The cost of treason: death, jail or lunch?

Press, 4 December 1979, Page 20

The cost of treason: death, jail or lunch?

CONOR CRUISE O’BRIEN, in the London “Observer,” reflects on the variety of punishments Britain has dealt out to traitors in the last 60 years.

“Most of us,” said a letter in a recent issue of “The Times,” “are appalled by Professor Blunt’s treachery, just as we are appalled by Sir Roger Casement’s treachery.” Just as appalled, perhaps, but not just to the same effect. Casement, his treason discovered, was not entertained to lunch at “The Times.” He was hanged. Evidence of his homosexuality was used to ensure that he was hanged, by frightening off people who might otherwise have appealed for clemency.

I am not arguing that all treasonable, homosexual knights should invariably be treated in the same way: all hanged, or all lunched.

There are considerable differences between the cases, the main one being that the Power aided by Casement’s treason — Wilhelm’s Germany — was at the time at war with Britain, while the Power aided by Mr Blunt’s treason — Soviet Russia — was not at war with Britain, and was, during part (though not all) of the treasonable period, Britain’s ally.

The treason of Mr Alan Nunn May was, however, closely comparable to that of Mr Blunt. Mr Nunn May supplied secret information — atomic information — to the Russian ally, exclusively during the period of the alliance. .On being charged with this, he made a full confession, without receiving (or, as far as I know, asking for) assurances of personal immunity. He is neither a homosexual nor a knight, and he was neither hanged nor lunched. He received a stiff prison sentence, which he served in Parkhurst Prison.

When he came out, he found that he was ostracised, not only by the loyal, but by his former Communist friends. His offence, in their eyes, lay in confessing that he had become a spy because of his Communist sympathies. If he had denied having been a spy, but been convicted all the same, he would have been almost as useful as a martyr as he had been as a spy. By telling the truth, he hurt the cause, for which he had served his sentence, and he earned gen-

eral obloquy, both from those who loved that cause and those who hated it. By comparison, Mr Blunt has got off remarkably lightly, and there seems to be a remarkable degree of consensus, at least in Parliament, that this 1 is perfectly right and proper. There is one class of people to which this outcome must give unalloyed satisfaction. That is the class of undetected traitors, assuming — as seems prudent — that such there still may be. Persons in this class must have been troubled occasionally by the thought of going to jail if they were caught. Now they know what to do, if caught. You offer a confession, in return for a guarantee of immunity from prosecution. You then confess to as much as you think is already known, plus as much more as you think is needed in order to show willing. Then you can carry on as usual, or more so, since to incommode you in any way would “alert the Russians” (or the South Africans, the P.L.O. or the 1.R.A.). And finally, when the whole thing does eventually come out, you have nothing worse to fear than the prospect of Mr William Rees-Mogg’s conversation over lunch. It seems to me that there

may be some inconveniences attached to the establishment of such a precedent, or convention. I write without any fanaticism on this point. My own cultural formation was not such as to impress on me the doctrine that all forms of treason, in all times and places, necessarily represent inherent, absolute evil. In the land and culture in which I was brought up, to be convicted of treason — treason to Britain, for Ireland’s sake — was regarded as admirable. Roger Casement — Sir Roger to all good Republicans — was and is regarded as a hero and martyr, not a traitor. On another level, we all relished the story of the man who was charged with having uttered, at Stradbally Cross, “treasonable and seditious language to the grave scandal of all loyal subjects of the Crown.” The man charged was Kevin O’Higgins — later a great law-and-order man and indeed a pillar of the Commonwealth — and he conducted his own defence. When the R.I.C. sergeant had given evidence of the language used:— O’Higgins: Can you name six loyal subjects of the Crown living within a fivemile radius of Stradbally Cross? Sergeant (scratching his

head): God, Sir, you have me there. So I approach this question with no inherited, inveterate, absolute hatred of all forms of treason. But I think that to appear to condone detected treason within a democratic State, subject to the rule of law, is dangerous to the institutions of the State and its social and moral conditions. It is dangerous because it suggests a lack of seriousness about these institutions, and about the spirit of these laws. Lack of seriousness, a flavour of the vapid and the effete, runs through the whole case. All these people give an impression of being intoxicated by their own cleverness and one another’s cleverness. It seems that a very little went to their heads. Mr Blunt says he helped Joe Stalin because he was converted to “the Marxist interpretation of history’’ — by Guy Burgess; if he had been converted by Groucho it would Le less ludicrous. Treason has been, in many times and places, a tragic matter, subject of inner torment, in the shadow of death. Here it was more of a fun thing, with no penalty attached for those involved. The “old boy” network, Mr Blunt has avowed, has been of service to him at at least one stage of his career. It does not seem to have done him much harm at anv stage, that reticulation of wizened juveniles. But it is doing other people harm, and it is doing itself harm, by evidence of arrogant frivolity among its members. Those Labour members, who loudly attacked the Establishment over this matter, have been condemned for demagoguery. I detest and fear demagoguery as much as anyone. But a central function of any prudent and competent Establishment i s to avoid giving the demagogue convincing grounds for attack — grounds which seem reasonable to many ordinary people because they are reasonable. This Estab-

lishment has failed this test in this case.

There was “no cover up,” we are told, because the secret services did inform responsible Ministers: the official part of the Establishment informed the political part, and advised it to do and say nothing, which it did. This is held to be all right. because Ministers acted on the advice of the secret service, and that must be all right. Why must it? It may be indelicate to say so, but the said secret services do not have a record which absolutely requires unconditional reliance on what they say. or unquestioning compliance with their advice. A Minister could have said, in effect: “The hypothetical danger which may be done if the Russians are "alerted” by the termination of Blunt’s career, and the publication of his confession, is less than the damage that would be done, here at home, by our failure to clean our own house. What you are asking us to do is to connive in a “whited sepulchre” fraud on the public, by acquiescing in the continuance of a known traitor in a position of honour. We won’t do it.” That would have been a nice little speech, I think. What a pity it was never; made.