Patrick began work at the External Affairs offices in the Union Buildings on 1 March 1953. The Political Section was headed by Second Secretary Bernardus Gerhardus Fourie, known in the department as ‘Brand’, and comprised a third secretary and himself. Patrick's initial role was to gather newspaper cuttings and paste them onto sheets of paper for the information of the department. Brand would either pass them straight back for filing or would initial them and pass them up to the first secretary.

The cuttings were taken from a wide range of papers and journals, domestic and foreign, and when they came back for filing Patrick was able to judge their importance, and thus the success of his selection, by how far up the line of authority they had gone. The initials he particularly looked out for were those of Mr D. D. Forsyth, the chief civil servant in the department, who was also the personal secretary to the prime minister. Patrick quickly got the hang of the job and soon tired of its mechanical nature.

Jawaharlal Nehru's government of India, which supported Michael Scott's campaign on behalf of South West Africa, was at the time the leading critic of South Africa at the UN. Patrick regarded India's criticism of apartheid as hypocritical, bearing in mind the partition of India in 1947 into Muslim-majority East and West Pakistan and Hindu-majority India. He proposed to Brand that he compile a dossier setting out a critique of India's position at the UN. Brand agreed.

Patrick studied a wide range of publications, including Indian newspapers, from which he drew evidence of the caste system and racism against dark-skinned people in India. He also used the recently published scathing attack on Nehru, The Lotus Eater from Kashmir. Although it was a hate-filled polemic lacking any sense of balance, D. F. Karaka's book added grist to Patrick's mill, especially his charge of hypocrisy over the disputed territory of Kashmir, to which Nehru denied self-determination. Patrick seemed to enjoy compiling the dossier, which went down well with his superiors – so much so that they published it and sent bound copies to South Africa's representatives at the UN.