1961-01-19 — Page 6

Page G

DISCLOSED:

SPY BLUNDER BEHIND TODAY'S STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN JERUSALEM

THE LAVON AFFAIR

TXTHEREVER news is hidden our reporters

arc

W digging it out. Today, China Mail foreign

пешв team produces the extraordinary story behind the present struggle for power in faracl It is a story of spies, politics, treachery, hidden bombe, and misunderstood motives...

are

THE ghosts of two hanged men, a secret “Count the of Monte Cristo" prisoner-these threads in a fantastic web of intrigue which enmeshes the Israeli Government today,

All that can be seen on the surface is a struggle for power between tough, 74-year-old Premier David Ben-Gurion and a rival faction led by his former Defence Minister, now a bitter rival, Pinhas Lavon, 65.

Neither side dare expose the secret behind the strugte-hat Israeli agents hid fire bombs in the American and British un- bassies in Egypt six years ago.

At a hurriedly arranged secre!

trin witch began lust August

the nameless prisoner (he was always referred to as the Third w. jailed for 12 years

The Istarll Government hour

that Egyptian extremists would be blamed for the fres, and a breach made between Egypt and the West,

For at that time Britain was negotiating with Eopt about the Suez bases, and the U.S. was considering Living; Egypt mill- tary and economic aki.

Censored

EL

Details of the plot are rigidly only censored in Israel, which

there AVR: mimits that

security mishap" in 1954. But these are the facts:- In 1851 Israeli Colonel Abraham Dar. using the cover identity "John Darling, a bust- went to Cairo and ness man,"

and organised Alexandria

13-mi sabotage and spying ring.

21

The blame

Meanwhile, a

new inquiry, the fored by Lavon, after release of Paul Frank, hnd found that two oflleers had made false statements blaming Lavon for the Cairo blunder to the earlier inquiry. The new in- vestigation been blameless.

decided Layan had

sup-

But Ben-Gurion hng refused to accept

which the report clears Lavon.

And he is threatening to re- An unles the Cabinet rejects it too. 100.

has Lavan However, porters ton, and has set a political come-buck with the sensational allegation that Ben Gurlon himself was responsible. At a vote rerently the Cabinet i right down the was middle. But all Ministers agree

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 1961.

NAL

GILES ON LONDON'S BOAT SHOW

"It's real: water, Dad.

Grandma's blowing:bubbles."

London Express Service).

THOUSANDS OF WORDS ARE STILL WRITTEN ABOUT HER, BUT AS AN AUTHOR SHE IS NOW UNKNOWN

What happened to Queen

THIS is my report on a forgotten

author; on a tiny plump-faced woman who sat with, pursed lips cach day scratching away at a diary which-less than 100 years ago—she turned into one of the biggest best- sellers of her age.

Can you guess who she was? She Was far more famous than Ouida or Marie Corelli.

self.

She was Queen Victoria ber-

In 1961, although the manu- facture of books about Queen

a large- Victoria has become scale industry the Queen's own books have been long out of

Victoria's

own books?

by ROBERT PITMAN

pay

that Pensionby was banned from the royal dinner table for a

year.

Yet here is the curious thing about the Lady Lytton book. Such anecdotes do not come from her meagre diary et all,

On another day we read:- "My poor Albert had not even fred one shot for fear of apolling the whole thing, but had been running about a good deal."

Even when Albert's luck seems to be in, something hap- pens to change 11:-

"Albert shot a roe, and I think would have shot more had they not been turard back by the sudden appearance, of an old wonian who, looking Mike a wlich, caine along through the wood with two tamente crutches en dis- ExTbcd

whole the

thing. Albert killed the roe just an was coming along, and

shot startled her very

E

sle the Tuch."

It

with the net the Munshi." The interest-

Then there l the afternoon strongly re- ing points are added as notes

when Albert shouls a magniß- by her grand-daughter, Mary Lutyens, who has edited the cent stag wkhout knowing It,

hus and

the Queen, with her prescht volume and who

to Vicky. wealth daughter

deeldes gathered cleverly

sketch the victim:- of amusing things from other sources.

How then can anyone be ex- the Queen's private secretary Virtually all she says is:

30s. for her end accommodated pected to

who courtiers. diary? about

scuted him. Well, there are some splendid anegdoi 25.

They were prepared to over- colour. buf he was ton. And, they

Since the New Year one ex

the pensive product fron

has alreatly Victoria Industry

LADY its title uppeared.

