TNAG-0023-FCO40-59-Facilities-for-US-Forces-1968 — Page 2

SECRET

G.W.B.

personal copy.

Guide-lines for use of Facilities in Hong Kong by U.S. Armed Forces

(as agreed on 31st May, 1966)

The following guide-lines must be subject to the discretion

of the Governor to withdraw these facilities at any time.

A.

B.

C.

D.

E.

F.

Visits by U.S. Forces to Hong Kong should be for rest and recreation only (e.g. there should be no staging through Hong Kong of reinforcements for Vietnam).

There should be regular and informal consultations in Hong Kong between the U.S. Consulate-General (including the Service Liaison Officers) and the Hong Kong Government and Service Commanders, by means of which the United States would keep the Governor informed of the use being made of the Colony by their Service personnel, ships and aircraft. Proposals for the use of new facilities, or for significant increases in the use of existing facilities, would be made in the first place to the Hong Kong Government through the U.S. Consulate-General and not direct to the individual Services.

It is essential that any increase in the scale of visits of troops from Vietnam should be unobtrusive and take place by easy stages. The present figure is a maximum of 510 men at any one time. It is agreed that the Consultative Group mentioned in Guide-line B will keep the administrative arrangements for handling these visits under constant review.

Fleet visits to be kept broadly at the 1964 level (when 156,000 men visited Hong Kong on U.S. ships) subject to the avoidance of any undue concentration of ships at any one time and to the even spacing of visits by large ships, i.e. carriers and cruisers.

Naval vessels which are publicly announced or referred to in the press or on the radio as having been engaged in recent action off Vietnam should not (except by prior clearance) visit Hong Kong direct from areas in which they have recently been engaged in active operations. This would normally prevent major naval units e.g. carriers, from visiting the colony direct from areas in which they have recently been engaged in active operations, but would allow smaller ships such as destroyers, other than those which have been expressly named in active operations, to do In any case publicity about the participation in active operations of any vessel scheduled to visit Hong Kong shall be kept to a minimum during the period preceding its visit.

So.

Contracts should not be placed in Hong Kong either directly or through sub-contractors for the purchase of warlike stores or of articles of equipment easily identifiable as for military use; cases of doubt to be considered through the consultative arrangements at B above.

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