Cypher
SECRET
OUTWARD TELEGRAM
FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (The Secretary of State)
TO HONG KONG (Sir D. Trench) HWB 5/12 Sent 13th May, 1967 22402
IF
FLASH SECRET No. 910
Addressed to Governor Hong Kong Repeated to Peking (Immediate)
17
"POLAD Singapore (Priority).
Following from Galsworthy.
Your telegram No. 600.
Kowloon Disturbances.
We are most grateful for your admirably prompt
and clear reports and analyses.
2.
We entirely agree immediate aim must be as in first sentence your paragraph 6.
3. Basic issues set out in your paragraph 4 clearly require, as you say, very deep thought. We will try to get some preliminary reactions to you early next week. But I feel sure early personal contact with you would be of greatest help to Ministers in considering and resolv- ing these issues. I imagine there may be some risk that either of the alternatives mentioned in your paragraph 6 (i.e. visit from here or your returning home) might encourage Left Wing to exert further pressure? Which course do you think less likely to have this effect? (See also in this connection paragraph 5 below.) And are you fit enough yet to face a long air journey?
4. There is one immediate suggestion we should like to put to you. Since
(a) it seems clear that this trouble was not instigated by the C.P.G. but in origin derived partly at least from essentially management/ labour relations at the plants involved, and
(b) we at present seem (as you say) to be in stage of psychological warfare,
QUST
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SECRET
we