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72 hours would be accepted without delay. The omission of this
condition from the paper is because the Ministry of Defence base
their plans for reinforcement anywhere in the world on the assump-
tion that the notice can be reduced in this way on request.
This is reasonable.
One
4. The paper accepts the views of CBFHK and the Governor.
consequence of a decision to extend the period of notice for
reinforcement to 7 days is that the reinforcement commitment can
be met from a battalion in the United Kingdom, making it unnecessary
to specifically earmark either the Brunei or the Singapore battalion
Line to Take
5. We agree, at official level, to the conclusions of this paper
subject of course to the provisos made by the Governor and CBFHK
which we listed in paragraph 2 of the paper.
6
In view of the fact that the decision to increase the Hong
Kong Garrison at the end of 1971 was taken by the Overseas and
Defence Policy Committee in 1968, we presume that the Defence
Secretary will in due course be seeking the concurrence of his
Ministerial colleagues to the reduction of the proposed force
levels either by means of a minute or by submission of a paper to
the DOPC.
7. The paper makes no mention of the ratio between Gurkha and
British infantry units in a Hong Kong Garrison of 63 major units.
You will have noted from CBFHK's signal of 28 August that both he
and the Governor are firmly of the view that 3 major infantry
units in Hong Kong must be British and not Gurkha. This means
that if it is decided next month to retain the Brigade of Gurkhas
after 1971 on a five battalion basis, that one of these Gurkha
battalions will need to be deployed to the U.K. as proposed in an
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