the vanishing lady melinda maclean

8/2/2019 The Vanishing Lady Melinda Maclean

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The Sunday Herald (Sydney, NSW : 1949 - 1953), Sunday 20 September 1953, page 9

National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18512017

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A New Puzzle!Staff Correspondent

in London.

Mrs. Melinda Maclean, photographed with two ofher children at Northolt Airport, London, on herreturn from a holiday on the French Riviera inSeptember, 1951-four months after her husband's

disappearance.ililli!!!


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All over Free Europe - and tentatively behind the IronCurtain-this weekend 10,000 police and Security officers areseeking the "Vanishing Lady" - Mrs. Melinda Maclean.

months much the same thing happened whenMrs. Maclean's brilliant, neurotic husband, Donald, and hisForeign Office colleague, alcoholic Guy Burgess, disappearedafter leaving a cross-Channel steamer at St. Malo, France.

NOW the cannonade oferics that the BritishForeign Office is inept inSecurity matters is raisedmore loudly than everthrough the disappearanceof Mrs. Maclean.The cases of atom spies,

Klaus Fuchs and Nunn May,the disappearance in Europeof atomic expert, Bruno Pontecorvo, are perhaps somewhatillogically dragged in to sup-port a theory that the ForeignOffice has once again slippedon security.What are the facts, and

what was Mrs. Maclean's posi-tion, living quietly in Genevaas she did with her mother,and three children?

She left England on July20 last year for Paris, and twOjmonths later settled in Genevain a flat above a shop.This week-end, a ForeignOfhce spokesman told a "Sun-day Herald" representative:"My dear fellow, this lady hasbeen completely a free agent

16 Trips OverThe Frontier

Is it true that we askedSwiss police to keep an un-official eye on her9

' We certainly were in touchwith the Swiss police, but itftas all \cry %ery unofficial.Do \ou imagine we could havemen trailing her around allthe time, going everywhere shewent1

In fact if she had wantedto pick up a boat, plane ortram to Russia there was noth-ing we could have done aboutit She was a private personm possession of no vitalitcrets "

Asked if the Foreign Office

had kept in mind the possi-bility that Donald Macleanmight try to get in touch withher, the spokesman replied:

"There was the possibility,of course, but it is quite unrea-sonable for anyone to suggestthat a perfectly blamelesswoman who happens to bemarried to a man who vanish-ed in a strange way shouldbe or could be constantlyhounded and spied upon."

Was the Foreign Officeaware that between July, 1952,and last June, Mrs. Macleanmade 16 journeys (three ofthem in one day) over theFrench frontier a few milesfrom Geneva?

The Foreign Office answer:'There is absolutely no evi-1dence that these trips had anysignificance."


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The telegram Mrs. Dunbar received last week, allegedly from her missingdaughter, Mrs. Melinda Maclean, wife of Donald Maclean, one of the twoBritish diplomats who disappeared in France nearly two and a half years ago.

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The Foreign Office refusedto disclose whether any dis-creet inquiries had been madein Moscow or other Iron Cur-tain countries since Macleanand Burgess vanished on May26, 1951. It will not makeknown the identity or where-abouts, at the moment, of thetwo Security men said to havegone to Switzerland directlyafter Mrs. Maclean's disap-pearance was made known."We can say nothing aboutthem, nor say where they are,"said the spokesman.

At the same time, themystery of "Robin Muir" hasdeepened. Mrs. Maclean issaid to have told her motherjust before disappearing thatshe was to visit "Muir," whomshe and her husband hadknown in Cairo, at the villaMuir and his wife occupiednear Montreux.The MysteriousRobin Muir

The Foreign Office haschecked the suggestion that"Muir" was a colleague ofDonald Maclean in the CairoEmbassy, and has been unableto find any trace of a manof that name having been em-ployed by them in Egypt.

But meanwhile, beyond the

But meanwhile, beyond thepublic disquiet over the caseof Mrs. Maclean and theevasions of the Foreign Office,it can be said that at least in

Britain, Security authoritiesstill maintain a strong inter-est in anyone connected, how-ever tenuously, with Macleanand Burgess.

In November, last year, Iwas at Tatsfield, Surrey, thevillage from which the twoForeign .Office men droveaway to Southampton to catchtheir boat for France.

