Personal
Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1
DTE Roberts Esq CBE QC
Colonial Secretary
HONG KONG
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Dear Dearys,
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Date
4 April 1974
VISITS TO FCO
.1.
I write to put on record my reply to your letter of 27 March, although we shall of course be able to discuss this personally while you are on leave.
2.
I have had a word with Teddy Kidd about the letter which he sent to you. I never intended to give the impression either to him or to you that I felt it was important that suggestions of calls on Ministers should be channelled through my Department. In many cases it might be convenient to all parties to do so but I am making no protocol point whatsoever.
3.
My only point was that it is sometimes difficult to know how far you and the Governor would like us to go in arranging calls for individual officers within the CO. Specifically there was a suggestion that David Jordan might call on Lord Goronwy-Roberts during his present visit to London. On reflection I advised against this because it seemed to me wise to suggest that the first officials from Hong Kong to see our new Minister should be yourself or the Governor. This was not intended as any reflection on David Jordan but simply that his field is necessarily. a partial one and what Lord Goronwy-Roberts needs is to get an overall feeling for Hong Kong first.
If, however, we had had even an informal suggestion from you, either direct or through Teddy Kidd, that it would be a good idea for Jordan to see Lord Goronwy-Roberts, then we would have known that the proposal had the blessing of yourself and the Governor, and very probably our decision would have been different.
15.