Britain reveals 1967 government's secrets

The British authorities have released previously secret government records from the year 1967 under a rule which allows documents to be made public after thirty years.

The papers reveal that the President of the United States in 1967, Lyndon Johnson, refused a request to meet the British prime minister, Harold Wilson, to stop the British currency being devalued.

They also show that Britain secretly supplied arms to Israel in the days before the outbreak of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

Other documents reveal that Britain conducted an intensive diplomatic drive to end the Vietnam War by enlisting the Soviet prime minister, Alexei Kosygin, to talk to the communist government in North Vietnam.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service