TNAG-0137-FCO40-173-Supply-of-political-and-economic-information-to-Hong-Kong-to-1969 — Page 32

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by the merged Office in Commonwealth countries, and we should lose a convenient channel for feeding in to Commonwealth countries our attitudes, assessments and

opinions. It should therefore be preserved, and as far as possible made more meaningful.

12. The fact that the material circulated has been

written for British eyes creates the main obstacle

to a greater flow of "A" print to the Commonwealth

as a whole. One answer to this is the production of specially written material. This is being separately discussed, and falls outside the scope of the

arrangements dealt with in this submission. A

second is to make the arrangements more flexible, and to place more responsibility on posts overseas (and geographical departments) to pick out material which

would be particularly relevant to the interests of

their particular countries, and to their own diplomatic needs. This, with the necessary safeguards of clearance with the department responsible for the subject matters, is therefore proposed in paragraph

5 of Hote. As Diplomatic Reports would, under this

arrangement, be individually selected and cleared, no

letter code will attach to it.

13. There will continue to be papers which

departments may wish to circulate to all Commonwealth countries (certain categories of research papers are an example) and it is therefore proposed that the "A"

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