TNAG-2702-FCO40-3908-Memoirs-of-Sir-Percy-Cradock--diplomat-and-sinologist-1993 — Page 202

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48. The second category is that described by Sir Edward Bridges as disclosures which would be injurious to this country's relations with other nations. They seem to us very much on a parallel with those offending national security and they raise the same sort of considerations. country does not exist in a world in which we can escape the necessity of maintaining friendly and often confidential relations with other countries, upon which the negotiation and maintenance of international treaties and treaties of trade and commerce depend; and an ex-Minister cannot claim to be free to use at his own discretion any of the information potentially affecting such matters that has come to him by virtue of his office. He must clear what he wants to say with those in authority under the Govern- ment of the day. We do not in the least wish that the edge of what he wants to say should be blunted by the imposition of the small courtesies of diplomatic life. He should be given as much liberty of disclosure and of robust expression as the true interests of his country do not manifestly forbid; but in the end it comes down to the fact that he does not and cannot hold the keys to the despatch boxes of the day nor can he be fully admitted to knowledge of their contents and of their current significance. We think that here again it is his duty to defer.

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