Cablegram 1073 LONDON, 10 December 1940, 6 p.m.
FOR THE PRIME MINISTER MOST SECRET PERSONAL
Some trouble here owing to Press report indicating that you stated in Parliament ‘British armoured forces 12 miles from East Buq Buq’ [1]; as suggested this was disclosure of information sent in most confidential cable. Matter to great extent now academic as the Prime Minister [2] has announced in the House of Commons that road between Buq Buq and Sidi Barrani cut, although exact point not mentioned.
As London Service Departments always most diffident about disclosing operational information to Dominions Office for transmission to Dominions, if you did not make statement or if made from information not drawn from cable would help me to be advised.
BRUCE
_1 See Commonwealth Parliamentary Debates, vol. 165, pp. 676-7.
2 Winston S. Churchill.
_
[AA:A3195, 1940, 1. 11710]