STAFF IN CONFIDENCE
CONFIDENTIAL
Hong Kong and the peculiar problems facing the Hong Kong Government is very widely disseminated in the F.C. A measure of cross-fertilization could do much to improve mutual understanding.
5. Having said all this, I would not expect the kind of exchange we are now proposing to appeal very much to the Governor since it falls a long way short of what he wants. If we insist, as we will have to, that secondments are maintained in balance, and furthermore make it clear that we expect the Hong Kong Government to send us only first-class officers, the Governor would gain nothing in terms of manpower and the kind of jobs we would want for our officers in Hong Kong (at least at Grade 5 level), would be precisely those for which there is competition in the Hong Kong Government Service. Furthermore, and this is a point which has not been made in the earlier minuting, the Governor might well wish to send us the occasional Chinese officer. I know from my own experience that the best of these are very good indeed but the security objections to employing them in the F.C.O. would, I am sure, be insurmountable.
6. I agree with Mr. Wilford that the amendmendments proposed to paragraph 5 of the draft letter make too much of the difficulties. From the operations point of view we could second officers in Grade 5A or 7A from time to time if we got equally good ones back in exchange. The Governor is not going to be interested in exchanges limited to the Execuitve Grade. I attach on a separate piece of paper an alternative wording.
7. Finally, I doubt whether a letter from Sir L. Monson to the Governor need go into all the details of the financial arrangement and I would suggest that paragraph 6 onwards of the draft could be embodied in a separate letter which might perhaps go from Ifr. Laird to the Colonial Secretary.
Livin
(R.J.T. McLaren) 25 March, 1970.
CONFIDENTIAL
STAFF IN CONFIDENCE
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.