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40 MR. LEE KUAN YEW, who was clearly shaken by what Mr. Healey had said, began by confining himself to probing questions, with pauses for thought in between each. In reply to the questions raised MR. HELY made the following points:
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In his view it is very unlikely that HIG would modify the broad planning assumptions about the rundown to be achieved by 1970/71 and the intention of withdrawing from the mainland of Asia by the mid 1970s - unless serious physical factors emerged which compelled them to make some adjustment.
The most important areas which were left for further consideration in the imediato future wore:
(1) The phasing of reductions between the current
year and some dato in the mid 1970s;
(2) The issue of whether any residual military
capability should be kopt for uso in the Fr East after the mid 1970s; and what the character and deployment of such capability should be.
It had emerged from the Foreign Secretary's programme of consultation in Washington that the U.S. Government were likely to be primarily concerned about the noturo of whatever announcement HIG made about its new policy; the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, on the other hand, would be most anxious to try and influence the nature of the final policy decisions. HIG's policy thinking would be to the Tunku in the same way as it had been put to Mr. Loe Kuan Yow. The current thought was that the fincl 'policy package' which would be likely to include major cuts in the British forcos es whole would be kept secret until an announcement in July, though there was always the danger of lecks in the Press.
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If a decision were taken to retain some kind of residual military capability and the present planning thought was that this might be associated with some limited base facilities in Australia the role and character of the capability would be explained in the context of the main policy announcement. There were a good many details to be worked out here; but any capability retained beyond the mid 1970s might involve the employment of an amphibious force and the use of Britain's increased air mobility for the purpose of aircraft rotation arrangements and the exercising of military units.
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It was urgent to achieve higher reductions in the current financial year: this was why public reference had been made to the possibility of extra reductions of 5,000 10,000 by April 1968. This was likely to moan a cut of a minimum fiture of on additional 3,000 over and above reductions currently planned for the Far East as a whole. Detailed planning work with the military authorities concerned would be necessary before the composition and phasing of the reductions could be fully worked out; the cim would be to achieve as smooth a phasing as possible in the light of the interests of Singapore.
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MR. HEALEY
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