HKK 10/9
Chit 6 HICK 18/1
CONFIDENTIAL
Hong Kong Department
4 June, 1969
(29
(28)
I am replying in John Moreton's absence to your letter to him AUS (AS)F2 of 29 May about fighter aircraft for Hong Kong.
2.
My main purpose in writing at this stage is to let you have the information in the enclosed copy of a telegram that we have just received from Hong Kong. You will see that Lord Shepherd (who is now in Hong Kong) has already discussed the question of the fighters with the Governor and with the CBP. We fully take your point about the need for an early decision in this matter, but we very much hope that you will find it practicable to meet the Minister's request for a decision to be deferred until after Mr. Healey's visit to the Colony later this month (24-26 June). I should appreciate it if you could let me know as soon as possible whether this can be done so that I can tell the Governor in good time.
3. I do not think that there is much point in my commenting at this stage on the proposals in the second paragraph of the telegram except perhaps to say that the suggestion at (B) would, I think, dispose of both of the difficulties that you mention in the third paragraph of your letter.
There is one other point (in paragraph 5 of your letter) which puzzles us a little. You say that you have no plans to deploy fighters to Hong Kong (from this country) for training or other purposes. We are not clear as to how we should interpret this in the light of the record of the Chiefs of Staff meeting with the Governor on 30 April, 1968 (see Air Marshal Fletcher's comment at the foot of the second page of that record) or of paragraph 7 of the Annex to OPD(68)32 of 21 May, 1968. Am I correct in assuming that under your present plans after the disbandment of No.20 Squadron of Hunters in the Far East under the rundown plan, there would be no permanent deployment of fighters in Hong Kong; but that, nonetheless, there would be regular visits by Phantoms (or possibly other fighters) to the Colony?
R. Haynes, Esq., Ministry of Defence.
(w. S. Carter)
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