Deal meceuresinthe Creat British official whu had served. in Depression, sieasures largely in- various diplomatic and secret posts, spired by socialism. Equally is it true that the main defense of Western Europe. against Communism has heen denicratic socialism both directly end through its profound influence on conservalive parties. That, sort, of socialism has not achieved all its own goals. It has problems to face. But it has to its éredit successes in the conquest of poverty and the fulfilment of demo- cracy. Tf that sort of socialism is to fail, democracy will fail. For it is wholly impossible to create again anywhere in the world the social and economic conditions in which Jeffer- sonian democracy was imperfectly including the British Embassy in Washington, The mystery continued when, two yeats later, MacLean’s American-born wife Melinda and her three young children also dis: appeared. It ig to Geoflrey Hoare’s credit that he has not yielded to the temptation to turn his report on the case into a thriller; nor has he presented con- jectures and rumors as facts. A re- sponsible and able foreign corre- spondent in the best. British tradi- tion, he has dug up a great deal of information on the backgrounds and personalities of Mr. and Mrs. Mac- Lean, whom he had apparently established. Ours is a world which - known well fuy several years before- - must plan for increasing measures of collective ownership and contret in order lo use its science and techne!- ogy effectively, especially since its watural, resources are being exhaust- + ed. lt is*of the utmost, importance for deniocralic socialism to proclaim its ‘conviction that free men in fellow- ship can plan effectively, that such planning does not require a totali- tarian state, that—-st least under the disappearance. As for the dis: appearance itself, he has collected and presented. all the known details” and quite a few new ones which he discovered by hard legwork and in- telligent research. He has succeeded in presenting a comprehensive, blow- by-blow account of the case as far ‘as the MacLean couple is concerned. (Unfortunately, he rather ignores MacLean’s fellow-traveler, Burgess; the psychologically and factually ‘The Runaway_ ciple that the social and individual good of man is no by-product of the search for indiyidual profit, but must be consciously sought in a fellow. ship of workers with hand and brain. Diplomats : Mirai, Reviewed by Norbert Mullen Foreign correspondent; author, “The Return of Germany” lucid pamphlet by Cyril Connolly, a personal acquaintance of Burgess, would have supplied him with ma- terial to fill the gap.) Wisely, Mr. Hoare refrains from presenting any final theories. Thus, he avoids the unhappy experience of the London Sunday Pictorial, which on January 9 of this year ran a front-page story headlined: “BUR- CESS, MAC LEAN, ALLELES. gxown,” TE 30 happened that on that very day. for the first time in three and a half years, Burgess’s mother in London received a mysterious message from her son which thoroughly discredited jhe newspaper story. Yet, while Mr. Hoare’s report is reliable as well as fascinating in all its facts, ] wonder if he hasn’t sup- plied the raw material for a greater, more important story which he did not cover, That would be the world: wide ramifications of the MacLean case and its connection—in cause and effect, personalities and tech: niques--with several other, similar eases of disappearance that have oc- curred in recent years. First, is there only a-parallel,- or rather a connection, with the Field case? Tt is a fact, which Mrs. Her- mann Field now fortunately can con- firms, that she tried to send a message to Mrs. MacLean in 1953, while the latter still lived in the West, warning her against approaches by Commu- nist agents: On no account should she be persuaded by them to search for or go to her husband. Second, there is-a striking paral- lel-—and possibly a connection~—with The New Leader