PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTLAL
P.A
Jals
30 September 1977
120/601
اما
1616/1
Sir Murray MacLehose GBE KCMG KCVO HONG KONG
HKR 121
REV.
- 500
INSE
งา
(207)
HONG KONG AND THE MFA
1.
When you called on me on 26 September you complained that we had not respected your confidence about the information that Tran passed on to you as you had asked us to do in paragraph 4 of your letter of 3 3eptember to Donald Murray. You said that your Office in Brussels had learnt that the substance of your letter seemed to be well-known to many people in the Commission.
2. We have looked into this. I can assure you that no copy of your letter was passed to the Commission. However, we did, of course, make use of its contents in pressing the Hong Kong саве. This was, after all, what you effectively asked us to do. in your letter.
3.
When Tran called at the Office on 9 September officials here tried to point out to him that the proposed mandate for the new FEC/Hong Kong agreement was inequitable. The very fact of our doing this made it quite clear to Tran that we knew what the new mandate was. In fact Tran said that he knew that you proposed to write to us and that he tried to persuade you not to. He then asked straight out whether you had written to us and we could hardly do otherwise than confirm that you had. As far as we can discover, this was the origin of the source which Burgess picked up in Brussels.
4. I am sure you will agree that this was not a breach of your confidence and that it would have been impossible for us to fight for Hong Kong's case either with Tran or with the Commission itself without them realizing that you had told us of your dis- cussions with Tran.
5. You implied to me that officials in London had not done enough to put over your cause. As I told you John Stewart, Donald Murray and I have all done our best to make sure that the Hong Kong side of the argument is heard in all quarters. That we have not been as successful as you would wish has not been for lack of effort on our part but because of the overwhelming political pressures, both in Britain and in the Community.
HAH Cortazzi
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL