◆ SpookStack

ee By lt ag Beh ete x : - ee ee ee ee * AEP fe ge ee TE Dt Aa RN oF 7 fi ‘oT Mt rahe ee om ' an ree ’ ‘! * Peer 4 ga ‘en qt tee, 1 1o pent ar wa wy Jy. an ape ett t i t: MEAL TRE a 2.0 ek wn eyie ENE aM 7 AS ae fe bei encanta RATE te pee ERT Rw a tee as 1 : ‘ . & em nel tien es wee adele li age 1335 - Former n Office — [Min. CROSSMAN] oe ere tee oe had to say was reported as straight news he would not get the money!---- + — - All that Petrov said was what he picked Up in gossip from somebody else. The hearsay blew up into a major scandal and the Petrov case forced publication here. There is reason to believe that we would have had no White Paper if the Petrov ease had not forced publication upon the Government. That worries me and makes we wonder a littl, and that wonder is increased when } Jook at the White Paper itself. Segawa te The Foreign Secretary very properly said that he believed in ministerial respon- sibility. All right. Let him be respon- sible for this. It is easy to talk about ministerial responsibility if it consists only of being noble—and staying in office. Ministerial responsibility to me means taking the punishment if something out- rageous is done. If the Forcign Secre- tary takes responsibility for this, the only decent thing to do is to resign. ~~ _ The White Paper, as it stands, far from Gefcnding the Foreign Office, puts it deeper into the mire. If, after four years, this tissue of palpable half-truths and contradictions is the best that the Government can produce, the impression of “covering up” is more strongly sub- Slantiated than ever, Those responsible are very highly intelligent peaple, and if this is the best that they can do there must be some reason for what they are doing being so completely upconvincing. - Paragraphs 10 and If of the White Paper give elaborate reasons why these people were allowed to get away. We are told in paragraph 11 that it is possible that Maclean =") se ree ee “... observed that he was no Fonger receiv- ing certain types of secret papers. The Government are now saying, “We were not quite so ham-handed as that in denying secret papers.” But if Maclean had been a spy for 16 years, and if the chief reason for his being a spy was removed from him, I do not see how one could stop his access to top secret materia! without his noticing it. if he was denied the papers that must surely have tipped him off. We are told, by the way, in an earlier paragraph of the White Paper, that he was given a job in the American Department in order to give him an unimportant réle where be might rehabilitate himself. But the Head 7 ——-G * Offictats oe A "Me oe Lebohe cee ap Mg AAG TEN BEE arte od EO ine Par, of the American Department seems th have had access to the most secret typec of papers. Anyway, Maclean is tippec off by not having the pa } Anat ta sane comes the problem of woctiner 1 Stara his house or not. We are solemoly toh thai his house cannot be searched, or tha there must be no suggestion of it for fex* be runs away. ae (AS etek od Be wg Tt was not uncommon, during the war.: for a man to be suspected. IT dare say: thal the Prime Minister was responsible. for us when we did certain things. Whes we had a person under suspicion and he was denied secret papers al] we did was to say to him, “I warn you that you are under suspicion. Of course, you are nal guilty. We are only investigating. bu’ one way in which your guilt will -be proved will be if you “skedaddle”” We ound it a very effective way of keeping people still while investigation was going oo ee gee tg . Am [ now to believe that Maclean could not be detained at the ports if he had been warned that his flight would prove his gui? Anybody knows tha that could have been done, and we ask ourselves why that was not done ia this case. Why, in this case, was there such solicitude about the lady? 1 know that she was going to have a baby, but such solicitude is not always shown. I know of times when people have been treated rather roughly. ‘This was an astonishingly . tender treatment .--! + -- The Prime Minister (Sir Anthony Eden): This is very interesting. The hon. Gentleman is making points to which 1 will try to reply later, but the paralled which he is making between wartime and - the case of Maclean is not, of course, a true parallel. The control which we had over the ports during the war was quite different from the control of the port under the right hon. Member for Lewis- . ham, South (Mr. H. Morrison), when he ‘ sme weet we a. was Foreign Secretary.: o: gf GM ent re lem cn eee 7 The hon. Member may have other in- f formation, but I believe it to be true, ‘ and the legal opinion given to me has always been that there has been no power ; within the Government of this country ‘' to stop British people at the docks. That 1 was the problem, both in respect of ; Maclean and of Mrs. Maclean. For the | Jater, I take personal responsibility, for = it was my own decision in her case. I | ' uc 4 Fs ai 5 : - ” + id . — Le eee oe sae - epee mei whe SSE EE Tee 7S PEELE -" eet ia Tae a ~ FE. . : = i ~ -. ee tor - _ ‘ ah fb