SECRET
EXECUTIVE BOARD
Thursday, 18th January 1945

PRESENT :

D.D.G. (in the chair)

Parliamentary Secretary

Mr. Francis Williams

Mr. Grubb

Mr. Cruikshank

Mr. Royds

Mr. Archibald

General Tripp

Brigadier McGregor

Admiral Carpendale

Mr. Macgregor

Mr. Grisewood

1. REPORTS FROM SERVICE ADVISER.

2. PROPOSED VISIT OF SERVICE AND CIVIL DEFENCE PERSONNEL TO FRANCE.

[FP/501/25/6.]

Mr. Grubb reported that the Foreign Office had received a request from the F.F.I. that 200 Service and Civil Defence personnel should pay a visit to France in return for the F.F.I. visit here in mid-October, and that the Foreign Office wished this Ministry to co-ordinate action. The Board felt that this proposal was open to certain objections and the Service Advisers stated that they would in any case have to refer the matter to their respective Ministries. Mr. Grubb undertook to write a minute to the Service Advisers.

3. PROPOSED BERLIN-STOCKHOLM AIR SERVICE FOR SHAEF COPY

[RC/]

Mr. Cruikshank reported that the Foreign Office had passed to him a request from the Public Relations Department of S.H.A.E.F. for permission, when Berlin was occupied, to send copy by air to Stockholm in view of the probable absence of normal communications facilities. The Foreign Offices were not very enthusiastic about this proposal. The Board agreed that this Ministry was primarily concerned with as full and rapid a news coverage as possible and should therefore be in favour of this request, provided that the position was safeguarded from the censorship angle, and that there was no objection from the diplomatic point of view.