DIARY, COURT LYTTON'S edited by Mary Lutyens (Hatt- Davis, 305.).

GROTESQUE

Lady Lytton was the fussy and not very intelligent widow of an ambassador.

look his bumptious

There is the air of the Munshi. He was the strange Mohammedan from India who whispered, bogus. “ከ extraordinary

the Queen over years of her Bio.

influence

Just

in the

In 1954 his agents went into action, platating their bombs in the embassies and in Alexandria post office, Calro railway station,

thai the details of the disastrous and couple of cinemas.

were Cairo inission should not be Some went off: other::

were lished Jest they wreck found unexploded. They

Britain plastic Israel's relations with effetent simple but

At first he was a servant. and the United States. cases filled with n apretuele

But he explained that a ser- Only when the battle between Jash

1xwder powder, in the

Crouched over the bed in vani's dutles were beneath him was a rubber bulb containing Ben-Gurlen and Lavon is sel-

her cramped, chilly room at because his father wag surgeon- The acid would slowly led by the resignation of one or nute.

the general to the forces in India. she recreated ent through the rubber: when the olber will there be any in- Balingrad

By order of the Queen, all it came in contact with the deation of who really gave the datiy events in her life as lady-

photographs of the Munshi prider the fire-bomb would go order for that disastrous sabo-in-walling to the Queen.

tage mission.

Her spelling in grotesque at waiting at table"

des --{London Express Service). her style appallingly muddled, troyed. Soon he was seting as

.

But something more than the bonis went wrong.

The Israeli saboteurs were traced.

The Egyptians arrested 11 of the 13, including; a woman. Two had escaped-John Darling." who had returned to Isract, and

a Paul Frank, who had Just been sent by the Israelis on an- alher mission to Vienna.

Confessions

During the trial most of the accused made лbject conics- sions. In the red uniforms of the condemned, Tunisian born Moshe Marzouk, 28, and Ale. xandrian teacher Samuel Azzar, 26, went to the gallow-though no one had been killer by their bombs

The rest, got heavy sentences. One of them, a German Jew, Max Bennett, cut his wrists in his cell. For his wife in London he left a tragic note: "There 23 By other way out, my darling

TOT You must remarry

out daughter's sake

In Israel a secret investigation -secret because Israel could not admit being officially concerned was begun by a Government- appointed commission, to

find

out where the pict went wrong. Defence Pinbar Lavos, the Minister, was blamed art forced to resign. He vald he had been framed.

But in 1957 Israell milkory Intelligence discovered that the man who had escaped to Vicinu, Paul Frank, hnd betrayed the ring to the Egypilans for

spy

£3,500, Frank whose real name La Mordecal Kader-wns recall- od and arrested as he landed at

Lydda Airport,

Ho became Israel's Count of Monte Cristo-kept secretly in o darkened solitary cell in Jeru salem.

It was 10 months before unn nows reached, hin beautiful mannequin wife; She had been receiving letters from "bari throughout thoso 18 months Бугорови ко hilera with matki.

Communist

were

DON'T SHOOT!

MET

The Queen ordered Frederick Ponsonby, young courtier, to demolish the rumours about her beloved Munshi by an la- vestigation.

PLEASURE

Such the unique faschiva- tion of Quern Victoria thal, 60 years after her death, a few 1-

word from any on spelled

valuable pre near her Returning from India, Pon-

the material for the Victoria 3n- schby

reported that Munshi's father, far from being dustry.

raw

the

that poor. Brown's legs had been dreadfully cut by edge of this wet kilt on Mon- day.... Today one became so inflamed and swelled so much that he could hardly move." Yet it is the uter volume, "More Leaves," dedicated to Brown's memory, which is actually dominated by Albert. Albert is dead, but his memory Three years is everywhere.

after his donth, tho Queen writes:→→

"A thick. misty, very threaten- ing morning! There was no help for it, but it was audly It was the same provoking.

twice in former

once

happy days, and my dear Albert always said we could not alter it, but must leave it as it was, and make the best of $1."

DEATH...

When the

"Almost

carriage

"I sat down to sketch, and poor over, Albert's memory

Vicky, unfortunately, sat her near self on a wasps' nest, and was much stung.... Albert joined 1. aware of having killed the stay. What a delightful day!"

Yet Vicky, on her wasps' nest, was only one of many people surrounding

who the Queen seemned to be accident prone. The Queen bed a sure note for misfortune.

