CONFIDENTIAL AND PERSONAL
Sir Robin Butler GCB CVO CABINET OFFICE
33
Foreign & Commonwealth
Office
Cradoch
нив 010/4
2 SEP 1993
London SW1A 2AH
17 September 1993
17/9
M
Manis
Lear Robin,
SIR PERCY CRADOCK'S MEMOIRS
1.
Sir Percy Cradock rang me this afternoon to say that when he was in Stockholm last night he had been telephoned by Peter Dobbie, the Political Editor of the Mail on Sunday. Dobbie said that he had heard (he claimed, from the Foreign Office) that Sir Percy was writing his memoirs and was running into trouble with the Whitehall machine which wished to secure amendments. Cradock told me that he had thought it better not to deny this fact but he had expressed the view to Dobbie that it would be very unfortunate if any story was written on this matter since it would give the appearance that he was putting pressure on HMG to permit publication. He thought he had ridden Dobbie off the matter but this afternoon Dobbie had spoken to his publishers and it now looked as though the story would be written, possibly for publication this weekend. Apparently the line might be taken that Cradock was encountering difficulty over his memoirs when grander people were being allowed to publish without such difficulty.
2. Sir Percy said that he was alerting me to this both so that we would not be taken by surprise but also to give us an opportunity, if we chose, of bringing pressure to bear to persuade the Mail on Sunday not to write the article. I strongly doubt whether any such approach would be successful.
3. You and I spoke on the telephone about this. We agreed that if a story was run this weekend the Cabinet Office press office and our News Department would, if asked to comment, say that the manuscript of the memoirs had been submitted in the usual way and approval of publication had been given. Enquiries as to whether amendments had been made and similar questions would be re-directed to Sir Percy Cradock himself.
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