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CONFIDENTIAL
RECEIVED IN ARCHIV No.31
H. Boyol
BRITISH EMBASSY'
WASHINGTON D.C.
11 February 1969
cc; PUSD
HK Depl
Eta
2
مختلط
1193
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in China
In Colin Wilson's letter of 5 December to Garside in Peking he gave an account of the activities of the lobby of American citizens constituted on Hugh Redmond's behalf to obtain his release. Paul Kreisberg telephoned to me on 6 February to pass on a piece of information from Bill Chapin in London in case he had not given it to you direct. On 28 January a man called Elston had called at the Chinese Chargé's office in Portland Place and had been received by a member of the staff. In the course of the ensuing conversation this Chinese staff member had thrown out the remark that "Gordon and Grey" were being held pending the release of the "eleven news men held by the British in Hong Kong". Kreisberg said that it was the first time that he had heard Gordon's name coupled with that of Grey. I agreed and thanked him for bringing the point to our attention.
2. While on the subject of Grey I might also mention that I had a talk with Gerald Long of Reuters during his recent visit here. I am sure that you are well aware of his views, some of which seemed to me misconceived. Не was, for instance, very critical of the Governor for not letting out all the detainees and the news men now, and I have no doubt that he speaks like this wherever he goes. In reply I said that though I was not fully informed about all developments and discussions on tactics which may have taken place in London and in Hong Kong (including any when you were out there in, was it, late November or early December) it seemed to me that it was very difficult indeed for either the Governor or H.M.G. to go on making unilateral concessions (and we had let plenty of people out of gaol already) without knowing what the Chinese considered as an adequate price for Grey. Speaking strictly personally, I said that I thought we might have to engage in talks with the Chinese to clarify the position. He scoffed at this saying that we could never strike a bargain. I said that indeed we might not, but we might reach an understanding rather like that between the Americans and Hanoi with neither side admitting a bargain publicly. In any case I thought it would be better than making unilateral gestures which were not requited.
3. I hope that I was not wrong to speak on such lines and
James Murray, Esq., CMG.,
Far Eastern Department,
F.C.O.
CONFIDENTIAL
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