Since a homosexual Admiralty clerk named John Vassall was sentenced to 18 years in prison last month for selling secrets to the Russians, the House of Commons has buzzed with rumors that the case might involve the government in the biggest scandal since Burgess and MacLean eloped to Russia in 1951. Last week the most sensational version of the Vassall saga to date was unfolded in the House of Commons by the very man whom the Opposition had accused of trying to whitewash the whole affair: Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.
Rising in the tense, hushed chamber, Macmillan declared dramatically: "On...