121
Mr N G Rolph
Commissioner for Narcotics
Colonial Secretariat
HONG KONG
Dear Norman
Y
31 January 1974
Thank you for your letter of 21 January which is mainly about the report of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Far East. Unfortunately it arrived the day after I had "ritten to you about the domestic arrangements for the Geneva meeting, which
referred to in the last paragraph of your letter, and I was therefore unable in my letter to take up the points that you have raised in yours. However I hope that my account of the domestic arrangements for Geneva will arrive in good time for you, and since I have today received some further advice from my scientific advisers following up our June meeting (your reference(46) in SCR 4/1316/73 7 November refers) I thought that it would be convenient to respond to the point made in your letter of 21 January about the Ad Hoc Committee's report and to bring you up to date on the other scientific matter.
I had been afraid all along that the country reports which we made in the Ad Hoc Committee's report might be inaccurate in points of detail. It seems to me that this was almost certain to happen because of the shortness of time which we had in each country and because we were required to compose our report eventually against the clock in Singapore. It was therefore impossible to check for exact accuracy and the result, as I suspected, has not been totally satisfactory. Nevertheless I am rather inclined to agree with you that there is probably nothing much to be gained by seeking to correct the record at Geneva, since the remarks are contained
1