SPECTACLE

turns

atoys

directly

after the accident happened, I said to Alice It was terrible not to

tall it to be able t dearest Albert, to which she answered 'But he knows it all, and I am sure he watch. ed over u." I am thankful that it was by no imprudence of mine or by the slightcat deviation from what my tie- loved one and I had always been in the habit of doing...." With Albert gone the Queen's interest in funerals and sudden death seems to grow. She goes

a surgeon-general, was apothe But what of the Queen's own from the cury at a prison. But the only writing? Recently, Jesult of this information was locked-up storeroom of a pubile library. I obtained two large and dusty volumes.

The Arst (1808) Is LEAVES At a Highland cross-country FROM THE JOURNAL OF rate she is delighted by the OUR LIFE IN THE HIGH- spectacle of the runners LANDS. The second (1884)-scrambling through a wood in with her daughter Beatrice, to MORE LEAVES FROM THE their kitis (she always notes console the mother of a drown- JOURNAL OF A LIFE IN THE the pleasing effect of a kill). ed child. She writes:- HIGHLANDS,

LAOS TRIPARTITE COMMISSION

| Anti-Commu

She wlic

Both are illustrated by the "We were all much pleased to Queen's own curious sketches. see our pillte, Duncan, who

They do not Jook premising;

is an active, good-looking but I doubt whether many

young man, mia..."

a footnote she adds: book published this year will But in

"He, itke many others, spic give me such innocent pleasure.

blood after running the race REVERENCE

up, that steep hilt in this short spece of time, and he never been so strong since.

Naturelly that docs not necesarily mean the sort of intendeck by thre pleasure author. On her Arst trip to Scotland sho writes:- "The impression Edinburgh har made upon us is very great: it is quite beautiful, totally unlike anything else I have seen; and what is even MORTE, Albert, who has seen 00 much, says it is unlike any- thing he ever saw...." The nuthor could hardig realise how that phrase "what is even more" would delight us today.

on

in the kitchen "On a table

covered with a sheet, schich they fled up, lag the poor, sweet, innocent baile, a Ane plump child, and looking just as though it slept, with quite a pinkish colour and very title scratched-with its Hittle hands - joined a most touching eight. I let Beatrice she 200 it, and was glad should see death for the frat and time in to touching pleasing a fOPTIL"

The Queen also visits an old woman who had received much of the Queen's charity- "The poor old woman lay on a bier in her shroud........ She had on the socks I gave ker the day before yesterday.

On another cccasion she writes about a torch-t ball in which seven pipers are fed by a man named Mackay, À foot- note tells us about Mackry:- "My piper from the year 1843, considered almost the first in Scotland; he unfortunately want out of his mind in the

car 1854....* But there is no doubt that tho

gerland

for misfortune- must go to John Brown. the It is a rather different pleture Highland zervant who became of the Queen, En't it? Different, the Queen's constant attendant that is from the Queen who and companion ntter the Princo was not amused, who forted

her Consort's death.

Cabinet Ministers, when vistung Balmoral,

MEMORY

Soon Albert cbtrudes

to get un page. His most bonal every

and their handa are noted with ro

Te knped remarks verence. "This change dots

smoke up the chimneys of their such goml," writes the Queen.

Brown's record is poor testl- rooms for fear of earning the "As Albert ols:rves, it re-

many to the protective valuo of Queen's rebuke by polluting freshes one for a long time."

the kit, On a warship with the atmosphere with nicotine. Above all we ere treated to the queen he falls through a' mite-by-mire descriptions of turret and badly injures his For all is whiptentional Albert's Jack of zure 24. D

coile touches tha. Ghicen in her

bare leg,

epcrtiman, Ho rarely seca to Ho injures he leg again diary becomes audderdy human. hit anything: ---

when the Queen's carriage

Why is it that than not "Albert looked like a little-which-t-in-nimos constant en reissued since the Victo

trouble--lumns över. speck, creeping about on an oppelte hitt.... He had been Even when not in actual riare Age became fashionable very unlucky and had lost in collision with thinge Brown's #gala? sport, for the rifle would not lege do not cocupo injury, go of just when have shot some fino haris: pet, he was merry and cheere ful of if nothing had, fjip.. pened to disappoint hith

Is it perhaps at its he could One day, the Quecti's diary author were found to ko no

begins:- "Ayother.

wonderfully ordinary, the VIC-

apes tartan Indvatry Maple might ye

wretchedly.

morning

tressed at breakfast to find.

pondoh Exprike kërispus,