HC Deb 25 June 1998 vol 314 c603W
Mr. Dalyell

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the proposed research in the Moscow archives by Gill Bennett into the circumstances surrounding the Zinoviev letter of 1924. [47406]

Mr. Doug Henderson

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary announced on 12 February 1998,Official Report, column 324, that he had commissioned the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Historians to write a memorandum on the Zinoviev Letter of 1924, drawing on papers held by the SIS as well as those in the FCO. Work on this memorandum is well advanced and copies will be laid in the House on publication.

In order that the memorandum should be as comprehensive and authoritative as possible, it was decided that the FCO Historian should visit Moscow and examine material held in parallel Russian archives. We are grateful to the Government of the Russian Federation for their co-operation in arranging this visit, which will take place early in July.