countries or own subjects, made only a moderate contribution to the Committee's work. The Australian Chairman, was a tower of strength and handled the diplomatic aspects of our work a good deal better than I had expected. The report to some extent reflects the conclusions of the Committee's Anglo-Saxon members (we had an able policeman from Interpol, Detective Chief Inspector Fendall, the United Kingdom liaison officer at Saint Cloud) but it was accepted by the Committee as a whole, although the Thai representative had to be dissuaded from taking a much wider and completely wrong headed view of the Committee's terms of reference which would have involved our making sweeping recommendations for the introduction of crop substitution in most of the countries which we visited. The only difficulties that may arise could be from the ASEAN countries which have plans for their own organisation but they seemed amenable at the time to the line that the Committee was developing.
ine Committee's recommendations are, I believe, acceptable to the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. The main one is for regular meetings of the operational heads of the central narcotics enforcement agencies of each country in the region to be held under the auspices of and financed by the United Nations. We found that this was one thing that all countries seemed to want. No country that we visited wanted a sub-commission. views that the iong Kong Government expressed to us seemed broadly in accordance with the line that the Committee has taken. (hether this will be acceptable to the United States of America remains to be seen.)
The
I have already written on 12 November to the ODA about my concern over the Colombo Plan Drug Adviser and the Colombo Plan involvement in the drug field in general. I sent a copy of the letter to you and Miss Bullock in the South East Asia Department; I have nothing to add to the views expressed therein
I believe you are currently taking views in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on the proposed United Nations Regional Adviser on Drug Abuse. I gathered that the UN Narcotics Division was in some difficulty on this matter. Certainly in November they had no clear idea of the sort of person whom they wished to appoint and Mr Tufnell used the tour to canvass for recruits in a number of places, including Hong Kong. They may not choose to make an appointment until after the Special Session of the Commission when the Ad Hoc Committee's Report has been considered. This would enable them to adjust the terms of reference of the Adviser to take account of any recommendations of the Committee which the Commission endorses. As I suggested earlier to Andrew Stuart, this would be a desirable development.
I am sending a copy of this letter to Andrew Stuart, who has let me have Mr Rolph's report on the Committee's visit to Hong Konɛ. If there are any points which you or he would like me to develop in advance of the Committee's full Report I should be glad to
do so.
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S. J. TRAIN