§ 2.37 p.m.
§ LORD ELTONMy Lords, I ask permission to make a personal statement with regard to a supplementary question which I put to the noble Marquess, Lord Reading, on Tuesday of last week. On that occasion, after the noble Marquess had made his reply to my main Question, which was directed to two articles in a Sunday newspaper dealing with the records of Messrs. Burgess and Maclean, I put to him a supplementary question in which I spoke of a recording having been made a good many years ago, in a private apartment in New York, of a speech by Maclean, in the course of which he made it clear that he was a proselytising Communist. The information on which I based that supplementary question had been offered to me not long before in all good faith from a source of the highest integrity, and I believed that what I was saying was accurate. But, as has already been made clear by a statement in another place by Mr. Eden, which, naturally, I gladly and at once accept, it was in fact wholly erroneous and untrue. The recording was made not by Maclean but by Burgess, and it contained no profession of Communist faith. I am therefore taking this first available opportunity of correcting and apologising for my misleading statement.
I should like to say that I am more than sorry to think that this additional and baseless charge must have caused unnecessary pain to the relatives and friends of Mr. Maclean. I would wish to apologise most sincerely to the noble Marquess and, through him, to his Department, for it is clear that if a statement of such a character had been made by Maclean, who was last in New York 24 in 1948, it would have followed that the Foreign Office had been negligent in not being aware of, or in not acting upon, the incident. Whereas, of course, a politically innocuous speech by Burgess in 1951 reflects no discredit on the Foreign Office or anyone else, and is, indeed, wholly irrelevant to the matter under discussion. Finally, my Lords, I would wish to express to the whole House my very great regret for having, in this respect, unintentionally misled it and having given currency to this untrue statement.
§ VISCOUNT SWINTONMy Lords, it is characteristic of the noble Lord, if I may say so, and in accordance with the best traditions of this House, that he should have taken the first possible opportunity to correct so fully and so frankly the misstatement which he inadvertently made to your Lordships on a previous occasion. I am sure the House will gladly accept his explanation in the spirit in which it has been offered. I would add only this: that I hope this full and frank statement which the noble Lord has made at the earliest possible opportunity may receive as wide a measure of publicity as did the original statement which he made through inadvertence.