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until we are more certain how they will react. But at some point we shall want to inject the thought that one possible approach would be for us to produce a memorandum in support of a plea by Miss Nightingale for clemency which would make use of material not available at the time of the trial and which, we could represent, goes at least a little way towards supporting her version of events. Such a memorandum would of course attempt to make such use as we could of the material referred to in para 3 of my letter of 11 October. It would however be most important not to allow the Thais to think that this would add up to very much. This is the only card we have to play and we need therefore to be pretty sure of our ground before playing it. That is why, as seen from here, we must feel our way slowly.
5. More difficult perhaps at this juncture is keeping all the parties involved at bay while we engage in what is clearly a rather delicate manoeuvre.
6. As you know Mrs Castle, thanks to David Lyman, thinks that we can prove Rita's innocence and is impatient about what she considers is an unnecessary delay in our taking action to obtain her release. The Secretary of State tried to disabuse her of this idea and told her that she should trust us and, by implication, not put all her faith in Hallmark and Lyman. It was an uphill task persuading her that no substantive move could be made at least until we knew the results of the December amnesties. She drew attention to the problem she would, under- standably, face with Rita's family and people in her constituency as a result of the publicity which any reduction in sentence would inevitably attract. In the end she accepted the position only because the Secretary of State led her to think that we had not only carefully studied the questionnaire enclosed with Lyman's letter of 10 October but that we also had the answers (even though we were not, according to her, prepared to reveal them to her or to the defence lawyers). It is therefore likely that she will write to David Lyman in these terms and he will press you to provide the information he seeks. 7. For your own information our attitude towards the question- naire is governed by the following considerations. We have already taken unprecedented action to make available to Mrs Castle and Mr Hallmark (and by extension David Lyman) confidential information which would not in the ordinary course of events be made available to private lawyers. Hallmark's comments on these papers contained in his letter of 30 June and 6 July to Mrs Castle were subsequently considered by the Hong Kong authorities who replied in Barnes' letter of 18 August (copied to you). Their comments, and some of our own, were embodies in
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