Goodness, How Bad

By RA---LPH Tuts is a hell of a way to run a railroad. I have now been in Moscow for nearly a week, and I must say that the Russian leaders are not nearly so grown-up as I thought. Yesterday I went to take a bath in my hotel, and found that there was no plug.

I finally made the chambermaid understand what I wanted, and she went off to fetch one. Or so I thought. But in fact she brought back an inter- preter, who explained that there were no plugs.

I wonder how our own woolly-minded Com- munists and fellow-travellers explain away the fact that in their Socialist paradise there are no bath plugs. Ho! Ho! Ho!

But the resources of civilisation are not ex- hausted; I had provided myself before I left with a collection of plugs to fit almost any size hole. Sir Winston Churchill had told me many years ago that there were no plugs in Russian baths, and unlike the silly-billies all around me I was able to take a bath. We country bumpkins know a thing or two. We are steady on parade.

Ho! Ho! Ho! What a tease!

Moscow is a very large city, but I do not think the people are very well dressed. It is very cold here, but many of them do not even have fur hats. Perhaps they are not as well off as we are always being told by the hacks of the gutter press. Certainly they are not as grown-up as my personal friend Mr. Macmillan, who is very grown-up in- deed. Apart from Sir Winston Churchill, in fact, think he is the most grown-up Prime Minister Britain has ever had. He is very grown-up. He is also on our side. I like him.

Our Socialists, who throw up their hands and cry `gulla-gulla-gulla' as soon as they face the enemy, say that Mr. Gaitskell would make a better Prime Minister than Mr. Macmillan. Ho! Ho! Ho! Mr. Gaitskell is not even fit to be sent out `to govern New South Wales.' He is not grown-up. He is a silly-billy.

Last night, when the talks between Mr. Mac- millan and Mr. Khrushchev were finished, Guy Burgess called on me in my hotel. With proper punctilio he adumbrated the object of the exer- cise: it was to persuade me to use my influence with the Foreign Office so that he might be enabled to come back to Britain. I explained that although we country bumpkins know a thing or two, he was a silly-billy if he thought I would arrange such a thing for him.

The gutter press, which was busy attacking Sir Winston Churchill at the time of Munich, prob- ably believes that the peccant Burgess should be allowed to come back to Britain. This doesn't make a noise like a dividend to me : as Mr. Bernard Baruch said to me. It is recorded that the Chinese suffered dictatorships for 2,000 years because they were incapable of pronouncing the monosyllable `no.' I am not a Chinese, and I can pronounce the monosyllable `no.' I pronounced it.

Burgess is a Communist. I said this at the time he and his friend Maclean ran off to Moscow, and I say it again.

Burgess is a Communist. Chuck it, Burgess.

I must say these Russians are not above learn- ing a thing or two from us capitalist country bumpkins. The Kremlin is lit up at night like some Western tourist attraction. It is a very im- pressive building, with curious spires that look almost like onions.

It is enough to make you cry. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Now it is time for Mr. Macmillan to have more talks with Mr. Khrushchev. I think I will go and have another bath. So, as Sir Winston Churchill once said, 'All legitimate interests are in harmony.'

The silly-billies of the gutter press in their supine inattention think that Mr. Macmillan should give Mr. Khrushchev everything he wants. But Mr. Macmillan is not going to make Moscow into another Munich. He is steady on parade.

He is far too grown-up for that. Ho! Ho! Ho! So the silly-billies are going to be disappointed. Goodness, how sad.

BERNARD LEVIN