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are below th
Mr Bennett (Research Department)
chem to
Mr Dipwiddy
BD 413
1. I am very grateful for your offer to take this job
on and, subject always to the considerations mentioned in paragraph 2 of your minute above, I hope you will be able to do so. But as this will take some time, I would like to send an interim reply to Mr Davies. I attach a draft and should be grateful for your clearance of it.
21 February 1975
D.Ki
D K Timms
Hong Kong and Indian Ocean Department
Mr Timms
With respect (because I suppose technically speaking it's outside my field) I have misgivings about the wisdom of your draft interim reply below, for the xxx reasons in the last para of my min te of 19 Feb. Even this limited summary would put hand several cards to Hong Kong which might subsequently be used against us e.g. the Boston tea-party!
2.
If I understand the position aright, there is a bag argument ahead between the Sec. of State and the Hong Kong Govt., which might well lead to a Minister having to go out to put HMG8s line across on the local politicians on the spot, as happened last time (para 11 of my previous int minute). In such circumstances it would seem, if I may say so, that our fixxx prior commitment here is to assemble xit the information and arguments required in order to present HMG's case as effectively as possible, and to observe a certain discreet reticence meanwhile vis-à-vis the other side in the battle. In the course of long service in the Colonial Office I saw too often how wily Governors, faced with that sort of situation, were able to extract useful (or even damaging) advance information from London under guise of innocent factual enquiry, and then reveal it to Ex. Co. xx who would use it against us.
3. Marx Least of all would I advise putting the H. K. Govt on the track of the 1960's encounter, until we have looked it up ourselves and discovered who won end what the arguments were. Otherwise we should be gratuitously tipping them off to get xxÈX¤ÍXиX a move ahead of us. In cases like this I take the view that it is the job of Colonial Govts. to do their own homework. For that reason I dislike the implication in they first paragraph of your draft that R. D. has a duty to answer Hong Kong enquiries. Col sorts, are not Embassies.
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