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.