The most controversial report by the CPRS was The Review of Overseas Representation published in August 1977. The concept of the review was initiated by the CPRS in late 1975 and was taken up by the
Foreign Secretary,
James Callaghan, who asked for the review to be extended to the
BBC and the
British Council. Callaghan also asked the CPRS to undertake the review. However, according to
Joe Haines (Press Secretary to Prime Minister
Harold Wilson) even before the proposals were shown to Callaghan the Foreign Office intervened: "the document he eventually saw, and approved, was modified – or doctored – on the way to his desk. The original proposals were not acceptable to senior F.C.O. officials, and the head of the C.P.R.S., Sir Kenneth Berrill, was asked to make deletions before it was put to the Secretary of State. That was agreed. The document placed before Jim Callaghan was not the original one." The report was written by June 1977, shown to Ministers and published in August. There had been a mixed response from the Foreign Office during the review, the most notable and possibly most critical came from
Sir Nicholas Henderson the Ambassador to France, although
Anthony Parsons in Tehran was more supportive of the CPRS's work. Its conclusions and recommendations were radical and on publication met with a barrage of criticism from supporters of the various organisations being reviewed. There was a debate in the House of Lords in November 1977 with contributions from members with connections to the British Council, the BBC as well as the Foreign Office. A House of Commons Select Committee also investigated the review and published their findings. The orchestration of a critical campaign against the Review and the CPRS by the Foreign Office had started before its publication and is indicated by
Bernard Donoughue in his diary entry for 7 February 1977: "Had lunch with
The Economist journalist
Richard Leonard – who told me that somebody from the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) had got the editor (
Andrew Knight) of
The Economist to 'doctor' an article so it was savagely critical of the (still unfinished!) CPRS report on the FCO. The machine is absolutely unprincipled in defending its interests." ==References==