نامیرا
"
Confidential
26
Reference.
Mr.
Wilford
Sir L. Monson
Miss Deas
cc. Mr. D. M. Day (with copy of FCO telno.727 and
Mr. P. Scanlon
Hong Kong telno.755)
24
24
Governorship of Hong Kong
I sent a copy of Hong Kong telegram No.755 to Sir David Trench last Friday and he telephoned about it 25 this morning.
22
2. Sir D. Trench feels that, reading between the lines, they think in Hong Kong that he should stay for the opening meeting of the new Session of the Legislative Council. He told me that perhaps he had over-persuaded Mr. MacLehose to fall in with the earlier arrangement and he now thinks that it wd be better if he were to delay his departure until after the meeting of the Legislative Council. If we agree, he proposes to speak to Mr. MacLehose in Copenhagen on the telephone and, if necessary, fly to Copenhagen for a day or so to discuss the matter. If these revised plans are accepted it will mean that Mr. MacLehose will not arrive in Hong Kong until sometime during the second half of October - in other words about a month later than was proposed in FCO telno.727.
3. Sir D. Trench gave me over the telephone the text of a telegram he would like sent to Hong Kong in reply to Sir H. Norman-Walker's telegram No.755. This is attached.
4. I assume that Mr. MacLehose would have to be given an opportunity of seeing what Sir D. Trench proposed to say in his Address to the Council and, on that understan- ding, I suggest that Sir D. Trench's revised plans be accepted. I undertook to ring Sir D. Trench back about this tomorrow morning.
E
Пай
amiin
E. 0. Laird
Hong Kong Department
2 November, 1970.
I am not altogether happy with the way this question of the timing of the handover between Sir D. Trench and Mr MacLehose is going. I do not see that the reasons adduced in Hong Kong telegram No. 755 militate against the timing which had been provisionally agreed. I cannot believe that if firm arrangements are made now for Sir D. Trench to leave in September and for Mr. MacLehose to arrive in early October this will be regarded as a substantial change of Government plan.
Confidential
/2.