Registry No.
SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
Top Secret.
Secret.
Confidential.
SECRET UK EYES A
DRAFT
MINUTE
To:-
The Rt Hon Roy Mason MP
Type 1 +
FROM
Secretary of State
Telephone No. Ext.
Restricted,
Unclassified.
PRIVACY MARKING
------In Confidence
DEFENCE REVIEW: HONG KONG
1.
Department
You wrote to the Prime Minister on 8 July about the garrison in Hong Kong; and I have since seen the Prime Minister's views and those of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
2.
I agree that the reduced garrison you describe should be accepted as the basis for the cost agreement negotiations and that our first aim should be to get Hong Kong to pay a 75% contribution from the outset. At the same time it is only realistic to recognise that this may be very hard to achieve since, with inflation, it would involve a one step rise of some 200% in the Hong Kong contribution. Our negotiators will, as you say, require a margin of flexibility. I accordingly agree that our tactics should be as described in
your paragraph 5.
3.
I am glad this matter is to be discussed in OPD. I am concerned at the Chief Secretary's suggestion that we should look again at the size of the garrison if we do not achieve a full 75% at the outset of the new Agreement. The joint UK/Hong Kong Working Party did a useful job and we must have regard to possible destabilising effects in the Colony if the garrison were to be reduced below the minimum level which the Chiefs of Staff consider to be necessary. There would be no way of concealing this from the local population. I am very willing, as the Prime Minister has suggested, to send a personal message to Sir Murray MacLehose to help
/obtain
7448 D073840 200M 8/74 Cr.P.C. 839/3
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