13/9
17120
CONFIDENTIAL
боб
Sir A. Galsworthy
Gajdvorchy
General Pearson called to see me this afternoon
after the completion of the UNISON exercise.
He said he had kept a very close eye on Hong Kong
and felt some relief that things were now easier there.
He went on to express the view that earlier, after the
onset of the crisis, there had been a certain amount of
friction between the civil and military authorities but
he thought these difficulties were now all straightened
out. The fact was that General Worsley was a splendid
fighting soldier. He had plenty of dash and guts but
was not of the contemplative temperament which could
settle down to a long period of psychological warfare,
and found it difficult to resist the temptation to
strike back when action could be unfortunately
provocative. Nevertheless the military had now been
assigned a definite role and his impression was that
things were working quite smoothly and, curiously, that
General Worsley and Mr. Gass seemed to co-operate well
together, perhaps precisely because they were such
opposites. He would certainly like to pay a tribute
to the efficiency of the machine in Hong Kong which he
felt had stood up remarkably well under conditions of
crisis and operated extremely smoothly. There was no
doubt that we had won most of the battles so far (even
рада
CONFIDENTIAL
/if