257 Churchill to Curtin

Your numbers 208 and 209. [2]

I cannot give my sanction to the partial publication of most secret and personal telegrams interchanged with Dominion Governments about the conduct of the war. Such a practice would render impossible the full and free transmission of opinion between the mother country and the Dominions. If anything said in these secret messages is liable to be brought out at elections the whole character of our correspondence would be affected.

2. I suggest therefore that you confine your reply to the first three paragraphs of your number 209 and refuse to follow Mr.

Fadden's bad example. You would surely gain respect and sympathy by declaring yourself precluded by your undertaking to His Majesty's Government from quoting or discussing the most secret correspondence to which Mr. Fadden has so improperly referred. [3]

3. This action is all the more necessary because once publication starts the full correspondence may be dragged out. The first paragraph of my 608 of 31st August, 1941 [4], affects the United States and might give grave offence there. The President would also consider that a breach of confidence had been committed. My relations with him might be prejudicially affected and serious injury done to the common cause.