21/1
RESTRICTED
8 January, 1970.
53 Prev
Kai Tak Airport
Will you please refer to my letter of 11 September in reply to yours of 22 August about the Plessey attempt to sell radar equipment to Kai Tak airport.
I have spoken again to Plesscy's Hong Kong representative who tells me that no final order has been placed as yet but the indications are that the Italian firm of Selenia will get the order. He naturally believes that the Plessey equipment is as good as or better than Selenia's (Plessey recently put in a new and improved offer) and puts down the insistence of the Hong Kong authorities in buying the Italian equipment partly to pique at H.M.G.'s refusal to advance a loan for the extension of Kai Tak and partly to the attempt of a newly promoted senior official in the Department of Civil Aviation to assert his own prejudices (a reaction, I am told, to being compelled in the past by his superiors to buy British equipment against his will).
How justified these accusations are it is difficult to say. However, there seems to be little more that we can do to help at the moment. Any interference by me at this juncture might well be counterproductive. The Director of Civil Aviation, I know, feels bitter about the failure to obtain a loan. When I saw him at a party recently, he immediately launched into an attack on United Kingdom policy, saying that the United Kingdom was quite happy to pour money into African countries whose only thanks were to call it "blood money" and fritter it away, whereas a loan, at a good rate of interest to a loyal British Colony was refused, etc. etc.
I think, therefore, that any efforts at persuasion will have to be made at a higher level although of course I am very willing to assist if you consider there is anything I can usefully do.
C. F. McFarlane, Esq.,
Board of Trade,
Overseas Projects Group, 1, Victoria Street,
London, S.W.1.
NICK 21
RESTRICTED
D
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