Cypher/Cat A
CONFIDENTIAL
IMMEDIATE HONG KONG TO COMMONWEALTH OFFICE
lno 1746 23 November 1967
CONFIDENTIAL
(DITD.)
HW
Addressed to Commonwealth Office telegram No. 1746 of 23 November
Repeated for information to POLAD Singapore and Washington
210
Your telegram 2387.
212
Although Knight's debriefing has not yet been completed, there seems little doubt that his escape from China was not engineered or contrived by the Chinese authorities.
2. According to his account, he was under virtually permanent watch by Guards stationed outside the door of his quarters at Shumchun. But he noticed that every evening (when only two Guards were on duty) one regularly went off at about 8 p.m. to have a bath. On 20 November they followed their normal routine and Knight chose a moment when the remaining Guard was called to the telephone to climb through the unbarred (but bolted) window of his room on the ground floor. He then walked all night through paddy fields, sugar cane etc. to the
Shumchun river, which he swam at about 6 a.m. on 21st November. He had made up his bed to give the impression that he was still in it and it appears that his departure was not discovered until about 6 a.m. when (as we know from other sources) sirens sounded in the border area. During his journey he appears to have come across nobody except one sentry, from whom he hid in a ditch for half an hour; this is not surprising as there is a strict curfew in the border area.
3. It is of course remarkable that the Chinese should have confined Knight in a room with an unbarred window not far above the ground. But the circumstances of his confinement followed the usual pattern for Europeans detained in the border area; while the cancellation of the border talks on 21 November and the Chinese failure to make any reference to Knight during the session of 22 November both seem to us to indicate strongly that they had not expected him to escape.
4. A detailed interim report follows by bag.
5. Please pass to Peking as appropriate.
Foreign Office please pass Routine Washington as my telegram No.392.
Sir D. Trench
[Repeated as requested]
ADVANCE COPIES SENT:
DEPARTMENTAL DISTRIBUTION C.0. Hong Kong Dept.
I. & G.D.
Far East & Pacific Dept.
J.I.R.D.
J.I.P.G.D.
News Dept.
RECEIVED IN ARCHIVES No. 63
230Vlad
LASI
R
F.O. F.E.D.
D.D. & P.U.S.D.EX
O.P.A.
REF.
210. 231
HWA 4/1
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