D/DS11/1/2/5/7 Annex
F1(N) (Mr Benham)
Copy to:
SECRET
SPORET
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DUS(P)
AUS(GS)
AUS (AS)
ACDS(Pol)
Head of DS 5 Head of DS 6
AUS(D Staff) (on return)
Head of DS 8
EXPENDITURE COMMITTEE → VISIT TO HONG KONG.
Thank you for your minute of 4th April about the Defence and External Affairs Sub-Committee's proposal to visit Hong Kong and elsewhere in November.
2. For Hong Kong I will leave it to AUS(GS), who has been mainly concerned with the negotiations with the Hong Kong Government, to comment. My observations on the other ports of call are as follows.
Singapore will be very heavily occupied with post Defence Review withdrawal, which is planned to be far advanced by the end of 1975. In order to enable our forces there to concentrate on planning and executing the withdrawal, the Chiefs of Staff have imposed a bon on all but the most essential visits by MOD personnel. I think therefore that it would be appreciated if the Sub-Committee could be discouraged from including · Singapore in their itinaary.
Diego Garcia raises different problems. Any vicit to the US facilities (which includes the airstrip) at Diego Garcia is subject to US Government agreement. So far we have mutually refused applications to visit the Island from journalists, etc, and fear that onew we start adnitting people, there will be a great flood. For example, if we agreed a visit by MPs wc and the Americans could hardly stop a party of Congress- men going thero if they wished. In MO we have been unwilling to promote auch a visit while the authoriza- tion of the expansion was still very much under debate, particularly in the USA, and we did not think it wise to permit MPs to visit the atoll before one of our own Hinisters had gone there, for obvious reasons. Although S of S intended to include a short visit to Diego Garcia in his forthcoming tour of the Indian Ocean, I believe that this idea has now been dropped. Thus no Ministeriel visit to the Island is at present contemplated. A visit by the Dub-Committee would also raise transport problems since either wo or the US would have to provide an aircraft to get them there; presumably from Singapore. I suggest that you can