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I have spoken to colleagues in the police service and Customs and Excise, suggest two possible candidates for the post when Baggott retires. Neither of them is altogether ideal and I am not sure whether either of them matches Manby or Tufnell as a diplomat or administrator. Further, I do not know whether either is likely to be available. However, they have both had substantial law enforcement experience (although not in this particular region). In alphabetical order, they are George Dunning, ex-Chief Superintendent, Royal Hong Kong Police and Kenneth Stacey, currently Customs Adviser to the Honduras Government.
Dunning retired from the Royal Hong kong Police in May 1973 and had been latterly the Head of the Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau. On retirement, he started to read Macoun sociology at Exeter University, but is reported to have given it up. OPA
whom I have consulted say that he was in their view an efficient police officer, Colleagues that he is a man of some intellectual ability; but they are rather less confident
hap high opinin
Dunning
HKIOD
concur
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about his strength of personality, believing that he may be inclined to take the easy way in the face of resistance or pressure. My own a priori view (and I know Dunning only by reputation and not personally) is that the sort of man that is
and
required for this post at the present time is unlikely to be found from any but the very highest ranks of the Royal Hong Kong Police (and even some of them I would not from personal experience be inclined to recommend). The same applies even more strongly to persons who have served in the Hong kong preventive service, and we can think of no suitable candidate from there. For all that, Dunning, if he is available, may just be worth looking at.
(Before leaving candidates from Hong Kong 1 should say that it occurred to me that
Norman Rolph, the current Commissioner for Narcotics in Hong Kong, might be a candidate. He has considerable international experience in the Far East and goes regularly to interpol and has been to the UN Narcotics Commission. But he retired from the Hong kong police because of a heart condition and will be leaving Hong Kong finally some time early next year and retiring to England, where he has bought a house. I suspect that he would not want to take up a semi-permanent position in Teheran at this stage of his life, although he has mentioned to me that he would be interested in short term consultancy positions. be worth approaching, and if he were available would be a stronger candidate than
He might possibly Dunning, at least on experience.)
He
Stacey was in the UK Customs on the investigation side until the late '50's. was then seconded to a special mission in South america (I believe, in Bolivia) and worked for some time for the US Government (USAID). He is now, I understand, (the employed as Customs Adviser to the Hondurus Government under the auspices of the
JAUK Ministry of Overseas Development. He is certainly very experienced in law
enforcement problems in South America, both in the narcotics field (cocaine a keby brown smuggling) and in other Customs fields, and has done some substantial work in
advising the Bolivian Government in developing its capacity to prevent smuggling, particularly of cocaine. This type of experience might be of especial relevance to the current situation in Iran and to that which may well develop in the next few years.
He has certainly got the tyre of background which Dunning lacks in negotiating with and advising national governments this has also probably been a deficiency in Baggott's background which may have contributed to his apparent isolation from sources of real power in Teheran. 1 have met Stacey for a short while and he is personally known to one of my colleagues in Customs and Excise; we do not know of anything that positively disqualifies him from consideration.
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I hope that this information will be of some assistance to you (I apologise for the length of the letter). In view of the comments I have made upon the situation in Teheran and of the names that I have suggested as possible candidates, I think it would be as well if the various Foreign and Commonwealth Office Departments concerned had an opportunity to express an opinion upon what is said in this letter. I am therefore sending copies of it to Roy Marlow (Latin American Department), Alan Wotton (Hong Kong and Indian Ocean Department) and Feter Williams (Middle East Department) as well as Eric Callway at our Mission in Geneva and to Robin Oaten.
Yours sincerely
:) Train
C J TRAIN