TNAG-0071-FCO40-107-Disturbances-in-Hong-Kong-propaganda-1969 — Page 71

LAST

CLAS

81

Reference...

Mr. Carter

With reference to your minute at (77), the transcript of the B.B.C. programme in question is now at (79).

2.

The Governor's letter at E/75 in effect deals with the matter under two heads, namely that of programme content and that of format and presentation. So far as content is concerned, the only specific comments made by the Governor are:

(i) that whenever a view expressed by

Mr. Pettifer it was almost invariably tendetious;

(ii) that a question interpolated by Mr. Pettifer and posed to the Governor, without prior agreement, was hypothetical, slanted and called for a comparison that could not cogently be made; whilst Mr. Pettifer's questions to Mr. Davies "virtually invited replies hostile to this Government".

Apart from these comments which were specifically related to this particular programme the Governor expressed general views on this type of programme as put out by the B.B.C.

3. There is no doubt whatever that the general content of the programme is slanted and includes continual sniping at authority, usually by innuendo. This appears to be the popular pastime today of those who themselves carry no responsibility. There is very little that one can pick on of factual inaccuracy; but there is one statement on page 2 of the transcript to the effect that "a few weeks ago, hundreds of bombs were being scattered through the Colony every day". I have been through our records of bomb reports since the beginning of the disturbances on May 11th. From that date until the 7th February, 1968, there was a total of 8,379 reports of bomb incidents; of this total 6959 proved to be either false alarms or hoax bombs leaving a total of 1420 genuine bomb incidents. If the false alarms and hoax bombs are included in the total, then this works out at an average of approximately 32 bomb incidents a day throughout the whole period. If the false alarms and hoax bombs are not included in the total, this works out at an average of about 5 genuine bomb incidents per day throughout the whole period. The maximum number of bomb reports received in any one week throughout the period was 1,044 during the week October 11 18. Of this total, 818 proved to be either false alarms or hoax bombs. The next highest total for any one week was 755 during the period 1 8 November: of this total 626 of the reports were false alarms or hoax bombs. But I doubt if it is worth making an issue of all this.

4. I am not familiar with the occasion to which Sir Arthur Galsworthy refers in the early part of paragraph 4 of his minue at (75). So far as I know we have no written record of any communication to the B.B.C. of the kind mentioned. Sir Arthur mentions an incident in Kowloon, but the only incident of this kind that I can recall, related to a report in, I think, the Evening Standard, to the effect that "Hong Kong has another night of hell".

In fact,

I am

/afraid