Wide Search For Wife Of Missing Diplomat

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27148, 18 September 1953, Page 9

Wide Search For Wife Of Missing Diplomat

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) GENEVA, September 17. The police of five countries today are searching for Mrs Melinda Maclean, the American-born wife of the missing British diplomat, Donald Maclean, who has disappeared with her three young children. Mrs Maclean who came to live at her mother’s flat in Geneva last October, told her mother, Mrs Melinda Dunbar, on September 9, that she would spend last week-end with friends near Montreux. She has not been seen since. The police of Switzerland and the neighbouring countries of France, Italy, Austria and West Germany have been issued with a description of Mrs Maclean.

The Swiss News Agency reported today that the black car belonging to Mrs Maclean had been found in a garage in Lausanne. It added that it had been put there on September 11—the day sne left her mother’s flat in Geneva saying that she and her three childrep would spend the weekend with friends near Montreux.

Police in charge of the search for | Mrs Maclean said today that they; did not believe she had sent the telegram received by her mother in Geneva yesterday. The telegram, sent from Territet, near Montreux, said’she was worried that she had not let her mother know earlier her plans to prolong the stay away from home. A source close to Mrs Dunbar said today that the .telegram was considered to be “a blind.” Handwriting experts todav will examine the telegram. Mrs Dunbar was shown the original of the telegram today. She said she was not sure but doubted whether it was in her daughter’s handwriting. The wording of the telegram was similar on several points to one purported to have been sent by Donald Maclean to his wife shortly after his disappearance in 1951. ‘ The suspicion of Mrs Dunbar and of the handwriting experts is based on the curious phrasing used in the telegram. They believe that it wps written by a European with a fair knowledge of English. Mrs Maclean came to live at her mother’s flat in Geneva last October after moving out of England to obtain more privacy for herself and her children.

While in England she had lived behind locked doors at Beaconshaw, Tatsfied, Kent, until July 20. 1952, when she flew to Paris where she stayed with her sister ana her brother-in-law, Mr and Mrs James Scheer, who are Americans. On October 14. 1952, she arrived in Geneva and stayed with her mother. Disappearance of Husband Donald Maclean, the former head of the American Department of the Foreign Office, disappeared with Guy Burgess, also of the Foreign Office, after landing from a channel steamer at Saint Malo, in northern France on May 25. 1951. The world-wide search for them became the biggest manhunt of recent times. The mystery was the subject of hundreds of speculative articles, arid at least one book. The two security officers who probed the case of Maclean and Burgess two years ago, have been sent to Switzerland by the Foreign Office to seek a clue to the mystery. Reuter’s correspondent in Paris said today that the International Police Commission- had not been informed officially of the disappearance of Mrs Maclean. The French Ministry of the Interior said there was no sign at any French frontier post today of Mrs Maclean and her three children. Reuters correspondent in Vienna said that the Austrian frontier police have agreed to check their files for any trace of Mrs Maclean. They have agreed to examine their files for the last week. Austrian officials said that there was little chance of the movement of so normal looking a family group over the Austrian frontier from Switzerland being noted during the holiday season. Thousands of similar tourist families were crossing the frontier daily. Brit* ish visitors needed no visas and no list of those crossing was kept. Electricians’ Strike Ends.—About 1500 striking electricians in the London area decided today to end their four-week strike tomorrow morning. Another 3000 men out in “guerrilla” strikes are expected to follow their lead.—London, September 16.