Callinq Colonel Barmitage

Derek Wraxton, a $28-a-week War Office clerk, was one of the most elusive spies in the annals of British intelligence. Though he lived stylishly at the Dorchester Hotel, bought a Rolls-Royce, a Jaguar and a string of race horses, it was not until he spent a two-month leave in Moscow that Colonel Barmitage, lean, monocled chief of intelligence, made the astute decision to have him shadowed. Even then, 28 fulltime shadows and twelve auxiliaries dogged his footsteps for a year before Wraxton was caught red-handed with 185 secrets, a ham roll and the Defense Minister's cigarette case.

Derek and the colonel have never existed outside the Daily Telegraph's satirical "Peter Simple" column. To many Britons, nonetheless, Wraxton and Barmitage are beginning to seem real.

At the Admiralty, a homosexual clerk named John Vassall had managed to live in style and sell secrets to Russia for six years before he was caught (TIME. Nov. 2 ). Though he was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Labor M.P.s in the House of Commons kept the case alive, not only to embarrass the government, but also with the reasonable aim of finding out how the British security system could have been so ineffectual. They had little help from Defense Minister Peter Thorneycroft, who seemed to treat the case with man-of-the-worldly flippancy. Thorneycroft breezed: "It's been said this man lived above his income in Dolphin Square. How many of us are not living above our incomes in various squares?"

Laborites' indignation boiled even higher with the disclosure that a bundle of 25 letters from "high Admiralty officials" had been found in Vassall's flat. After three days of wild rumor, fully exploited by the Laborites, Prime Minister Macmillan ordered the correspondence published. Contrary to gossip, it turned out to be about as intimate as an Admiralty corridor. Addressed to "Dear Vassall" or "My Dear Vassall," the letters were mostly from the spy's former boss, pleasant, plodding Thomas Galbraith, 45, a Scottish M.P. who was Civil Lord of the Admiralty (roughly equivalent to U.S. Under Secretary of the Navy) until he was named Under Secretary for Scotland three years ago. Typical was Galbraith's note: "My room at the office is in a filthy state and I'm most grateful to you for having taken steps to have it improved."

While the letters cast no doubts on Galbraith's loyalty and contained no suggestion of homosexuality, they nevertheless showed him as naive, overly trusting and unduly chummy with his lowly underling. Macmillan accepted his resignation, provoking anguished protests of "McCarthyism" and "guilt by association." Still, while Galbraith may or may not have been made a scapegoat, the fact remains that the British security system appears to be worthy of Colonel Barmitage.

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