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Mr. Hall, Col. Beattie and I discussed the question of special publicity measures in Hong Kong yesterday afternoon with
Mr. Rayner. The following three points were discussed in particular:-
(a) Appointment of Regional Information Officer
Mr. Rayner explained that the Foreign Office had still
been unable to obtain Treasury approval for this appointment; they were approaching the Treasury again. He said that the Government of Hong Kong were becoming very restive about this delay, and he hoped that we would do everything we could to expedite the appointment and the selection of a suitable officer. We agreed that, pending the receipt of the Treasury decision, no useful purpose would be served by communicating further with Hong Kong.
(b) Selection of candidate for Regional Information Officer
Mr. Rayner said that the Government of Hong Kong had
already informed him personally that they would not regard Mr.Pepper as a suitable candidate. As regards Mr. Leslie Smith, mentioned in (39), Mr. Rayner felt that Mr Smith would do better work as Public Relations Officer. He had advised Mr. Smith to accept appointment to the Public Relations Dept. in Hong Kong and he had expressed a personal hope to the Government of Hong Kong that they would appoint him with a view to promoting him to the post of P.R.0. when Mr. Harmon left. It would therefore be necessary to find a new candidate for the post of Regional Information Officer. He hoped that we would try and get someone who was experienced in publicity techniques even though he might not have a knowledge of the Far East. He thought that a propagandist would be able to do more valuable work than "a China hand". We agreed that this would be discussed with the Foreign Office when the Treasury approval had been obtained.
/(c)