HC Deb 14 December 1954 vol 535 c1574
46. Mr. Lewis

asked the Prime Minister if he is aware that ex-Captain Cyril Ward, a former senior cypher officer to the Eighth Army, decoded a message from Allied Headquarters in Italy in 1945 ordering all German arms to be stacked, with ammunition; and whether he will obtain from that source the details and text of the telegram that he sent to Field Marshal Montgomery in 1945 concerning the reissue of German arms to the Nazis.

The Prime Minister

It may well be that this was a repetition through a subordinate channel in another command of the purport of some message which I had sent about stacking arms. Both our Commanders, who were field marshals at the time, were receiving or about to receive the surrender of 1 or 2 million of German soldiers with all their equipment, so a lot was going on.

Mr. Lewis

As the Prime Minister started his reply by saying "It may have been," would it not be as well to find out exactly, so that we may know whether or not this was the telegram which, in recent weeks, seems to have been mislaid?

Mr. S. Silverman

At a time when the whole world is anxious to do anything that it may to improve relations between East and West in the conditions which have developed, does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that it would be a good thing to give at least as much publicity to those telegrams of his in 1945 which helped that object as to telegrams in 1945 which were injurious to that object, and which may never have been sent at all?