enc I
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VIDIIAL
by the merged Office in Commonwealth countries, and we should lose a convenient channel for feeding in to Commonwealth countries our attitudes, assessments and
opinions. It should therefore be preserved, and as far as possible made more meaningful.
12. The fact that the material circulated has been
written for British eyes creates the main obstacle
to a greater flow of "A" print to the Commonwealth
as a whole. One answer to this is the production of specially written material. This is being separately discussed, and falls outside the scope of the
arrangements dealt with in this submission. A
second is to make the arrangements more flexible, and to place more responsibility on posts overseas (and geographical departments) to pick out material which
would be particularly relevant to the interests of
their particular countries, and to their own diplomatic needs. This, with the necessary safeguards of clearance with the department responsible for the subject matters, is therefore proposed in paragraph
5 of Hote. As Diplomatic Reports would, under this
arrangement, be individually selected and cleared, no
letter code will attach to it.
13. There will continue to be papers which
departments may wish to circulate to all Commonwealth countries (certain categories of research papers are an example) and it is therefore proposed that the "A"
/distribution
CONFIDENTIAL