Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1963-09-12
BY EDMUND STEVENS
Star Special Writer

years after he detected, re-
turned home, a bundle Of ashes
in his brothers. suitcase. 1t is
almost a textbook example Of
retribution.
The background Of the story
is common knowledge: The
sensational Donald Maclean-
Guy Burgess vanishing act Of
1851 that rocked the British
Foreign Office. The fruitless
manhunt and the years Of
silence that was broken in 1856
when the absconding pair were
produced in a room Of Mos
cows National Hotel for the
benefit of two British journal
lists.
Already by then Maclean had
adopted himself to the Soviet
environment, having been
joined in exile by his American
wife, their two sons and his
mother-in-law.
They Drifted Apart
But Burgess never was able
to make the adjustment. He
and Maclean drifted apart. In
recent years, the two fellow
conspirators and one-time
bosom pals rarely saw each
other.
Burgess earned his keep and
tried to fill the aimleSs void by
editing turgid tranSlationS for
the Foreign Languages Pub
fishing House. At one time he
toyed with the idea of writing
his autobiography for a British
publisher.
Homosexuality is strictly
against Soviet law. But an ex-
ception was made for Burgess.
He shared his modest two-room
flat in a new housing develop
ment near Novodevichy Mon
astery on the fringe of Moscow
with an attractive. curly-haired
accordion player named Ana
toly.
The furnishings were meager,
but the place was cluttered
with English books, magazines
and newspapers. And there was
always a supply of Scotch
which Burgess was permitted to
import.
AS he sank ever deeper into
brooding solitude Burgess came
to lean more and more on the
bottle. But no amount of alco-
hol could kill his longing to see
his mother, the one being in
the world he truly cared for
and who cared for him.
Sought Visit Home
Repeatedly, when prominent
Britons came to Moscow, Bur-
CESS pleaded with them to in
tercede with the British gov
eminent so that he might be
granted safe conduct to visit
home and mother.
Thus. when Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan visited Rus
STA in the spring of 1859, fellow
Etonian Guy Burgess donned
his old school tie and hung
around the British press camp
in the Hotel Ukraina, vainly
searching for a friend in court.
Burgess isolation from the
Soviet world around him was
accentuated by his inability to
master more than a few words
Of RusSian-which the Mac
leans by now speak fluently.
Burgess, save for the cumu-
lative burden of the passing
years and a steadily aggravated
heart condition, acquired moth
ing in his IL years of residence
in the Soviet Union.
When. some weeks before he
died, he was admitted to Mos
cows Botkin Hospital under
the improbable cover name of
Jim Andreyevich Elliott, he
didn't know enough of the
language to communicate with
the staff, which was shocked
by his desperate condition.
For many months prior to
disqualification he had literally
been living on injections, adj
ministered by a nurse who
came to the flat daily for this
purpose.
He died as he had lived-a
man without a country, among
strangers. with no one to hold
his hand.
The two Russian woman doc
tors who were present at his
deathbed only learned post
mortem that the pathetic Eng
lish wreck they had been tend
ing was a celebrity of sorts.
Handful at Funeral
The handful Of persons who
attended the funeral, who fol-
lowed the battered green hearse
that bore Burgess the last mile
to the Moscow crematorium,
could hardly be described as
mourners.
The only one who actually
shed tears was his middle aged
housekeeper, Natalia Petrovna.
But 1t was not clear whether
rhe was prompted by personal
regard for the deceased or SIM
ply fulfilling Russian traditions
for such an occasion.
There was no sign OF the
accordion player.
Guys brother Nigel flew to
Moscow for the funeral. He re-
trieved the ashes for the sake
Of their mother, whom the
doctors had forbidden to make
the trip.
Also present and dry-eyed at
the funeral was Donald Mac