LONDON: Two British Foreign Office officials disappeared in Europe reportedly carrying secret documents to Moscow and the French secret police today [June 7] joined British agents in a search for them. Foreign Office announcement on the affair is expected... . Scotland Yard had only terse: “No comment” in answer to all queries … . But the Surete Nationale in Paris confirmed that they had been asked by Scotland Yard to join the hunt… . …[T]he two men had flown to Paris ostensibly on vacation. A third Government official who was to company them went to police and declared the two … had actually headed for Moscow.

There are ... reports that the men had taken with them secret documents… . The French Government assigned counter espionage agents to the hunt, indicating that the report of stolen documents may be correct. London’s The Daily Express said the third man who informed about the pair had said they planned to go behind the Iron Curtain to “serve their idealistic purposes”.

[News agencies add,] The two men … have been suspended … because they are “absent without leave”, a Foreign Office spokesman said today.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2026