TNAG-2790-FCO40-4029-Future-of-Hong-Kong-1993 — Page 188

3

B

C

Background

3. Jonathan Dimbleby first asked to film a Hong Kong policy meeting, chaired by the Secretary of State in which the Governor took part, at the time of the Governor's last visit to the UK in November 1992. The Secretary of State decided against filming the meeting in November because of the inhibiting effect on the discussions which would have reduced the value of the meeting. Jonathan Dimbleby followed up his initial request in letters to the Secretary of State and Mr Goodlad on 18 January 1993 and at a meeting with the Secretary of State on 9 March. The Secretary of State agreed in principle to both the filming of a meeting and an interview with Jonathan Dimbleby.

4.

Francis Gerard, a member of Jonathan Dimbleby's film production team, has since asked whether they might film the

Secretary of State's meeting with the Governor on

Friday 16 April. Filming this meeting is likely to have an equally inhibiting or distorting effect on the discussions as it would have had at the last meeting. The Governor has expressed a wish that the production team should not film the meeting.

5.

As Mr Cornish said in his minute to Mr Hum of 15 March Jonathan Dimbleby will continue to return to the charge. We will need, therefore, to identify a meeting which would be more suitable to film. In his minute of 16 March Mr Hum suggested this might be a meeting chaired by the Secretary of State with officials at which the subject matter might be tailored somewhat to ensure that nothing too sensitive (eg intelligence questions or the attitudes of prominent individuals in Hong Kong) was touched upon.