“[Donald] Maclean was heading off the rails at fantastic speed. He had tried to persuade his Soviet handler that he no longer wished to be a Soviet spy, apparently unaware that whis was not the sort of club one could resign from. Moscw simply ignored the request. In May 1950, the strain became to much for him: he got drunk, smashed up the Cairo flat of two secretaries at the US embassy, ripped up their underwear and hurled a large mirror off the wall, breaking a large bath in two. He was sent home, placed under the care of a Harley Street psychiatrist, and then, amazingly, after a short period of treatment, promoted to head of the American desk at the Foreign Office. Even drunken, unhinged knicker-shredding, it seemed, was no bar to advancement in the British diplomatic serivice if one was the ‘right sort’.”
‘A Spy Among Friends’ af Ben Macintyre, s. 144
