TNAG-0428-FCO40-493-Appointments-of-senior-officers-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 35

F

STAFF IN CONFIDENCE

Foreign and Commonwealth Office London SW1

RGB Bridge Esq Civil Service Branch Colonial Secretariat

Ionic KONG

Telephone 01-

Your reference

Our reference

Date

8 March 1974

Dear Rom,

COMMISSIONER OF NARCOTICS

1.

LAGY

REF.

१

NEXT

REF.

20

Alan Wotton wrote to you on 25 February about the candidates for Norman Rolph's post who had so far emerged.

I have since been discussing the general question of marcotics with Chris Train, who headed our delegation at the recent ieneva meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotics which Rolph also uttended. I asked him if he had had any further ideas about possible

andidates.

ile then brought up the name of Michael Davies, who is at resent working in the UN Narcotics Division from Geneva and who he nderstood had a colonial background. He had not mentioned him before because he had not met him, but during the Commission's session he

and been impressed with his energy and intelligence. He thought

avies had a fairly strong conceit of himself but understood that he had proved a capable administrator.

At that point I revealed that I knew Mike Davies well. He was an administrative officer in Uganda and stayed on first as

ermanent Secretary (Internal Affairs) under Obote and latterly as lead of the Administrative Training School in Makerere until he was

ushed out by Amin. Davies is a man in his early 40's, with, as Train mays, a very strong conceit of himself, but the ability, in most respects, to match it. I had wondered if he might have lost some

f his vim in the vicissitudes of the last few years, but from what Frain says it appears he has not. John Champion, who was his immediate Doss in Uganda in 1963, agrees with me that if you wanted a man who

as basically an administrator, with previous experience of police work in the internal affairs ministry and now with some experience of

arcotics through his work in Geneva, Davies might be a good idea. > put this all in perspective, I should perhaps say that I do not

ke him much, largely because, when younger, I found him insufferable; at I think he would be well worth your adding to your list for

nsideration. If you would like us to pursue the matter, we could ubtless contact him from here to find out if he would be interested.

Yours ever Andrew

A C Stuart

Hong Kong & Indian Ocean Dept.