- 2 -
During the course of these and subsequent contacts I discovered a number of disturbing lapses in communications,
eg:
(i) The Luxemburg initiative, commencing with Luxemburg
telno 347 and culminating in Hong Kong telno 435, none of which correspondence was copied to this office initially;
(ii) The Dutch initiative as indicated in British Embassy
(The Hague)'s telno 308 which was not picked up, at least not immediately, in Geneva or Hong Kong, because apparently the telegram was not seen by all parties concerned although in this case apparently neither the Dutch Consulate-General in Hong Kong nor the Dutch representative to UNHCR ExCom in Geneva was fully briefed by their home government (cf HK 2414 and GAG 140).
(iii) The Danish initiative as expressed in British Embassy (Copenhagen)'s telno 252, which was not copied to all parties concerned - although here again there were some discrepancies with the line taken by the Danish Consulate-General in Hong Kong and the Danish
-
representative at UNHCR ExCom in Geneva (cf B746 from Woodhouse in Brussels - and HK 2414).
(iv) The lack of any information in this office to-date about
the results of the UK's "diplomatic offensive" in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
there aren't
aven't any
The source of these communications problems, as far as this office is concerned at any rate, appears to be that we are not on "the FCO net". I have drawn attention to this problem before and it is important that, where we have a role to play (or at least need to be kept informed of developments), we are included in the initial distribution of such telegrams as FCO telno 125. Is there anything you can do to help in this regard, or do you have any other suggestions as to how the sort of communications lapses I have outlined above can be avoided in future?
PS
Minc
respovits
Y
freefrys
Nepal.
Nigel J French Counsellor Hong Kong Affairs
I am copying this letter to Ken Woodhouse, Tony Miller and Ben Tang, any or all of whom may care to comment on this issue.