"This Miserable Little Case"

"Absolute bunkum!" snorted Home Secretary Reginald Maudling when a television interviewer asked him if he thought Britain was abandoning some of its cherished liberal traditions. There were, however, many Britons who were prepared to challenge Maudling on that point last week as a result of his handling of the "Red" Rudi Dutschke case. Shortly after Dutschke was shot in the head by a right-wing assassin in West Berlin nearly three years ago, the fiery radical student leader was granted permission to recuperate in Britain. James Callaghan, then Home Secretary in Harold Wilson's Labor government, imposed one condition--that Dutschke refrain from any political activity. Suffering from partial blindness and frequent epileptic attacks, Dutschke settled in Cambridge with his American wife and two small children. After Labor's defeat in last June's national elections, Maudling re-examined the Dutschke case on behalf of the new Tory government and ruled that people should not be let into Britain and then denied their normal rights. But Maudling was not prepared to grant Dutschke the right to engage in politics. Ergo, Dutschke would have to go. Dutschke appealed the ruling to a five-man tribunal that reviews Home Office decisions.

Since the Home Secretary chose to defend his actions as a matter involving national security, some of the deliberations were held in secret, and Dutschke was not even informed of the evidence against him. The tribunal held that while Dutschke did not pose "any appreciable threat to national security," he violated his commitment to refrain from political activity by meeting with radicals in Britain and by traveling to Calais and Berlin to confer with like-minded revolutionaries.

Star Chamber. Many Britons who thoroughly disagree with Rudi's Maoist politics accept his argument that merely discussing politics does not constitute political activity. There was also the suspicion that Britain's secret service tapped his telephone, a practice that evokes special revulsion in Britain. Protest marches were staged at Cambridge and other universities, and the Financial Times warned that "only vigilance can prevent creeping incursions of Star Chamber techniques."

During a three-hour debate on the matter in the House of Commons, Callaghan argued that Dutschke had not gone back on his commitment. "Dutschke's views may be repugnant, but it would have been more in keeping with our traditions to have let him stay," declared Callaghan. "We are betraying democracy if we behave, as the government are doing, with all the reactions of a nervous and frightened tabby pussycat." But the ruling Conservatives supported Maudling in what Callaghan called "this miserable little case" by a vote of 295 to 237, confirming that Dutschke and his family must leave Britain. Dutschke, who still suffers from speech difficulties and epilepsy, is waiting for permission to enter Denmark as assistant tutor at Arhus University's Institute for the History of Ideas.

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