TNAG-2768-FCO40-3985-Hong-Kong-and-the-media-interviews--press-briefings-and-the--1993 — Page 63

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From: Sara Everett

News Department

Date: 5 August 1993

cc: PS/Mr Goodlad

Sir John Coles Mr Hum

Mr Morris, HKD

JOHN ELLISON ALIAS CHARLES LOCKE

1.

We spoke earlier this week about Charles Locke who wrote an unhelpful article in the Sunday Morning Post of 1 August with Danny Gittings. Ranjit Peiris at the Hong Kong Government Office thought that the mystery journalist, whom none of us knew, might be John Ellison. Even David Healy, the official London correspondent of the Sunday Morning Post, did not know Charles Locke. In his minute of 4 August Mr Hum reports that Ellison was somewhat cagey about the existence of Locke.

2. Yesterday David Healy asked me whether I knew Charles Locke. I said no and asked him who he was. He said that he had been asked by the Hong Kong Government Office who he was but did not know. He thought, however, that it might be John Ellison whom he knew was writing the odd piece for SCSMP/SMP. Today he told me that Locke was indeed John Ellison. I asked him how he knew. He said that the paper in Hong Kong had told him but that Ellison was trying desperately to keep that quiet.

In Shelt

Sara Everett

News Department