TNAG-0719-FCO40-917-Capital-punishment-in-the-Dependent-Territories-1978 — Page 102

CONFIDENT IAL

1.

I have the following comments on paragraphs lb and lc of Mr Stewart's minute. The failure to send the Governor in advance

the text of the Parliamentary statement was the worst error. Mr Duff telephoned me on Sunday, December at home to say that the Secretary of State had decided to make a statement in the House the following day and wanted a draft that night.

In view of my concern about the Governor's position and the importance of the statement I came into the Office that evening to vet the draft together with the Duty Officer from WIAD. In the course of going

to the Governor over the draft I thought it would be helpful to quote verbatim the fact that he had consulted the Premier and others about a stay of execution and I picked up the phrase recorded on page 5 of Mr Duff's memorandum that "they all considered that racial harmony, responsibility for law and order generally, and the security situation would suffer more if a stay of execution were granted. (I am sorry that the Governor should have thought it unreasonable to quote this in the Parliamentary statement.) First thing the following morning I called a meeting with Mr Stratton, Mr Stewart and Mr Duff to look again at the draft and to go over what should be in the notes for supplemen taries. At this meeting I stressed the importance of doing everything we could to protect the Governor's position. regret that in the event the Governor thinks that we did not achieve this, but our draft was, of course, considerably amended by the Secretary of State. Unfortunately It did not occur to me to check that the statement had been telegraphed to Bermuda.

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2. I do not feel competent to comment substantively on paragraph 3 of Mr Stewart's minute, but I have reservations about the advice which we have received from Mr Lloyd, the Deputy Governor. We must certainly do everything we can to improve communications with Bermuda in the future and I shall keep this very much in mind.

10 January 1978

CONFIDENTIAL

Good Collag S.

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