CONFIDENTIAL
Commonwealth Office
Great Smith Street, S.W.1
19
17th January, 1967.
Dear Denis,
I am sorry to have to trouble you in the following matter and do so only with great diffidence as the subject falls, ministerially, outside your bailiwick.
You will be aware that at the beginning of December last the Portuguese in Macao landed themselves in trouble with the Chinese and civil disturbances in the Colony followed. Since then there have been negotiations between the mainland Chinese and the authorities in Macao which have not so far been fruitful. Anything can now happen. On the 14th January, through their Ambassador in London and their Consul-General in Hong Kong, the Portuguese Government asked for assistance from the Government of Hong Kong in the event of an evacuation from Macao becoming necessary. We have considered this request, together with the Foreign Office, and our joint conclusions are set out in the third and fourth paragraphs of the attached submission. As far as relations between Britain and Portugal are concerned, I should also add that it is of some importance that Portugal should respond as favourably as possible to our imminent approaches concerning the supply of oil to Rhodesia. The Macao question thus arises
at a delicate moment.
Because of the implications involved here, I feel that these conclusions, which Fred Mulley, Bill Rodgers and I have reached, ought to be seen by a member of Cabinet who is a member of 0.P.D. This presents a problem. you know, Bert Bowden and George Brown are at present out
Gerald Gardiner of the country, as is the Prime Minister.
As
is at present keeping an eye on the Commonwealth Office, on a caretaker basis, and I am sending a copy of this letter
CONFIDENTIAL
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