Overcoming stage-managed obstacles to communicating with Sir Gordon Radley

I went to see Sir Gordon Radley at English Electric House, on the corner of Aldwych and the Strand.  The first extraordinary thing to happen was that the doorman, who I did not know, from the moment I entered its portals, greeted me like a long-lost friend.  Then, during a short wait in Sir Gordon's outer office, his secretary spoke glowingly of Ray Burnett and how well he looked after her on this and that occasion.

When I was shown into his office Sir Gordon said he didn't wish to hear anything from me - I should see Mr. Burnett.  I had been too anxious to obtain promotion before Mr. Burnett had been ready to give it to me and there were some factors of which I was unaware.

I had expected some barriers to communication with Sir Gordon and this is why I had prepared the yellow-page outline describing why and how I had actually come to leave M.I.  I replied that were some factors of which he was unaware and gave him some of the yellow pages.  He was reluctant to read them but I persisted and as he looked through the pages he read them more intensely and with increasing anger as he realised how much he had been deceived.    He was clearly staggered.  When he had finished he said weakly that Mr. Burnett had told him that he and I had departed on the best of terms.

Sir Gordon then asked if I would like a job elsewhere in the Group; perhaps I should have said "YES", especially as this was what I had sought through him while I was at M.I., but relationships with others in the Group had by then become so disrupted by what had taken place that I felt it best to continue looking outside.  I said my job applications were being undermined - I said that I would prefer Mr. Burnett's sting to be removed and assistance in getting a job outside English Electric.

Sir Gordon said he would be very pleased for me to use his name as a reference for any job applications.  As for the undermining of job applications, he said I was imagining things and reading too many books on psychology - I had shown him "Managerial Psychology" by Leavitt, but unfortunately I omitted to tell him it had been the prescribed book for an English Electric management course.