PERSONAL AND SECRET
878
sear James,
851
853
Office of the British Chargé d'Affaires,
PEKING.
8 October, 1968.
I am sorry not to have acknowledged earlier your DEYOU telegram 852 on Grey. The reason is that it was overtaken by further reports from Hong Kong .
2.
We now face a difficult decision, as most decisions
seem to be. Essentially it is a choice between:
on Grey
(a)
(b)
sitting tight in the hope that the Chinese will before long settle the matter themselves and release him, and
*
taking action now by releasing one or both NCNA men in the hope that this will secure his release.
Either course has obvious risks; either is an act of faith. It is for example possible that even if we released Hsueh and Lo we might not secure Grey's release. But the Chances would be good.
3.
a big step on the road.
↓
At the very worst we would have taken (?
The argument now advanced by Hong Kong, that by such release we would upset the Chinese and prejudice Grey's chances, does not seem to merit very serious attention.
4.
کے
The question whether we should release one or both NCNA men is tricky. In my telegram:906 I favour release of both men at one go. I would not agree with you that if we wait for Hsueh's normal release in November and the Chinese still hold on to Grey, we shall then be in a strong position to persuade the Governor to release Lo quickly. As is apparent from the recent telegrams, the Governor's line is that the Chinese are not influenced by what happens to prisoners (Hong Kong telegram 2038); they will settle the matter in their own time; to release a prisoner prematurely may even be injurious to Grey. The same argument will be used against you in November. In the end I am afraid we must face the fact that the Governor will hang on to the prisoners if he possibly can. If we approach the problem solely in the light of our chances of persuading him, the chances of progress are slight.
5. I fear it may now be intended to postpone decisions on Grey until the consultations at the end of this month.
By then the arguments of inertia in favour of waiting a few weeks more until November will be very strong. If the decision is to wait, can something at least be done to advance the date of Hsueh's release within the month of November? I am not sure on what precise day he is due for release in the normal way. But would it not be possible by some adjustment, of the dates of his arrest or sentence or whatever, to ensure that he is out in early rather than late November? This would obviously not be admitted as premature release or exercise of the prerogative. It would be treated as Hsueh's normal
?
PERSONAL AND SECRET
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/release
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