HKK 6/548/3
AL
Hong Kong Department
2 February, 1970
Thank you for your personal letter of 13 January. You were good enough to call my own letter of 30 December, 1969 "most interesting". But it was certainly less substantial than your reply, as well as being rather easier to deal with!
Although I would be very willing to take up with the Governor the matter of your unsuccessful efforts to meet Mr. Heath during his visit to the Colony, I should first like to be sure that such action would be in line with your own wishes and also that the grounds for doing so are sound. I should explain that we have been very much in the dark here about the arrangements made for Mr. Heath's visit; we have not got, for example, a copy of his programme. All we were originally told (by the Private Office) was that the visit was to take place in January and that Mr. Heath was writing to the Governor on the subject. Later we obtained a little more information through Michael Wright in the Hong Kong Government Office because Douglas Herd (Mr. Heath's Private Secretary) used him as a channel of communication with the Hong Kong Government and with Sir David Trench (who was then in the UK) and Wright consulted us from time to time on certain points. Through this channel we learnt that Mr. Heath was very insistent that his visit was private and had rejected an invitation to stay at Government House in favour of the Chartered Bank's penthouse suite. We also learnt that Mr. Heath was determined to be very much the master of his own programme. The Hong Kong Government made some suggestions for inclusion and in the event laid on the arrangements for the items he agreed to (some were rejected). Substantially, I understand, the final programme was very much his own creation (and that or Douglas Herd).
Given the fact that the Hong Kong Government was only partially involved in determining the content of the programme, I think it cauld be argued that it was right for them to look after their own and that it was for us to look after you. Unfortunately it never
In my occurred to me to approach Douglas Herd on your behalf. contacts with Wright I gathered that many were bidding direct for a piece of Mr. Heath's time, e.g. the Hong Kong Association, staff associations but with what success I do not know.
On the other hand I would have expected the Hong Kong Government to have included you in any fairly large social function they might have organised. But I have heard only of a dinner at Government House on the Thursday and a UMELCO dinner on the Friday; both are pretty restricted gatherings the guest list for the latter, if precedent is any guide, is confined to the guest of honour and any accompanying staff. You mention a party, presumably a drinks party of some size. Was this officially organised or was it
a private affair? If held on the Saturday evening, the arrangements must, I gather, have been private,
J. K. Blackwell, Esq., CBE.,
Senior Trade Commissioner, HONG KONG.
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