The Murder Trial of Dr John Bodkin Adams: Part I

On January 9, 1957, the British Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, laid down the seals of office for the last time. His physical health was wretched. His political health was worse. The previous year had been full of startling events. On February 11, 1956, two diplomats, Burgess and MacLean, who had been missing for five years, informed a press conference in Moscow of their careers as Russian spies. On February 25 the Soviet strong man Khrushchev delivered a highly hypocritical speech denouncing his predecessor Stalin as cruelly repressive. In April Khrushchev and his colleague Bulganin visited Britain: Sir Anthony had to apologise for an unauthorised examination by an eccentric Royal Navy diver of the hull of the Soviet cruiser on which they travelled. By the autumn, Eastern Europe was affected by revolutions in Poland and Hungary, put down brutally by Khrushchev, the liberal reformer of February. And relations with the United States had degenerated after Britain, France and Israel…