Mr Daunt
SED
PTD
Mr Ure SAMD
Mr Snodgrass
Mr Duff WIAD
Mr Munro
EAD
Mr McLaren HKG D
Mr Shakespeare MCD
Mr Simons SEAD
Mr Posnett
DTA
Legal Adviser
Mr Watts
Defence Dept
PUSD
CONFIDENTIAL
separate copies
fr
215
1. Clarke
الصحة kik
IND
201
COMPREHENSIVE TEST RAN (CTB) NEGOTIATIONS: STATIONS (NSS) IN UK DEPENDENT TERRITORIES
1.
NATIONAL SEISMIC
Thank you for replies received to my minute of 30 November (not to Mr Daunt or Mr Duff, for whom I now attach copies as background). These will form the basis of a paper to Ministers (Prime Minister, Secretary of State, Defence Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer), giving an analysis of the political acceptability of the Soviet proposals.
2.
But it has been agreed that the paper should also cover. other possible sites which might be discussed with the Russians. There may well be other dependent territories where the political objections to NSS would be less than in some of the places proposed by the Russians. We are aiming to produce a list of possibly acceptable locations which would provide some degree of NSS coverage of places where, in Soviet eyes at least, we might conceivably want to conduct underground nuclear tests. I should therefore be grateful for a political analysis covering dependent territories or associated states not listed by the Russians.
3.
It is important that our paper should be comprehensive. I attach a list of dependent territories and associated states supplied by HKGD on which I have marked with an asterisk those already covered. However it occurs to me that there may be groups of small, even uninhabited, islands that are associated with dependent territories in some way but which present fewer political difficulties than the main territory. If so, I hope you will include these too.
4.
Flease could WIAD cover in particular Ascension Islani and FTD Henderson Island, which MOD thought might be possible substitutes for Aldabra and Pitcairn respectively.
5.
I should be grateful for replies by noon on Thursday 14 December, so that I might circulate a draft to MOD - who will be adding a technical evaluation - by the end of this week.
IPINO LAL
adharish
CG Mallaby,