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4. The Secretary of State minuted on 18 June to the Defence Secretary expressing the hope that he would agree not to announce the withdrawal of HMS ENDURANCE before 24 June and suggesting that, instead, he agreed to keep ENDURANCE for another season until OPD had been able to look at all the issues. Mr Wall's letter of 19 June reported the Prime Minister's view that we should not scrap ENDURANCE.
5.
On 27 June the Private Secretary (MOD) wrote to the Private Secretary here to say that there were now doubts about the safety of HMS ENDURANCE and to report that the Defence Secretary had been advised formally that the ship was vulnerable in ice conditions and should not be deployed in the Antarctic later this year.
6.
Lord Shackleton and his colleagues, members of the Antarctic Lobby, have heard about this report from their own sources. Commander Ranken, Secretary of the Parliamentary Maritime Group, had told me that two former captains of ENDURANCE and marine engineers who are his contacts believe that the ship is capable of working in the Antarctic this year and beyond. It has been pointed out that the damage caused by contact between ENDURANCE and an iceberg in 1989 was repaired and that the ship has subsequently been twice to the Antarctic. Nothing unusual has occurred.
7.
Having tried to bounce us into agreeing to an announcement before 24 June which would have ended the work of HMS ENDURANCE, we are now confronted with this technical report which MOD officials claim arived too late for it to be included in the Defence Seciary's minute of 11 June. If ENDURANCE does not operate this year the work of the British Antarctic Survey will obviously be affected. The time has come to decide whether HMG should retain a White Ensign presence in the Antarctic and, if so, whether HMS ENDURANCE should be repaired or replaced at once.
8. Whilst the Defence Secretary is considering the Secretary of State's minute we can be discussing our priorities in the paper commissioned by Mr Gass in his minute of 28 June.
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