Defence Secretariat 6
CONFIDENTIAL
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE Main Building, Whitehall, LONDON S.W.I Telephone: WHItehall 7022, ext. 2241
Please address any reply to
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
DS6a
>
and quote:D/DS6/7/153/44/66
Your reference:-
E AF Seaman Esq
Defence Department
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
London SW1
to
14 May 1970
Dear Seanman,
In the general context of providing the required number of Infantry Battalions for Northern Ireland from September, 1970 onwards, our Secretary of State has asked for an investigation to be carried out of the scope for borrowing Infantry Battalions from overseas garrisons on a temporary or permanent basis. The garrisons to be surveyed in this excrcise are Hong Kong, the Gulf, Cyprus (both SBAS and UNFICYP), Malta, British Honduras and Berlin. One of the inputs to this study must obviously be the local political implications of a withdrawal of a battalion from any of these places.
The advice of your Southern European Department was obtained last November as far as withdrawals from Malta and Cyprus were concerned. I am sending you a copy of the DS 11 minute which drew on the advice provided then by the FCO. May I ask you to obtain confirmation that this advice remains substantially the same, bearing in mind that with a change in time-scales for this study only one Battalion would be in Malta anyway. For the other areas ie. Hong Kong, the Gulf, British Honduras and Berlin, I would be grateful for a statement of the political implications or a possible withdrawal from each of these
This whole study, you will appreciate, has to be concluded as early as possible and I would therefore be grateful for a reply from you by the end of next week. If it would help, I am willing to visit you on any of the desk officers more directly concerned to obtain your and their views verbally.
RECEIVED IN REGISTRY No.51
MAY 1970
HARRIS
Your sincerely,
をそ
cohnson.
TANZUIA IRG
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