CONFIDENTIAL
No. this is inaccurate.
203
งา
208
given for the first five months of those years in Hong Kong tel. No. 739 is not in excess of this agreed level. To at any rate have no information to the effect that it has been exceeded, although given the greatly increased level of U.S. forces in the area since 1964, it would not be surprising if it had been. If it has been exceeded, it will be essential for us to have the full facts, particularly if consideration has to be given to revising the Interpretative Note on Guideline D. It would also give us a handle for pressing more firmly for the sort of more restrained use which Peking recommends.
4.
Whatever decision is taken on the problem of the level of calls, the 'optical' consideration reflected in the original interpretation of Guideline D seems scarcely relevant now, even if it was then. I notice from Peking tel. Ho. 488 that the Chinese gave an accurate figure of vessel/times, for the first five months of the year. Clearly nothing can be on is being done to hide or camouflage the facts from them. This suggests that it may make little practical difference to hold the level of visits more or less where it has been over the past two or three years. Even though the Chinese are at present more than usually sensitive, they are surely most unlikely to be mollified by a comparatively small reduction in the number of calls. On the other hand, they might well take private note of it and increase the pressure. Our feeling is therefore that we should ain principally at reducing the more dramatic features which characterise some visits.
5. In the circumstances it seems to us more important to concern ourselves with avoiding bunching. In Hong Kong tel. No. 762 I notice a reference to 17 ships in the harbour, and the comment that while six is very low at any one time, from 6 - 10 June there was only one U.S. ship in port. This fluctuation may be inescapable and have a good deal to do with operational arrangements, but the presence of large ships with a large number of smaller ships is perhaps more likely to attract adverse attention than a lower average level of small ships with minimum of fluctuation interspersed by calls by larger vessels. If this general rule were practicable and agreeable, it should be possible to reconcile the different levels of calls thought expedient by Hong Kong and Peking. Stringent rules may prove to be an inconvenience, but they would avoid the more dramatic peaks, and with it perhaps the more obvious occasions for an outburst by the Chinese.
6.
We discussed the desirability of introducing special provision for nuclear-powered ships with the Naval Attache several weeks ago. He is in favour of a specific provision, although we did not at the time discuss the terms of a clause. 190) The position taken in para. 4 of Hong Kong tel. No. 703 seems
/reasonable...
CONVIDEURIAL