Derek Jameson's recollections

I met John Peet in 1973 at a most memorable party (for those who could remember anything at all the next morning) given by Donald Armour, then the Reuters bureau chief in Berlin. Others from the twilight zone that I came across that night included Wilfred Burchett, an Australian journalist who had reported most favourably about local conditions from North Korea and who was at one point deprived of his Australian passport, and Stefan Heym, the American-German writer who chose to live in East Germany after World War Two yet still became a vociferous critic of the regime. 

In 1973, the Western powers had just recognised East Germany and opened embassies in East Berlin. Peet had turned up in the early morning before the British Embassy opened for the first time so he could be first to register as a British resident. During my chat with Peet (with a thick handlebar moustache and a tweed sports jacket, he looked like a caricature of a WWII RAF officer), I discovered that he and his family regularly took holidays in Britain. Although he may have defected in his eyes, under the laws of the country of his birth he had done nothing wrong (not possessing any official secrets) and was allowed to come and go as he pleased. 

Although he did write the story of his own defection, isn't the real story that Reuters never published it? ■