Sir Percy Cradock

[Magda Hassan]

Born in 1923. Studied Law at Cambridge. Joined the British Foreign Office in 1954. Counsellor in Beijing. Charge d'Affairs in Beijing 1966-1969. Head of the Assessments Staff in the Cabinet Office. Ambassador in Beijing 1978-1984. In this position he opened and headed the Sino-British negotiations of 1984, which led to the agreement that the socialist system of the Chinese Republic would not be practiced in Hong Kong for 50 years, starting in 1997 when Hong Kong would have to be given back to China. Hong Kong would keep its capitalist system and its way of life. Foreign Policy Adviser (especially on British-Soviet relations) to Margaret Thatcher 1984-1992. Said to have believed that the slow collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-1990 was a deliberate Communist hoax. Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), the coordinating board between the intelligence agencies (MI5, MI6, GCHQ, Defense Intelligence Staff) and politicians 1985-1992.

According to the former City banker and ASTRA chairman Gerald James, a person named David Hart, a member of Thatcher's inner circle and close friend of William Casey, was especially close to Sir Percy Cradock. Hart at some point boasted: "Thatcher told me so much. I could blow her out of the water in five minutes.", which was a reference to a possible smear campaign if Thatcher at some point would not go along with the City-Intelligence Services cabal.

Not a whole lot has been written about the inner workings of the Joint Intelligence Committee. 1995, Gerald James, 'In the Public Interest', p. 128-130: "Stephen Dorril tells us that when, in July 1961, Cabinet Secretary Norman Brook failed to pass to the Prime Minister information about War Minister John Profumo's affair with Christine Keeler (a friend of KGB officer Eugene Ivanov), 'Harold Wilson stumbled on a crucial secret, namely the fact that the Cabinet Office, not the Prime Minister's office, had overall control of the security service and, crucially, the overall flow of information': putting the real power into the hands of permanent government rather than elected government. Intelligence about arms comes from intercepted communications, MI6 agents and informers, embassy officials, and arms dealers. Robin Robison, former administrative officer for the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) responsible for disseminating that information, has put on record that GCHQ [British NSA] arms-deal information goes via JIC to the Bank of England, the DTI, FCO, MoD and ECGD, but is rarely passed into the parliamentary arena. Robinson's job was to sift through transcripts of bugged telephone calls and other intercepted material for inclusion in JIC's 'Red Book' before its distribution. 'Although the Director-General [MI5] has a right to direct access to the Prime Minister, he does not lightly go over the heads of permanent under-secretaries for fear of creating future problems,' writes one former intelligence officer. Ex-Deputy Chief of MI6, George Kennedy Young [whom Gerald James knew well], admitted that, when it comes keeping the Prime Minister informed, the Cabinet Secretary may conveniently fail to find an 'oppertune moment' to pass the baton of power from permanent to elected government. Dorril and Ramsay quote another security source saying that the Home Secretary 'hasn't got a clue what is going on. If he comes around, you lock away any sensitive files and set up a display file specifically for him to look at - a spoof file on some imaginary subversive with lots of exciting material in it. He's not going to know any better.'... Again, every week the Queen receives JIC reports while our own ministers remain relatively in the dark. We are told that Her Majesty makes useful comments on these, and it may be that her comments are more useful than those that might be forthcoming from ministers, but I believe that many ordinary people, brainwashed by the tabloids into thinking that the purpose of the Royal Family is to offer entertainment along the lines of soap opera, would be surprised to learn about this system of disbursement of vital information to government... If most Prime Ministers take up office without much or indeed any knowledge of the security services, in Thatcher's case she was briefed by people associated with Brian Crozier's [former head of Le Cercle] Institute for the Study of Conflict even as leader of the Opposition during Jim Callaghan's government... she was the first Prime Minister to insist that she sit in on the highly secret Joint Intelligence Committee meetings."

June 26, 1991, The Times: "Sir Percy Cradock, the prime minister's top intelligence adviser, has become a fondly regarded face in the Pentagon... There is a more prosaic reason for defence secretary Richard Cheney's interest in the man who directs British intelligence traffic through the corridors of Downing Street: Mr Cheney is conducting a bureaucratic battle to control his own spies, and on the strategies necessary for inter-service fighting, Sir Percy is considered a modest master."

Made a secret mission to Peking to lay the ground for John Major's visit in 1991, the first by a major Western leader after the Tiananmen Square massacre. The purpose of this visit was to clear the differences of opinion over Hong Kong. Retired from government service in 1992. Member of the Privy Council since 1993. Member of the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George. Honorary Fellow of St. John's College, University of Cambridge. The most prominent critic of the liberalising policies of Lord Christopher Patten (Pilgrims Society), the last Governor of Hong Kong. His argument was that Patten, fully backed by the John Major government, caused unnecessary trouble by fiddling with plans to create a more representative government in Hong Kong. According to Sir Percy, if the old line had been adhered to, Hong Kong would be enjoying a smoother transition in 1997. Spoke at the Cercle in 1997.