The Right to Leave

"Going back to Magna Carta . . ." said Tory M.P. Sir Herbert Williams in the House of Commons question period last week, "has not a British subject an unqualified right to leave this country and to come back?"

Other M.P.s, both Labor and Tory, heatedly echoed the question. Cause of the commotion was Australian-born Scientist Eric Burhop, 40, leftish lecturer in physics at London University who had spent some 18 months during World War II working on atom projects in the U.S. Last fortnight, just as Burhop was about to leave for a "good will" trip to Moscow with 19 other members of the British-Soviet Friendship Society, his passport was canceled.

The Foreign Office, belatedly security-conscious since the mysterious disappearance of Diplomats Donald MacLean and Guy Burgess two months ago (TIME, June 18), gave no reason for the action. Nor did it explain why, at the same time, it had canceled the passport of an unnamed Foreign Office official who was being investigated.

To the House's questions, Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs Ernest Davies replied in effect: the government is not preventing anybody from leaving the country--it is just taking back some passports, which are government property. "[Such] withdrawal of a passport might constitute a grave reflection on a person's character," insisted Tory Godfrey Nicholson.

Said Davies firmly: "No such action is taken unless it is considered necessary for . . . national security."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.