TNAG-2702-FCO40-3908-Memoirs-of-Sir-Percy-Cradock--diplomat-and-sinologist-1993 — Page 233

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PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

June 1993

The Right Honourable Christopher Patten Governor of Hong Kong

Government House HONG KONG

I discussed with you when I was in Hong Kong last month the

advice we were proposing to put to the Cabinet Secretary on Sir Percy Cradock's memoirs.

Sir Robin Butler wrote to Sir Percy Cradock on the lines we

discussed, asking him in the interests of avoiding damage to

our continuing negotiations with the Chinese on electoral issues and the airport either to excise the relevant passages from his book or to postpone publication until after these

negotiations were concluded.

Sir P Cradock has now replied to the Cabinet Secretary. He

takes the line that our fears about the effect of his book on

our continuing negotiations with China are groundless. He

explains this by saying first, that he is no longer in an

official position, second, that his views are well-known, and

third, that having changed our policy we have now come back

to an approach close to the one he had advocated throughout.

He says that we cannot reasonable expect him to delete from his book a defence of the policy with which he is closely

associated. On the airport, he considers that his account

will not cause the Chinese to withdraw from talks on the

airport. He is willing to consider some minor fudging on the Airport, but that is as far as he is willing to go.

We propose to advise the Cabinet Secretary to make a further

attempt to dissuade Sir P Cradock from publishing the damaging part of his book. We would take the line that:

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL