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Classification and Caveats
CONFIDENTIAL
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IMMEDIATE
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submissions available and avoiding any charge that we are suppressing the evidence. We can also see the difficulty in
selecting some, but not all submissions for publication.
54.
We think the solution is to confine the White Paper to the
6 main report of the Assessment Office and the report of the
7 Monitors, but in addition to place all the detailed submissions
in the libraries of the House of Commons and Lords in bound form
and to draw attention to the fact that we have done so. We
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10 could use photographically reproduced typescripts for this
11
purpose. Copies could also be made available to the press, though
12 we doubt if many of the UK pres would go far into documents of
13 this length.
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14 5.
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Interest in Hong Kong in the detail of the evidence
presented to the Assessment Office will of course be greater 16 and we should see no objection to your publishing the two
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volumes of evidence together with the report in Hong Kong if you 18 wanted to do so. If you did so we could of course use these
19 documents to put in the Libraries of the Houses
20 distribute to the press.
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Although we do not
and to
wish to put any pressure on
Mr McPherson on what he should and should not put in his report,
Ministers are a little concerned that the answer to the main
24 question, whether or not in the circumstances the agreement is 25 acceptable, should not be too obscured or shaded by a vast mass
26 of comment. We take it that however much comment on various
aspects is included, the answer to the main question will be 28 adequately highlighted.
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·
The Department will telegraph separately on detailed
aspects of the production of the White Paper.
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