Word: macmillan
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...biggest scandal since Burgess and MacLean eloped to Russia in 1951. Last week the most sensational version of the Vassall saga to date was unfolded in the House of Commons by the very man whom the Opposition had accused of trying to whitewash the whole affair: Prime Minister Harold Macmillan...
Rising in the tense, hushed chamber, Macmillan declared dramatically: "On Friday last, a situation developed of which I hesitate to tell the House-but I must tell the House." Then, in a voice that quivered with cold rage, the Prime Minister said that according to a story confided to him by an M.P., Vassall, 38, was actually planning to defect to Russia when he was arrested last September. Grimly, but without judging the accuracy of the story. Macmillan told the rest: Vassall had intended to go first to Italy, where he was to join his former boss, Thomas Galbraith...
McCarihyite Innuendo. While Galbraith listened stony-faced from the Tory benches, Macmillan added: "It was also said that my honorable friend was believed to have spent holidays abroad with Vassall before." Explaining that his informant had heard this account of the case from "a leading member of the press." Macmillan declared: "This story, if it were true, would amount to something akin to treason...
...Earlier, Macmillan had denounced "speculation and innuendo" arising from a series of 25 fairly innocuous letters from Galbraith that had been discovered in Vassall's apartment (TIME, Nov. 16). Now he declared that, "however preposterous, however wicked and however vile" the charges, it was his "duty" to appoint a judicial tribunal to investigate the story -though hitherto he had brushed aside persistent Opposition demands for such a tribunal. This, Macmillan concluded, was "the only machinery open to us for the defense of innocent men if they be innocent, but for their condemnation if they be guilty...
...Despite Macmillan's frequent attempts to minimize the effectiveness of Soviet espionage, a disquieting account of Russian spying in Britain was volunteered by Charles Ian Orr-Ewing, who succeeded Galbraith at the Admiralty. "There are thousands of them. They are all trained to detect weakness in character, weakness for drink, blondes, drugs and homosexuality...