◆ SpookStack

Why _is the whgle risode oan? It's pee ated MacLean served a5 a Secretary of the British Embassy in Wash- ineton along with another secre- tary, Guy Burgess, and the main iob of MacLean was to keep in touch with atomic-energy dc- veiopments here. He was secre- lary of a committee of the allics, including the British government, and was therefore accepted and trusicd as a thoroughly rejiable person. When MacLean disappeared and one of the reporters here told former Secretary of State Acheson about it, the latter is reported to have exclaimed: “My God, he knew everything!" MacLean not only knew about filomic-eneigy matters when hf vas in America, but at the tim f his disappearance he had bee iven charge of the so-calle “American desk” in the British Foreign Office in London. This is the desk over which flows! daily all the confidential mes- sages from diplomatic repre- sentatives of Great Britain in the United States. Naturally at that time there were very se- cre exchanges between our State Department and Great Britain relative to plans for end- ing the Korean war. There were also objections by the British to the continuance of the con- flict if it involved extension of hastiligies in‘a Manchuria OVS waeS IO WATICU Ia, Whatever the information was that the Zritish government had from its close friend and ally, the United States, Donald Mac- Lean was in a position to carry ‘\to the Communists. There are ‘various rumors that the Federal Bureau of Investigation here originaily had a tip on Mac-! Lean's activities and had so notl-’ fied the British government and that the British security authori- ties were about to pounce on JMacmberieand Burgess iust as lthey made their getaway. | a pie pata a ) Regarded As BrYniant 2 “pot MacLean an UrESS were college men and known as brilliant “inteNectuals” in lite- rary circles. Their sympathies for Communist doctrine were not difficult to determine, but the British Foreign Office, which was pooh-poohing American concern jover the Alger Hiss case and the infiltration of other Communists in the State Department, didn't seem to be vigilant in doing a check-up job in the matter of lovalty—-any more than it had been ‘when “clearing” Klaus Fuchs for admission to the American alomic-energy project. Whether Mrs. MacLean has gone to see her husband volun- erie er involuntarily, the fact remains that the oft-distributed story from some London sources that MacLean and Burgess had been somehow “Jiquidated” doesn't seem plausible now any more than the first unofficial intimation that they had just gone on a “holiday binge.” It will be important for the British Security Service to re- establish faith in its efficiency by getting all the facls, and may-: be that's what they have heen : doing these alsi few days and some day will reveal. American officials are much concerned be- cause again the subjeet of an exchange of atomic secrets with Britain is up for consideration, and Congress is not Ukely fo Mend existing Jaw to provife ‘freer interchange if Britign ecurity methods are beiieved edax. ~ '