"Transfer"

"It's not a purge," snapped a sensitive British government official, "it's a transfer." But to Britons, it was the closest thing to a purge they ever wanted to see. Said Prime Minister Clement Attlee: "No one who is known to be a member of the Communist Party, or to be associated with it [or any Fascist organization] is to be employed in connection with work . . . vital to the security of the State."

Only a year ago, Britons would not have stood for such a ruling. But they had never allowed freedom of opinion to mean freedom of treason.* Wrote the London Times: "Communism being what it is . . . the faithful and their camp followers cannot fairly expect to be trusted in positions of responsibility."

The proposed purge seemed a very polite affair. It was to be aimed specifically at an estimated 200 Communists (scientists, cipher clerks, telephone girls) in the Admiralty, War and Air Offices, Foreign Ministry, Ministry of Supply (which controls munitions, radar, atomic energy, including Britain's "Oak Ridge" at Harwell).

Military Intelligence's Home Counterespionage Branch, aided by Scotland Yard, would first investigate suspects. Their cases would then be duly reported to their departmental heads, who in turn would consult the competent bargaining committee of a competent labor union (the Civil Service Clerical Association). Efforts were to be made to find the suspect Communist a job in another, less vulnerable part of the government. Some Communists, like famed Scientist J.B.S. Haldane, who has been advising the government on submarines, might well prove irreplaceable. Said Haldane smugly: "They can throw me off the experiments if they want to, but if they'd thrown me off six months ago, they might not have had certain increased efficiency in underwater craft."

In the House of Commons, Communist Willie Gallacher sang the Red Flag to show his disapproval. Later, while the House roared with laughter at his sudden concern for civil liberties, he piped: "This is a very important subject. If you listen you will hear the tramp of many million feet, and before long it may be that the laugh will be the other way around."

*Britain, unlike the U.S., has always hanged its traitors.

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