SECRET.
EXECUTIVE BOARD, Tuesday, 6th May, 1941.

War Diary April 17-26 1941 .

Draft by the Parliamentary Secretary.

Monday April 21. The Prime Minister received the editors of the leading London newspapers and gave them a general survey of the situation in Greece and the Middle East.

During the previous week the British Bulletins regarding the operations in Greece and Libya had been scanty and uninformative. The German and Italian communiqués on the other hand were frequent and detailed. Representations were made to the Ministry both by the British and American Press, as also by our Embassy in Washington, that this absence of news was having a bad effect upon public spirit, on both sides of the Atlantic and furnishing the enemy with a valuable propaganda opportunity.

The necessity of obtaining fuller and more precise news was raised by the Minister at two successive Cabinet meetings and a request for more information was telegraphed to Cairo. Meanwhile the Prime Minister agreed to see the London editors himself and gave them a detailed review of the whole position.

Monday April 21 Mr. Leslie, the Director of Public Relations at the Ministry of Home Security, attended a meeting of the executive sub-committee of the Planning Committee and discussed with them the need of a campaign to popularise surface shelters.

This item is recorded since it illustrates the difficulty of adjusting the general responsibility of the Ministry, to the publicity needs of a Government department. Mr. Leslie desired the Ministry to launch a campaign for the purpose of inducing people to make more use of the surface shelters which have been constructed in such quantities. The Ministry (one of whose main preoccupations is to maintain the level of public confidence in Government statements) felt that any hortatory campaign would, in view of the existing distrust of surface shelters, irritate the public and diminish confidence in official information and assurances. They assured Mr. Leslie however, that they would be glad to publish in every way possible, concrete evidence that unsafe shelters will be shut or demolished or that such shelters as remained had in fact provided good protection.

Wednesday April 23. The illustrated edition of “The Battle of Britain” was published.

Of the earlier 3d. edition, some two million copies were sold by the end of April. Of the 6d. illustrated edition some 900,000 were sold between April 23 and May 3. The pamphlet is being translated into twenty five languages, an American edition is being issued immediately, and the story is to be serialised in “Life”.

Wednesday April 23 . Commander Bower asked the Minister in the House of Commons why the German wireless reports that we were evacuating Greece had remained uncontradicted for 24 hours. The Minister replied in the general sense that if we contradicted all the reports the Germans put out then sooner or later the absence of a denial would be taken as confirmation. (P.Q.682).

The Germans had put out this report at the beginning of the previous week when evacuation was not an immediate possibility. By the time the question was answered however it did appear that evacuation would be inevitable. The Minister was careful therefore to connect his answer with the specific assertion made by the German wireless on April 16.

Wednesday April 23. Complaints were made in the House of Commons regarding the “misleading” nature of the news put out by the B.B.C. in connection with our retreat in Libya. (P.Q.683).

The B.B.C. had in fact merely repeated the communiqués from the Middle East and the gloss put upon them by the military commentator in Cairo, who had evidently been anxious to allay the anxieties of 57 -2-the Egyptians. The indignation aroused in Great Britain by the style of these comforting interpretations of the situation, indicated how suspicious British opinion had become of all palliative renderings of bad news.

Thursday April 24. A question was asked by Mr. Hammersley in the House of Commons regarding “inappropriate animadversions” introduced into the B.B.C. News Bulletins. (P.Q.686).

From supplementaries and subsequent lobby conversation it appeared that considerable resentment was felt in the House of Commons and outside regarding the lack of balance and proportion in the B.B.C. news bulletins. The Public is irritated by the intrusion of irony or boastfulness into the bulletins. They desire the bulletins to be as factual and objective as possible. There is also criticism of the space given to Air Ministry news, of the exaggeration of trivial successes, and of the time devoted to individual exploits of secondary importance. The desire was expressed that the news proper should be detached from stories about the war and that the latter should be placed in a separate category.

This suggestion is to be examined by the B.B.C.