SECRET PAPERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1940, Page 3

SECRET PAPERS

BRITISH DIPLOMATS ABROAD

DESTRUCTION OF CODES.

DECISION OF GREAT PROBLEM.

The rapidity of the Nazi invasion of Denmark resulted in Mr Howard Smith. British Minister in Copenhagen and members of his staff being made prisoners by the Germans. It was surmised in London that they had no time to leave Denmark before Copenhagen was occupied. To make a Minister prisoner is a breach of international custom. It is thought, however, that Mi- Howard Smith and his stall' may be released later.

■’More important to a diplomat than any such personal question is the necessity for seeing that no confidential documents fall into the hands of the enemy,” says ''Peterborough" in the •’Daily Telegraph." "Apart from the files of despatches, the lists of contacts and the code books are of vital importance.

"Should the key to a cinher—which looks like a numerical dictionary—fall into enemy hands, the whole cipher must be scrapped and a new one made. This costs from £4OO to £BOO. Most diplomatic missions possess several ciphers.

"It is therefore of the utmost importance that all these documents should be burned at the first serious threat of danger. It is a ticklish problem for even the most experienced diplomat to decide ’when or not to burn.’ Tn the old days of slow-moving armies it was easier. Today, with early-morning blitzkriegs, it is less simple. "If the responsible diplomat burns his papers on what proves to be a false alarm he will have ’blinded the eyes' of his mission and wasted publicmoney—the bugbear of the civil servant. If he does not burn his papers in time ho may allow valuable secrets to fall into the hands of the enemy." It is believed that Mr Howard Smith was able to destroy all the Legation appears before the Nazis ‘reached Copenhagen. He has been British Minister to Denmark since October. 1939. From 1933 until 1939 he was Assistant Under-Secretary of State in the Foreign Office. It was reported from The Hague on April 1-1 that the British. French and Polish Ministers in Denmark, with 70 British citizens. (10 French and 20 Poles, including many women and children, had arrived from Copenhagen en route to London and Paris.