‘OldSchool Tie’ U.K. Agents Criticised

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30214, 20 August 1963, Page 13

‘OldSchool Tie’ U.K. Agents Criticised

(N Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, August 18. The former director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency, Mr Allen Dulles, tonight criticised the influence of the “old school tie” inside British intelligence agencies.

But he praised British agencies for their energetic pursuit of spies when clues were uncovered, end said they were better than some agencies on the Continent Mr Dulles said: “There was too much in the days of Burgess and Maclean, of the old school tie' If you went to Oxford or Cambridge, like Burgess and Maclean did. you were all right ” he told a ’elevision interviewer “But if the British get a clue they follow it up with great vigour ” he said British intelligence agencies were staffed by very compe'ent people “When they get a clue and they do all they can to get a clue, they follow up on it. “I regret to say that the same is not the case, say with regard to all the Continental countries They say. “Well, what can we do?' That doesn’t apply to all European countries but there are one or two, and I won't want to mention them." he said Mr Dulles had been asked why France and other European countries did not have a significant number of defections.

Mr Dulles also said he believed there had been more mportaint defections from the Communist world than from the West Asked to say who were

the most important, he said he could not give an answer since some of those involved had not opted to be “surface” (public) defectors The former intelligence chief was appearing on a two-hour television programme which featured Lowell Skinner, a former American serviceman who remained in China for 12 years after being captured during the Korean war He returned to the United States recently and appeared on the programme in a portion recorded separately Six weeks ago it was reported that the Chief of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr J Edgar Hoover, said the British intelligence organisation was “staffed by old-school-tie men with the right social graces.” and that “most British undercover agents have no experience of interogation or investigation "