BURGESS AND MACLEAN

The Profumo case (expect at least one book out of that) has stirred up a good deal of interest (and protest) about the British security agency M.I.5 and this latest examination of the Burgess and Maclean defections to Russia focuses on the security aspects of the case. The authors are more incredulous than indignant and M.I.5 and associated agencies emerge less as villains than as dolts. The history and the handling of the case is discussed with cool journalistic organization and recision. The homosexuality of Burgess and Maclean (blatant and latent, respectively) was the obscuring issue that beclouded earlier analyses. While this is covered here, it is presented as a part, not the whole, of the social forces that produced and motivated the men. A last chapter describes what has been learned from Moscow based journalists about the pair in their current roles as lower Schelon Russian civil servants. The present value of the book on a talked-out case is its brisk description of the structure of the inner-workings of British security (then and now). Its brevity recommends it for fast background reading.