1
DSR (Revised)
DRAFT:
minute/letter/teleletter/despatch/note
FROM:
Private Secretary
DEPARTMENT:
TEL. NO:
TYPE: Draft/Final 1+
Reference
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
TO:
Your Reference
Top Secret
FER Butler Esq
Secret
Confidential
Principal Private Secretary
No.10
Copies to:
Restricted
Unclassified
PRIVACY MARKING
SUBJECT:
.In Confidence
CAVEAT....
Enclosures-flag(s).............
We are
Thank you for your letter of 24 December.
sorry that delays occurred to three telegrams during the
Prime Minister's tour before Christmas.
2. Since it is clearly important that arrangements for
getting telegrams to the Prime Minister and Foreign
Secretary when abroad work reliably, we have checked on
the handling of each telegram to see whether there are
lessons to be learned. All three telegrams were trans-
mitted and received well in advance of the Deskby times.
3. In Peking the Prime Minister's telegrams received
during the visit have already been destroyed so the Post
cannot be precise about what happened; but Peking have a
record of the telegram, which was Deskby 0700 local time on
20 December, being received at 0545 hours. The last
courier from the Embassy to the guest house left at 0610
hours with all the telegrams which had been received by
then and handed them in when she arrived at the guest house
at 0640 local time. Since the Private Office was then
starting to be packed up, we cannot be sure whether the
telegram was missed at the Embassy or during the packing up..