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result of being without aireraft carrier
equipped with modern aircraft, the damage to Commonwealth relations would be made worse
because our Commonwealth partners would know
that. could have had Ark Royal available but
►
decided not to in order to obtain marginal
financial benefits.
3. A disorderly withdrawl could also cause
instability in Hong Kong either/weakening
morale inside the Colony or by encouraging
China to try to upset our position. 4. Defensive7 We cannot state positively
that our withdrawal will be threatened by
enemies who possess modern aircraft.
may
However
We/need to be able to deter the potential
from
and.
threat which existe from China, Indonesia, on our lines of communications, from Egypt and [tryptam, particularly in the late
stages of our withdrawals when we will not be
able to rely on deploying modern aircraft
ourselves from land bases.
Background Note
The carrier programme is a favourite
Treasury target for economies and the main
arguments in the Chancellor's minute of
February (paragraphs 5 to 10) are once
again economic.
In this case, however, the
level of possible savings (£10 million on
à Treasury estimate, £6 million according to
the Ministry of Defence)
seems
hardly large enough
to justify the Chancellor overriding plaus
which the Ministry of Defence is capable of
paying for within its currently agreed
expenditure targets. The Defence Secretary
4.
makes this point firmly in paragraph 2(c)
in his minute of 23 February.
we cannot fortell durlopment three and brus
hence. years
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