SPY STORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000302750015-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 6, 2010
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: March 29, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302750015-0
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Life and'artso imitate each other in British spy secretl in 1964 and ublic
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stories that_the"borders -between fact-.and fiction are . , A. thoughtful American. would wonder at possible'
easily:penetrated: Nowhere' eLse is treason so devel- American dimensions to all this..rtiterall, American
oped an art form, nor the spy story so intellectualized. ;.;.and. English establishments- have always, intertwined.;
None of which helps one-fathom what the public has,'.,;"-
learned- ;'The most significant new public information, as it hap.
that i'useful from the revelations in the new pens, is. on this point. It comes from Robert A. E rland-
book.by the veteran Fleet Street security,reporter, son's telephone .' interview with- M chael Whitney
Chapman Pincher, rStraight in .Thursday's Sun
.? ThatSuBager.Hollls,,head of tiff 5, the counter-in- _Mr. Straight, scion of a wealthy American family,
telligence agency,, was -..suspected- of.-being -a'Sov~et told how: he was. recruited while-a student. at Cam
agent-That_Charles. Howard (Dick) Ellis,'a top man in-'- bridge in the Thirties into the Communist spy ring of
intelligence,; *as thought to have served Nazi.and'Sovi- Messrs, Blunt and Burgess,-:It was as emotional com
et masters. That Tom Driberg; the homosexual Labor=>':::.mitment, apparently, after?his best friend died-in the`
Member of Parliament,' tattled. on his colleagues' of Spanish,Civil War. Mr. Straight was hocked; he inti
fairs to KGB and MI-5'alike.. That Bernard Floud, a'-La- }hated to Mr. Erlandson, so he gave lousy. information
bor MP., killed himself. on. being confronted with accu until he :was dropped, and .he he. his career.. away
sations of havingrecruitedspies for the Russians.. from state secrets, albeit in liberal. opinion making. It
What-have these men in common? Members of "the was hey be said, who provided the tip in 1963 that un-,
establishment," Is the answer from anyone schooled in masked Blunt, after President Kennedy had invited
these mattes.-Yes, .of. course,'but one thing more- , *-him to head the National Endowment for the Arts.
Each of thertr. you. see, i, dead Ergo, dead men are .What-Mr. Straight.. told. Mr...Erlandson:'brings thin
suspect, or, dead men don'tsue ~`- story closer to Americans..Any- temptation to snicker.
The statement to Parliament by Prune Minister -' ' at British discomfort has vanished. We don't know how;
Margaret Thatcher confirms that Sir Roger Hollis was much further this thing goes. in-British society, or
suspected andsomewhat less than conclusively exoner .- American. That is the beauty of it fcr a noveliest, the
atad._ That's all . Mm-; Pincher. said, if less than he dismal horror of it fora citizen, More Will come out implied. be-
Certainly the, notion is strengthened-con--. ... fore everyone concerned has died, but the one thing we
;armed would bertoo strong a ?word-that the spy ring can never ever know is whether the outer limits of con
went further than?Anthony Blunt, who-was unmasked.:: spiracyhave been exposed
THE BALTIMORE SUN
29 March 1981
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/06: CIA-RDP90-00552R000302750015-0