TNAG-2769-FCO40-3986-Hong-Kong-and-the-media-interviews--press-briefings-and-the--1994 — Page 139

K business film WT10

HOPGOOD A - SYNC (TOMFOUR)

LILLEY E - SYNC (TOMONE7)

And M16 has another string. Hong Kong is full of successful British businesses, its gleaming towers a tribute to its raucous capitalism. MI6 has traditionally expanded its modest size by recruiting the unofficial help of like-minded people; some are known as agents, some as along siders. assistance. This contoversial practice is disliked by th emore puritan CIA, and on one occasion in Hong Kong a stupid MI6 mistake brought it to light.

We routinely exchange low level refugee debriefings, traveller debriefings from human sources with the local MI6 station and on one occasion they got the pouches mixed up and gave us one that would normally go to London and I presume sent ours to London and there was no great compromise of information but the pouch they gave us has the ...... cover sheet on it and we were amazed because after all the local Hong Kong bureaus and government people that you would expect, virtually every major British firm was listed on their routine field agent, raw agent distribution and we were just shocked, we couldn't imagine doing the same thing with an American company

I think that the British have always had a reputation for working very closely with industry, much closer than ourselves. I think they've used industry to plant, as we say, deep-cover agents. I think they've used it to exchange information on bargaining.

commercial adventures, commercial negotiations, to improve British leverage in getting a sale.

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