2015
Mr. Carler
GOVERNMENT HOUSE
RHONG KONG
SECRET & PERSONAL REGISTRY No.51
(5)
Sw A. Galsworthy handed I
30" May. No
this to me on
reply is required. PA
-3 JUN 1969
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HKK13/1
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12th May 1969
Thank you for your telegram No. 167 to
Peking, giving press reactions to the Wong Chak business. Here there was a flurry of very similar speculation over the week-end, but I hope it has more or less died down now. The tone of press comment is not, of course, helpful to Grey: but it could have been a great deal worse. I was worried when the Board of Review came up with eleven recommendations because the number, matching the newsworkers as it did, tended towards making the whole thing look that much more fishy: but there wasn't much that could safely be done about it and fortunately the extra two young prisoners came up also to help befog the whole issue.
11
11
I think the whole operation went off pretty well, in fact; and although it was a bit of a rush at the end, which always increases the dangers of something going wrong, I think speeding it up was worthwhile.
It now remains to be seen what happens in October. Personally, I don't give Grey better than even chance, if that: as I have always said, the Chinese will please themselves when they release him, irrespective of what we do, unless we kow-tow to a demand of theirs which is the one thing we mustn't do. However, undeniably the exercise has two benefits (a) they will have to some extent been wrong-footed if they don't release him, and may be sensitive to this; and (b) there will be nothing more whatever we in Hong Kong can do to help him, and this should be apparent to everybody. The heat should therefore be off us but I fear, if he is not released, the pressure on you in Whitehall may become worse and more difficult to cope with.
LASY PAPER
Sir Arthur Galsworthy, KCMG,
SECRET