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Personal and Confidential
The Rt Hon Michael Stewart CH MP Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
August 7 1969
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Mc Muwanj
Dear Mr Stewart
I am grateful to you for your letter of August 4 and for your frank and detailed reply to the points I have raised. Although your letter makes no concession to the point of view I have urged, it has for me the virtue of making the situation completely clear: you cannot do that which is necessary to secure Grey's early release since you hold it to be against the national interest. You tell me that the comparison I had sought to make with the Brooke case is invalid since the release of the Krogers, on the contrary, was not against the national interest.
These are matters on which my views can only be those of a moderately informed private citizen and they have no place here. I see that I can- not move you and it is pointless to go on trying.
I write again, therefore, to thank you particularly for one passage in your letter and to make one final point after which I shall be silent.
I am particularly grateful for your recognition of Grey's fortitude and of his having had to put up with a great deal on behalf of this country and of Hong Kong. I am glad that this is recognised here and in the colony..
For my final point I return to the fear I put forward in my letter to you of April 29 that the Chinese might wish for some gesture going beyond the release of the Hong Kong prisoners on the due dates. You say that you are as sure as you can be in dealing with the Chinese that they will honour the assurance that Grey will be released when the Hong Kong prisoners are free again. I had hoped that the chances of their doing this might have been increased by the release of the Hong Kong prisoners some very short time before the end of their sentences. At the moment
Gerald Long General Manager Reuters Limited 85 Fleet Street London EC4 Telephone Fleet Street 6060