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CONFIDENTIAL
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AG 31.7
Mr. Gamhara
Dear Cafter,
શ
مینا
ฟา
3117
COLONIAL SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
July 27th, 1967.
133
I will not disguise from you that the decision taken in London to refuse permission for U.S.S. "Constellation" to visit Hong Kong caused us considerable surprise here. Not only was your decision taken at a very late stage - so late indeed that although our immediate reaction was to go back to you and question it, we all felt that we were precluded from doing so by the vital necessity of conveying your decision to the U.S. authorities at once if their administrative machinery was to be put into reverse. Your decision was also taken against our advice (though you have a perfect right to do this!) and quoted as the justification current events in Hong Kong although admittedly it was their effect in Peking which was uppermost in your mind. On that we recognise that we are not final arbiters. Obviously we should not wish to do anything which would make the life of the staff of the Peking Mission more difficult, but we did not think "Constellation's" visit would do so and I have seen nothing on the subject from Hopson to suggest that he did.
2.
The Americans here have been very good about the whole affair, but what really irked them on the political side was that they have been trying to reassure Washington that things were returning to normal and that Government had control of things when the refusal of permission for "Constellation" to come here suggested precisely the opposite, and made them look very foolish.
3.
In your telegram No. 1523 you say that you do not know to what extent the press are given advance information of visits of U.S. warships. We certainly do not give the press advance, or indeed any, information and nor, to the best of our knowledge, do the U.S. Consulate General. Their whole effort is directed,
W.S. Carter, Esq., C.V.0., Commonwealth Office,
London, S.W.1.
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