1
DRAFT LETTER
From: PS
Το : PS/No 10
HONG KONG: BBC TODAY PROGRAMME
1.
You asked in your letter of 2 November for chapter and verse about the refusal of the BBC Today programme to give Lord Caithness the right of reply to inaccurate allegations made on the programme on 31 October by Martin Lee.
2.
On hearing the interview with Mr Lee, Lord Caithness asked News Department's duty officer to ask the Today programme to allow him to reply. In doing so News Department pointed out that Lee's contentions that the democratic curve in Hong Kong was levelling out, and that decisions on the Court of Final Appeal were not in accordance with the Joint Declaration were inaccurate. Government wished to contest them.
3.
The
The duty editor at the Today programme telephoned back shortly afterwards to say that he had listened again to the Lee interview and that in his judgement Lee was expressing his own opinion and not stating incorrect facts. On this specious logic the editor declined our request for Lord Caithness to put the record straight. He further claimed that there was in any case no time available for an interview. The programme's running order was completely filled with coverage of the Madrid Peace Conference and an interview with the Home Secretary.
4.
After further argument the duty editor conceded that the Lee interview might have appeared unbalanced to listeners with only a layman's knowledge of the subject. The programme might therefore consider an interview with Lord Caithness on Friday 1 November. They also offered to
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