NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN IN THIS MARGIN
Registry
No.
CURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret,
Secret,
Confidential.
Restricted. Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
In Confidence
DRAFT
To:-
SECRET
Type 1+
Mr. Stuart
FROM
Telephone No. Ext.
Department
NON-NATO COMMITMENTS
1. There are a number of points of which the Secretary of State should be aware and/or which he should draw to his colleagues' attention.
General
(i) Para. 9 of the draft Cabinet paper talks
of "telling" the non-NATO Governments of our intentions and para. 10 talks of "informing" them. This contrasts with the opening sentence of para. 9, which correc- tly talks about "consulting" our partners both in and outside NATO, and with
Ministers' repeated public statement that our non-NATO allies will be consulted where- ever their interests are affected. Although it is true that we shall in general be telling our non-NATO partners what we intend and consulting them only about the modalities of our planned reductions, it is important that we should continue to present our discussions with them publicly as "consultations". Provided this point is accepted, there is no need for the wording of the Cabinet paper to be altered.
(ii) We understand the Cabinet Office will be
/briefing
SECRET