The Missing Frogman

Is Britain's frogman dead? The Admiralty said it thought he was (TIME, May 14). If he died in some underwater accident, what became of his body? Why had the Admiralty waited ten days before saying anything?

Had the frogman been spying on the Soviet cruiser and destroyers lying in Portsmouth harbor? What could he see underwater if he had been spying? Had the Russians (who brought Bulganin and Khrushchev to England) caught the frogman and quietly taken him prisoner? Had they done him in, or had they dumped his body at sea to save embarrassment?

Furor at Home. Last week the fate of Frogman Lionel ("Buster") Crabb, wartime hero in the Royal Navy, was giving Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden one of the most awkward times of his political career. In the House of Commons, Sir Anthony tried to dismiss the whole matter: "It would not be in the public interest to disclose the circumstances in which Commander Crabb is presumed to have met his death." But then he added mysteriously: "I think it necessary, in the special circumstances of this case, to make it clear that what was done was done without the authority or the knowledge of Her Majesty's Ministers. Appropriate disciplinary steps are being taken."

His evasion did not dispel curiosity; it doubled it. The obvious inference was that Commander Crabb had been employed by some secret arm of the government. Whatever the intelligence agency hoped to learn under the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze was plainly not worth the risk of being caught at it. The furor swelled. Britain's Labor leaders had a special reason for pressing the attack. They were embarrassed by rank-and-file criticism that they had been unmannerly to B. & K. at the famous dinner party (TIME, May 7) and were anxious to convict Sir Anthony of even cruder mistreatment of his guests. They threatened a motion to cut Eden's salary--a formal method of bringing a Minister's personal competence into question.

At this point the Russians got crudely into the act.

Bad Manners Abroad. Moscow radio announced that the Kremlin had sent an official note to Whitehall concerning what Pravda called this "shameful espionage." With a lack of diplomatic good manners, the Russians went on to quote their protest and the British reply.

This was their story: Russian seamen had spotted the frogman, wearing a black diving suit and flippers on his feet, at 7:30 one morning, floating between two Soviet destroyers. He stayed on the surface a minute or two. then dived under. The Russian admiral complained to the Portsmouth naval base commander, a rear admiral, who "categorically denied the possibility" of a British frogman in the area. "In actual fact," said Moscow, Crabb's secret activities have since been confirmed. The Foreign Office answer was a model of stiff-lipped embarrassment: "Commander Crabb carried out frogman tests, and, as is assumed, lost his life during these tests. His presence in the vicinity of the destroyers occurred without any permission whatever, and Her Majesty's Government express their regret at the incident."

This, while not very edifying, was more informative than Eden had been in the House of Commons. Anthony Eden had more explaining to do.

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