《参考消息》2006年6月13日第3版：水下间谍为何失踪？

《独立报》2006年6月11日文章：英国冷战时期的最后一个大谜团

The last great mystery of Britain's Cold War

By Francis Elliott, Whitehall Editor
Published: 11 June 2006

（1）Highly classified papers to be released this week cast new light on one of the most enduring Cold War mysteries - the disappearance of Lionel "Buster" Crabb.

The frogman never returned from an unauthorised spying mission on a Russian cruiser carrying Nikita Krushchev to Britain on an official visit 50 years ago. The British government was left gravely embarrassed when the mission's failure became public k________①, after a bungled[1] operation to cover it up by the intelligence service.

Now the full extent of Anthony Eden's fury is to be laid b________② when a long-suppressed report into the affair which was sent to the then Prime Minister from his most senior civil servant is published this week under Freedom of Information legislation. But while Sir Edward Bridges confirms that Eden specifically refused permission for MI6[2] to carry out underwater surveillance, it fails to answer the key question of what happened to Crabb.

Sir Edward's report - withheld until now, first on the grounds of national security, and then with the excuse that the papers might have been c________③ with asbestos[3] - is still heavily censored. Marked "Top Secret", it details how Crabb was taken by a naval officer to Portsmouth and made a p________④ dive, in which he appeared "in good trim[4]", but disappeared the next day on his mission.

（2）The papers detail how MI6 desperately sought to keep the failed mission secret. His name was removed by local police from the register of the Portsmouth hotel in which he had been staying. When （3）the story began to break about the famous frogman's disappearance, senior officials in the Admiralty[5], the Foreign Office and MI6 argued among themselves about who was responsible, agreeing only not to tell any ministers.

A key section of the report on why "due precautions were not taken in carrying out this operation" has been blanked out. （4）Historians may be consoled, however, by ample evidence of Eden's anger at the botched[6] mission, littered in the margins of the report. Against one passage explaining how Whitehall mandarins agreed to keep the affair from their various ministers, Eden scribbled, "R_________⑤".

His fury is explained in a chronology of the affair included in the report. It shows that on 12 April 1956 - just one week before Crabb's disastrous dive - Eden explicitly rejected a request to mount an underwater surveillance operation. "_________________________,（我很抱歉，但在这样的场合，我们不能采取此类行动。）" he told the First Lord of the Admiralty.

NOTES:
[1]bungle vt.办糟；拙劣地工作
[2]MI6 （military intelligence） n.军情六处
[3]asbestos n.石棉
[4]in good trim 状况良好
[5]Admiralty n.英国海军部
[6]botch v. 修补得不好；拙劣地工作