MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
Main Building, Whitehall, LONDON S.W.I
Telephone: WHitehall 7022, ext.
Our reference: Your reference:
AUS(AS)/F.2
O..
Gaminara
6th June 1969
Let
we discuss
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Dear Caster,
Thank you for your letter of 4th June about fighter aircraft for Hong Kong.
2. The question can, of course,
wait until after the Defence Secretary's visit to Hong Kong. Our brief for him will take into account the points made by Lord Shepherd, though I would prefer not to make a snap judgement in this letter on the likelihood of their proving acceptable.
3. Obviously we must have no confusion about paragraph 4 of your letter, which I have discussed with Sir Peter Fletcher. The references you mention set out what could be done if necessary, short of a permanent deployment. It is certainly true that, under our present plans, we do not envisage any permanent deployment of fighters in Hong Kong after No 20 Squadron disbands. Nor have we had plans for detachments for training or other purposes on any regular basis. It might be possible to provide for occasional visits, either when Phantoms are deployed for training in Singapore (on present plans, one squadron a year for one month only) or as a specially organised and very infrequent arrangement. As you will realise, this will be something falling very far short of the regular detachments from No 20 Squadron which have operated in recent years.
K.271
23
A bresgram has issued torney off this over. Pl. register
have file back.
AWG 9.6.68AST
of det me
W.S. Carter, Esq
Hong Kong Department
ર
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London S.W.1
P.S.
TYNA.01
Your sucenty,
R.Itynes.
REF.
20/25
NEXT
REF.
HKK 10/9
One other point about my previous letter, which you might like to pass on to Moreton. My financial colleagues here take the view quite categorically that the capital charge must be £300,000 not £140,000. (Whitmore's letter of 5th February gives the background to this; but the point is that the payments to the US Government in fact go into a special fund which is ultimately used in aid of our Defence Budget.)
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CONFIDENTIAL