TNAG-1818-FCO40-2579-Broadcasting-in-Hong-Kong-1988 — Page 218

Telephone: 01-257 2057/2618

Telex: 265781

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BBC

BUSH HOUSE,

PO BOX 76, STRAND,

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LONDON WC2B 4PH

from the Managing Director, External Broadcasting

Dis

2nd August 1988

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It was good to talk to you briefly on the phone last week and better still that you were able to do the interview for us the following day. It was used on "24 hours" "Radio Newsreel", news and of course in the Vietnamese service.

I must add that there was some feeling among the hardened news men that "they had heard it before". A quick reference to News Information press cuttings and to our own bulletins showed that this was indeed the case. However, I took the editorial view that for the Governor to speak out in an interview on this subject was sufficient justification to make it news.

However, I think you do have a communication problem in connection with the vietnamese refugees. If there really is such a crisis, then you yourself, or some aspect of the Colony's or HMG's Information Services simply have to speak out rather more strongly than you have done so far.

It is impossible for us - either in World Service, or still less on the Vietnamese Service - to talk up the dimensions of a crisis if the party principally concerned will not do so on its own account and in such a way that the media not just ourselves take adequate notice. It would be quite wrong for us to create the news without having the raw material to do so.

I am sure all this is perfectly clear to you but I thought it worth setting out in some detail. We are only a loudspeaker of events and other people's acts and statements. We have to have that raw material before we can do our own job properly.

In short, at the risk of labouring the point,

you have a choice; either there is a Colony crisis over the Vietnamese, or there is not. If there is, then it must be stated loud and clear. If there is and not enough is said, then there is no reason for anyone to take talk of a crisis seriously.

I know you will not mind me writing frankly in this way.

I hope you had a good holiday in Scotland. in Glen Etive in July and Sash caught 4 salmon. It would be good to see you and Natasha soon.

ииитемы

читу

(John Ta

Governor and Commander-in-Chief

Sir David Wilson, KCMG

Government House

VICTORIA

Hong-Kong

We had a week Even I got one.