TNAG-2702-FCO40-3908-Memoirs-of-Sir-Percy-Cradock--diplomat-and-sinologist-1993 — Page 125

CONFIDENTIAL

CABINET OFFICE

Sir J Celes

cc PS/PMS

70 Whitehall, London SW1A 2AS Telephone 071-270 0101 Facsimile 071-270 0208

From the Secretary of the Cabinet and Head of the Home Civil Service Sir Robin Butler GCB CVO

M Hum

237

my Richelts HKD OR

Јасан Bectkaz AR:/PMS 318793

Ref: A093/2491

2 August 1993

My dear David,

Many thanks for your letter of 30 July and for the draft reply to Sir Percy Cradock, which I have sent in the slightly amended form enclosed.

the

I should be very grateful if John Coles could carry on discourse with Percy and seek to persuade him to accept the further amendments you require. But I believe that Percy has a duty, as former employee and a Privy Councillor, not to make the Governor's or the Government's life more difficult. So I hope that John, by being drawn in to discussion with Percy, will not feel obliged to compromise. If Percy's book genuinely becomes unworrying from our point of view, nobody will be more pleased than I am to give him the go-ahead to publish. If, however, he refuses to go that far I should be content to continue to tell him that his duty is to defer publication until such a risk no longer arises to those who now exercise responsibilities for Hong Kong.

our

Sir David Gillmore KCMG

Foreign and Commonwealth office

Your ever,

Robin

CONFIDENTIAL