Mr Masefield (Planning Staff)
r|A
PUSPC DEFENCE REVIEW
(Miss Rycroft's minute of 19 June refers.)
1. A number of specific textual amendments to the Defence Studies Working Party final draft report (DSWP (P)51) and its Annex J, have been suggested separately by Mr Cox, Mr Champion and by Mr Stuart.
2.
I agree in general with the point made by Mr Cox in the first enclosure of his minute of 19 June - that is, our commitment to defend our Dependent Territories is of a different order to that to defend our external interests generally; although in practice it may be legitimate to draw a distinction between the two, a commitment to defend our Dependent Territories is strictly speaking of the same nature as a commitment to defend the United Kingdom itself. For this reason I agree that the PUS should underline in the Steering Committee the gravity of a decision to abandon, for the first time in peacetime, our responsibilities for the defence of Dependent Territories, particularly when some of them are under potential threat of external aggression (this point arises directly from paragraph 58 of the main paper and paragraph 5 of Annex J). He might also make the point that the people of Dependent Territories might prefer HMG to spend money on their defence rather than on other forms of aid (paragraph 6 of the minute of the PUSPC meeting of 21 May).
20 June 1974
c.c. Mr Cox
Mr Stuart
Mr Champion
SECRET
EN Larmour
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