I was gathering material fora "Sunday Herald" article andhired a taxi which waited forme while I walked round Mac-lean's deserted house in thevillage.

A few days later, Londonpolice called at the "Herald's"office and asked to see me.After much roundabout con-versation at the police stationI was told it was understoodI had been in Tatsfield ques-tioning villagers about Mac-lean-and that there had beena burglary on the day of myvisit.

It was pointed out, sooth-ingly, that I could not, ofcourse, have had anything todo with the burglary, as heavyfurniture had been carried

knew I was

out and police knew I wasonly in a small hired car.

I was closely questionedabout my whole career andwork, going back a number ofyears.

Then I was slapped on theback and told jocularly, "Itis just a matter of routine,you're in the clear."

I was asked to write nothingabout the "burglary" for"Security reasons."

A few days later I realisedI was wise to agree to writenothing, for the "burglary"never happened.

I learned from another pol-ice source that the interviewshad been an elaborate plan tofind out precisely what was myinterest in Donald Macleanand why I had spent hours inquestioning those villagerswho knew him.

Police investigating Mrs.Maclean's disappearance haveestablished that she was lastseen on the railway station atLausanne, in Switzerland, withthe children a few minutesbefore the Sofia-bound OrientExpress was due in at 2.50a.m. on September 12.

Whether or not Mrs. Mac-,lean caught this train, boundfor inside the Iron Curtain, is

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now the question mark hang-ing over the whole investiga-tion.

The black Chevrolet car inwhich she drove from herGeneva flat on September 11was found in a garage earlylast Wednesday.

"The'LittleLost Lamb"AU that remains in the car

is two or three cartons anda torn children's fairy bookcalled "The Little LostLamb."

Then came a telegram,allegedly sent by Mrs. Mac-lean, to Mrs. Dunbar, at Gen-eva, but in fact, sent by some-one else. Lodged at Territet,in Switzerland, it read:

Terribly sorry delay incontacting you - unforseen circumstances havearisen. Am staying herelonger. Please adviseschoolboys returningabout a xoeeks time - allextremely well-pink rosein marvellous form-lovefrom all - Melinda.

There was a curious mis-spelling in the telegram. Theword "circumstances" wasspelt originally in the Frenchway-"circonstances" and thewire operator himself hadaltered the "on" to "um."

Swiss Police Chief CharlesKnecht said the telegram wassent by a woman with a muchrounder face than Mrs.Maclean's. The sender spoke

English, but "it was notMrs. Maclean," he said.

The original of the tele-gram is reported to have beenwritten in a manner taught 20years ago in Swiss and Cen-tral European schools and notin the Anglo-Saxon style.

Authoritative Londoncircles are inclined to believethat Mrs. Maclean may wellhave gone to join her hus-band. A Foreign Office officialdescribed a report that she hadbeen kidnapped as "prettynonsensical as far as we cangather."The theory regarded as

most likely is that Mrs.Maclean went voluntarilyto a rendezvous with an emis-

of Maclean to rejoin

sary of Maclean to rejoinhim, and that in all likeli-hood she is now far awayfiom Switzerland.Two Days InLonely Mountains

It is a well-held theory thatfor some time Mrs. Maclean-by however tenuous athread-has had some know-ledge of her husband and hiswhereabouts.

Last February she "van-ished" for a week. It wasafterwards found she had goneto Villars, a winter holidayresort, 100 miles fromGeneva.

From Villars her brotherin-law, Mr. Shears, took herto a lonely house in Nor-mandy. She stayed there aweek and then returned toGeneva. She "disappeared"also while staying in August,1951, in a villa at Beauvallon,on the Riviera. That was for

DONALD MACLEAN


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only two days, which, it laterappeared, she spent high up inthe lonely mountains inMaures, near Saint Tropez.

For many months now shehas been living with her motherin a flat above a shop inGeneva, mostly shunning con-tact with outsiders and con-centrating on the welfare ofher children.

Never has she appeared

short of money, and it wasreliably reported -in June,1952, that her husband hadtransferred to her account thesum of 1,000 sterling. Themoney was said to have comefrom a Prague bank to onein Zurich, and thence to heraccount in England.

Now, after all the quietmonths, she has once againbecome the vanishing lady.

the vanishing lady melinda maclean

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