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sustained.
This is a matter which we hope to discuss with the
High Commissioner before he returns to Australia next week.
5. It may be necessary to tell them at the highest level and in strict confidence that we are now preparing evacuation plans in the United Kingdom and will consult with them at an appropriate stage. This may lead them to press us to bring the Americans in. perhaps be advisable at this stage to avoid too rigid an attitude
It would towards consulting with the Americans and Australians in spite of the risks: we may reach the conclusion at quite an early stage of planning that, in an emergency evacuation, we will need their military and logistic assistance.
territory which the
Villi
think be regarded by them as an act of major provocation.
Visits of American naval vessels.
8. The Ministerial Committee recorded the view that the presence
of United States ships had a good effect on local confidence,
could be useful if an emergency evacuation became necessary and
could be expected to have some deterrent effect on the action of
the Chinese Government.
9. These are all valid points. Nevertheless it is important that
we should require the Americans to observe the guide lines agreed
with them last year for the use of facilities in the Colony by
their Armed Forces. These were designed to put limits on e.g.
visits by American ships so that the visible signs of American
military presence in Hong Kong did not become so blatant that the
Chinese would feel bound to react strongly. The recent decision to
cancel the visit of the American carrier "Constellation" was taken
in part because the proposed programme of visits of large naval
vessels would have departed substantially from the guide lines.
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