Letter: Spying disgrace

PAUL LASHMAR'S piece ("An unfortunate lack of intelligence", 19 September) misses the point. It is not lack of intelligence, but the lack of any readiness to prosecute the Stasi agents and informers uncovered in the Mitrokhin archive that is so worrying. The scale of Stasi and KGB penetration of British universities is a national disgrace. How can university lecturers and professors, who year after year spied on colleagues, passing on information on the intelligence services of hostile states, possibly retain any academic authority?

Take it for granted, had those exposed been Nazi spies, the demands for punishment would have been deafening. Curious.

DR FRANK ELLIS

Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies

University of Leeds