SECRET PERSONAL
MINISTER OF STATE FOR DEFENCE
WHITEHALL LONDON SW1A 2HB
ΛΟΣ
D/MIN/WR/8/7
Д Пинау
Telephone:
01 - 218
دل
7112
(Direct Dialling)
01 - 218 9000 (Switchboard),
NOF
October 1975 1975
I am
10/10
"M. O'Keefe on
cic M. Male
Minister
Many thanks for your letter of 29 September. looking forward to my visit to Hong Kong and much appreciate your kind suggestion that I should stay with you.
I plan to travel by the RAF milk-run (the Defence Department has no money to spare these days) but I hope to be recovered from the consequences before the real business
begins.
I take your point about not raising the temperature. I shall certainly be happy to spend time looking at the garrison, and at Hong Kong generally. My previous visit
was for 30 minutes, en route for Manila and Sydney. may be unrealistic to treat the occasion as a routine
Ministerial visit.
But it
In the first place, my party will be rather larger than would otherwise be justified. More important, there is genuine interest here in how we are to deal with defence costs in Hong Kong. The House of Commons returns next Monday and we are top for Questions on 21 October. I cannot exclude the possibility that we shall be pressed on how soon a new agreement with Hong Kong is to be concluded. In this case I would have no alternative to putting my visit plainly
in this context.
Sir Murray Maclehose KCMG MBE Governor and Commander-in-Chief Hong Kong
SEC SECRET & PERSONAL NAL
/Nevertheless