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18. There is a difficulty here. The arguments for and against
are set out in the attached exchange of telegrams (FCO tel.
B & C
no. 362 and UKMIS New York tel. no. 537).
Briefly, there is
a risk that once involved in the Committe
discussions on
Rhodesia, we would find ourselves having to disagree with most
of what the Committee wanted to do, as well as being unable to
provide much of the information which the Committee might
request. We might end up by appearing even more unco-operative
towards the Rhodesian discussions than we do from our present
posture of non-participation. On the other hand, if our main
objective is to gain as much credit as possible within the
Committee and the UN in general from adopting a co-operative
attitude towards the Committee, we should be prepared to incur
some rough passages in the Committee in order to put ourselves
in a better general position. Given the Committee's overriding
interest in Southern African problems, agreement to include
Rhodesia among the dependent territories we are prepared to
discuss would gain us considerably more credit than an agreement
to participate only over the smaller territories.
19. Mr Richard concludes that the right course of action is
to agree to participate in Committee discussion on Rhodesia, but
to limit our interventions as much as possible and make clear
the practical limitations to our ability both to supply infor-
mation and to implement policy recommendations. This conclusion
seems right. I recommend that we should agree.
Visiting Missions (Paragraph 7(a) of letter)
20. Mr Richard recommends that we should be forthcoming about
visiting missions from the Committee of 24 to our smaller
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/dependent
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