◆ SpookStack

ys, Like hk al ONSIDER. the theory now bein advanced that she was a convince Communist of long standing. BLIS WOULD MEAN that through the yeart she tricked her diplomatic acquaintances, ‘her haShand’s diplomatic superiors, Sir Perey Sillitoe, who interviewed heron many decasions for MTS and the by no nieans unsophislicaterd Journalists who caine into contact with her. THIS WOULD MEAN that sie knew all along the spying task her hushand was engaged o - aBco OM. | and wiay even liave been the instigater of ik When thay both knew. that the game was up, shie arreed he would have fo boll, She knew where he had gone and, with copsimmmate actin holstered hy her fervent. political faith, convinced all who examined her that she was a lost, lenel ans ignorant wife. The. only reason she did not fly with him was hecause she was eight. months preenant and faced a dangerous surgical delivery, A lang time later she goat Foreign Office approval to live in Switzerland, the easiest international loophole for escape to the east, dhen the time wes ripe she cabnily trauclled to PRussit—not so mich 19 rejoin her Musbatid asjto go to tke land she believed io be the sadigur of the future. Le eed Ww HAT are the facts that suppogt this. theory? Melinda Maclean. who was 39 last July, was born ta comfortably-off American parents an, after her mother's second marriage could expect to maintain an even more expensive rate of Hiving. She was educated partly in Europe, and came hack when she was 22 ta tive in Paris, There, among artists, rebels and expatriate Americans, she could have learned Communisin. Here, as the Germaus advanced on the French capital after the “ phoney way.” she married Donald Maclean. fe was 27. He had heen & Communi: at Cambridge, but was already a whit hope of the Britis diplomatic. service, he was still a Cor niunist, he had al- ready skilfully masked his opinions, After a four-year - spcll in Washington ending in 1948, the Macleans minved te a post at Cairo. Maclean, psycholo- gically torn ‘hy cd vied allegiances, eqpitulated moor sUfadily to drinki bats, He even use vidlence against his wife, ut Melinda per sofally convinced the Anlbassador in Caiko that Mactean of be pent home to rp : cover from his: breax- down. _ While he was in Britain an Melinda still in Egvpt, he. tric tao end the marriage, bu Melinda, convinced him that 1} should continue. Rada ye Ss HE did this, it is said, wanted to use her husband for the espionage work he was. engaged on, was treachery. Time and tine again “she declarpd alter Maclean’s disappear- ahee: “C-will net admit that y husband is a traitor go gs country.” She convineed her eldest son Fergus. He was once heard proudly saying in Gerieva: “My | daddy is fighting for peace.” And the price of all this was £2,000 paid by Swiss. banks five weeks after Maclean's dis- appearance. Was Melinda Maclean a con- vineed, sublle. and—as. far as her children. were concerned— guihiess Communist? What other theory can fit the facts? Consider the submission that [ she. was NOT so clever—but jas | iryesolute and troubled as gue peksuaded MIJ5, she was er husband's escape seented solunexpected by her that ihe tive quarrelled about ft just a because she still She did not think that