Northern (N): General (N). Visit by Permanent under Secretary at Foreign Office to Countries in Eastern Europe

A file of correspondence and reports concerning a tour of the Eastern bloc by Robert Allan, a British Conservative Member of Parliament who served as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The documents discuss the organisation of Allan's tour, during which he first visited Copenhagen and Helsinki, before subsequently heading behind the Iron Curtain to visit Prague and Bucharest. The documents also cover the belief of the British legation in Romania that Allan should not inform the Romanian government of his true intention to visit the country, which is to gather information about life in the Eastern bloc, as the Romanian government are "very suspicious about any suggestion of information activities by Western countries here". Other documents include a report on Allan's visit to Helsinki; and a brief prepared for Allan by the Foreign Office covering recent social and political developments in Czechoslovakia.