The point of 'positive vetting' was that it was to be a 'searching investigation into a person's background and character'.

而针对性审查则不同，不但要详细地审查一个人的背景和性格，

This, in particular, included 'serious character weaknesses of a kind that might make a person unreliable or subject to blackmail.

还要审查他是否具有的严重的、易遭勒索的人格缺陷。

Thus any evidence that the person being investigated had or was reasonably suspected of having homosexual tendencies would automatically have raised a presumption that he was unfit to occupy a Positive Vetting post.'

一旦发现任何证据，证明某人涉嫌同性恋，那他就会被认定为无法担任相应的政治职务。

In practice, it would require elaborate and expensive surveillance to establish whether or not a person was homosexual.

但事实上，要想确定一个人是同性恋是非常困难的，

It was not enough to look for 'pansies', since (in the words of the American report) there were 'no outward characteristics or physical traits' that were 'positive as identifying marks of sex perversion'.

不能仅仅通过身体检查，没有任何外在的物理性状能够判定性异常。

Traditional British reserve and a presumption of heterosexuality made it difficult to detect homosexuals who made contacts through friends and private gatherings alone.

尤其是对于那些单线联系、私密行动的同性恋者，很难有办法认定他们的性取向。

But one who had been found out was in a very different position, concentrating the fear and suspicion that more logically would have diffused over many.

但是，一个人在遭到指控时，其处境就截然不同了，即使是最冷静的人，在巨大的压力和恐惧之下，也容易露出破绽。