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These decisions were conveyed to the Governor and Commander
Flag E British Forces in Hong Kong in the form of an Aide Memoire.
6.
The
HWAIgy
(58/E)
reply returned by the Governor to Lord Blyton's question is in
accordance with the decisions.
Argument and Conclusion
7. It would be unfortunate if members of the group raised this
issue in public and a public pronouncement had to be made on the
existence or otherwise of evacuation plans for Hong Kong. To avoid
serious consequences for our position in Hong Kong, we would have to
say that we have no such plans; this situation might be openly
questioned in Parliament and could lead to a public outcry in this
country. Avoidance of a direct answer in a manner that implies there
might be such plans (e.g. by saying that these are matters that are
not disclosed) is no longer open to us if the question is directly
raised by one of the Parliamentary g roup; it is in any case
considered that prevarication would seriously impair confidence in
Hong Kong.
8. Our objective therefore must be to prevail upon members of the
group not to raise openly any dissatisfaction they may feel about the
situation as revealed to them by the Governor or even to discuss it
in wider circles.
9.
Parliament is in recess until 13 October and there is no
immediate danger of the matter being aired in this forum (although of
course a Question could be put down). Our immediate concern is that
the matter should not be publicly aired in some other way or, without
being publicly aired, discussed privately in much wider (particularly
non-parliamentary) circles by members of the group.
In the latter
context we feel some concern about Lord Bethell who is a free-lance
journalist with past connections with the BBC.
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/ 10.