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TOP SECRET
SECRETARY
OF STATE
Page No.4 of 4 Pages
about this, it would be preferable to avoid a public statement covering the period beyond the early 1970s. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew said that he would be thinking about this problem himself.
6.
Mr. Healey mentioned that he would be seeing the economic fact-finding team, which had now arrived in Singapore and would warn its members about the need to do their work in a way that would not carry a risk of damaging: confidence. He also outlined the way in which he proposed to play his Press Conference in the afternoon, emphasising in particular that he would make clear that IMG were not planning to abandon commitments, but in general to meet them in a different way, and that it was a national interes of Britain's that stability should be maintained in the Far East, and that the strength and well-being of our Commonwealth partners should not be undermined. Ile said that he would refer to Mr. Lee Kuan Yew's important speech of the previous evening in which he had stressed the need to meet the challenge of change. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew welcomed this line of approach as the best in the circumstances. lle then referred to the Foreign Secretary's visit to Washington, which (as he put it) had given the impression of 'a British scuttle'; this had led him to fear that the British Government might already be committed to going further than Mr. Healey had indicated. He asked, in passing, if the British were intending to buy US jumbo jet aircraft. Mr. Healey spoke reassuringly, though he acknowledged that it was not an easy matter at the present stage to deal in public with Press questions relating to IIMG's attitude towards the mid 1970s and beyond. He added that there had been no decision to buy jumbo jets and emphasised that (as he 'would make clear at the Press Conference) significant improvements were at present being made to the British military air transport capability.
SECRETARY OF STATE'S OFFICE
1st May, 1967
Distribution:
PS/Minister (A) PS/Minister (E) PS/US of S(RN) PS/US of S(Army) PS/US of S(RAF)
AUS (GS) AUS (AS)
Head of DS11
CPR
SECCOS
PS/Foreign Secretary (2)
n
PS/Commonwealth Secretary (2) PS/Prime Minister
PS/Sir Burke Trend
CDS
CNS
CGS
CAS
CAPL
CA(Studies)
DGI
C. in.C, Far East (4)
PUS
DUS (Pol) AUS(Pol) AUS (NS)
British High Commissioner Singapore (1) British High Commissioner Kuala Lumpur
(4)
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