CONFIDENTIAL HKK 1/19
28 August, 1970.
وا
Many thanks for your letter of 12 August about Haddon-Cave's selection to be John Cowperthwaite's successor as Financial Secretary, the change to take place about April 1971. You were right in assuming that FCO Saving despatch No.284 was a follow-up to our earlier correspondence and was in essence the formal acceptance which in my letter of 18 February I promised to send you about this time so that the way would be open to you to put out an appropriate announcement. But I did, before authorising the despatch of the Savingram, confirm that the appointment was acceptable to the new Administration here as it had been to their predecessors.
I note that you are not reconsidering your recommendation. You yourself made the point in your letter of 27 January that it would not be fair to Haddon-Cave to come to London for his attach- ment to the Bank of England and other Departments without it having been announced publicly that he is to succeed John Cowperthwaite. All those whom he will be seeing will know that
In these this was the plan and that this is why he is in London. circumstances Haddon-Cave himself would be placed in a most en barrassing situation if no announcement had been made previously and even if he himself said nothing the odds are that the news would lea' at some stage during his stay. On the other hand, if the intention was public knowledge, his position during his stay here would be stronger and the value which he and Hong Kong would derive from his stay would be that much greater.
I therefore see every advantage in the announcement being made either when Haddon-Cavo leaves for London or just before, and I trust that you can agree to this.
His Excellency
Sir David Trench, G.C.F.G., M.C.,
Government House,
Hong Kong
CONFIDENTIAL
(L. Monson)
put by.
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