◆ SpookStack

Russia in 1953, one of her forfier friends in the -diplp- matic community in Genefa renfarked resignedly : “THis Jusi: shows’ how little anyofe Cankknow about @nyone eisp For M linda, small a a Plump, with a hervous habit of repeatfhg things she has Just said¥ seemed the last person tdFfeature in a diplo- matic nda] or a pre- alranged disappearance to Russta. Why did she go? Her stepson John Philby asked her this Question and she replied, straleht-faced, Because EF was Bersecute by the [Da!) Express," But that Clearly is nonsensk. er s@inpathies Were alwafs strong With the Left, Certainly ¥8 she will hear n m of Communism. But or coupse. to admit the slightes disappbintment with life as sh has ed it in Soviet Russi for the past 16 years would als. admit her own Great mistake, the barren emptiness of her own life, Questions chase answers down the years: the truth Hes buried at the heart of layers of lies and deception. Friends who knew Melinda in Egypt, in Washington, and in London agree that she and nowa eritics Donald Maclean were not happy together. After he de- fected to Russia, she even sought advice in Britain and America about the quickest way of divorcing him. she had sufficient cause, with his drunken bouts, his lapses into homosexuality, While. ther were in Cairo, the Russian Embassy was even sajd to have provided him with a congenial companion, In Cairo, too, when her hus- band had his affairs with men, She did not lack men friends, She has always been attractive to men; she need Not have been lonely without her husband. The wives of any diplomatic group Overseas — like Service Wives or oil company wiyes-~ are Of necessity forced to chare each other's company. Many, who shared Melinda's, did not But was |. find her sympatico. this because she was by natur capitagi ely provided her wit WealtAy parents and Priva means ? { ea ee eT a ———— ee! | thal sre | hy nena Brilish security omers, who interviewed her after hep bus- band defected to Ru: sia, sug. ested to ner bluntly that she ad known all Cag that Donald was a Communist, that she was probably one herself, and was oing to join him. Understandably, she denied all this. But she did join him Just the same. at The Soviet diplomat, vViadi- mir Petrov, ostensibly ‘Third Secretary in the Russian Em- bassy in Canberra, actually in charge of a spy net in Aus- trait, sald in his official state- ment when he came over to the West: “F am now convinced knew all about her husband's plan to flee. At any ratc, she began to play a wiiling aiid highly astute Tl in her own Successful disappearance very soon after Donald Mac- lean passed behind the fron 1 Curtain.” A few years ago Mark Culme- Seymour, the British business man who had introduced Melinda to Donaid Maclean in Paris before the war, met them both again in Leningrad. He Was travelling on export busi- Hess; the Macleans were there on holiday, Melinda told him that ‘even before Donald had gone to Russia she knew she was going to go herself, And that is supported by the skilful and resolute way in which Metinda deceived her trusting mother in the months immediately before her defec- tion. Well might she write back to ner mother : * Please believe me, darling, in my heart I could not have done otherwise than IT have dove.” Another indication that she Was propelled by_ ideological Peasons is the fact that Melinda deliberately denied her children the chance to gTow up ip the land of their birth. ‘as a former woman friend of hers put if: “I can understang her Boing to Russia herself. But what I personally find hard to forgive is that she took the children when they were far toa Young to have any idea what fois would mean to them for the est of their lives." me one Desire. ‘The difference between the ' Utopian dream and the reality of Russia through the ‘fifties and ‘sixties is also. ironically, the difference between her life before and her life since, * The reunion wlth her husband proved not the end of the story, ub rather the beginning of another and infinitely more complicated chapter, Maclean worked six days a week in the International Publishing Co-operative. Melinda found she had exchanged a pleasant, Jeisurely life in gland, with holidays abroad and the hard housework done for her—for what ? Materlaliy, for a three roomed flat on the sixth floor 4 ef a barrack-like block over- looking the Moskva River, near ‘the entrance to the Kremlin Sullivan — Tavel Trotter Tele. Room Holmes Gandy The Washington Post Times Herald The Washington Daily News The Evening Star (Washington) The Sunday Star (Washington) Daily News (New York) Sunday News (New York) New York Post ne The New York Timea —_——. The Sun (Baltimore) a The Daily World The New Leader a The Wall Street Joumal The National Observer — ___People’s Worid a Examiner (Washington) - ee Date DELETES copy seur AC bern BY. ota afrsfre Pi co REQUEST IQ — Fu Dp