SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL
His Excellency
Sir Murray MacLehose KCMG MBE
HONG KONG
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London S.W.1
6. December 1974
30.
Dear Thure
Пит
DEFENCE REVIEW
1.
215
You will have seen from our telegrams Nos. 1030 and 1031 that we failed to persuade Ministers to accept our views on the wording of the passage about Hong Kong in the recent Ministerial statement on the Defence Review.
2. We submitted that our aim and yours was to get a bigger contribution from Hong Kong with the minimum damage to the relationship, and that your advice on timing and on the content of an announcement was highly relevant. Lord Goronwy-Roberts supported this view, but the Secretary of State was not prepared to argue the point with his colleagues, with the Treasury and to a lesser extent the Ministry of Defence holding out strongly for a detailed announcement.
3. All this is, of course, water under the bridge. But looking forward to the tactical problems still ahead and to the substantive negotiations, it is important to hoist aboard that the Secretary of State's attitude towards the announcement was based on the positive view that Hong Kong could afford to pay what is in mind and must face up to its responsibilities; and that this should be made clear at the outset.
.4. The Ministry of Defence have promised to try to get us the
up-to-date costings of the proposed force on or soon after
9 December. Their expressed intention is to present the figures in a straightforward way with a clear explanation of the qualifications and uncertainties to which they may still be subject. They have suggested that they might be able, before your visit, to send you either a summary, showing in outline the breakdown between the different services and the works element, or a more detailed analysis of the figures in each of these areas.
5. Our first reaction has been that a summary may be enough and may even be preferable at this stage. You will not have a negotiating team with you on your visit and could not argue details. It might also be better at this stage to keep something back to be negotiated about later if the political problems become too intractable. And finally I remain firmly convinced that any attempt to agree on every nut and bolt and batman within' the
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ANTH
AMA TAMT V TYRD NOVMÁT
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