As a result of these two contrasting aims, namely, keeping Rapallo alive and releasing news of the famine, the Foreign Office adopted a cautious strategy of dis- seminating information, sometimes even distributing copies of consular dispatch- es to a select number of institutions and non-state actors (for example, church- es), in order to prevent any uncontrolled leaking of news. For example, copies of consular dispatches were sent to the Evangelical Church, which were then used to raise money for the relief operation for ethnic Germans. However, these docu- ments circulated as “reports from a reliable informant,” their true provenance—lo- cal consular proxies—being thus concealed.