TNAG-0477-FCO40-542-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 10

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Jefeen Vipit.

M. Hattersby Pin 5. Within 112 Thomson

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Wilford

SECRET

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CELLOR

OF THE

EXCHEC

'COPY NO.

OF 17 COPIES

CH/EX REF:

19 1

104

Treasury Chambers, Parliament Street, SWIP 3AG

J. Killick / SEED.

Sefence Bez 2

01-930 1234

for advice won com | bout think we read

this fore

8 August 1974

When are the deft fulce

V

crechov.

I hope you will forgive me for raising a point you may

wish to mull over in the next few weeks.

The minutes of our OPD Meeting on 1st August do not seem to me fully to reflect what I felt was the sense of your summing up. I had the impression that the Committee did conclude it would be necessary to make public before the end of September our decisio in principle to wind up our military commitments outside NATO, although I appreciate that further examination of some aspects is required. In my view this is likely to prove essential in order to convince the Party and the rest of the Cabinet of our deter- mination to cut defence expenditure, and to render the currently expected increase in the Defence Budget next year more acceptable. I do not think it will be possible to conceal this increase from colleagues in the spending departments once we take the PESC work in Cabinet in September. The issue may also bulk large in discussions between the Cabinet and the National Executive Committe about the Manifesto particularly since at present at least half the commitments envisaged in the last Manifesto cannot be accommo- dated within our public expenditure limits over the next four years which will be under considerable strain.

·

For these reasons I doubt whether we can afford to delay consulting those concerned outside NATO about the rundown East of Suez and in the Mediterranean. Moreover, I think the Foreign Secretary might find it useful to keep the planned rundown of our forces in Cyprus as one of his objectives in the ongoing negotiations with Greece and Turkey.

I am sending copies of this letter to Jim Callaghan,

Roy Mason and to Sir John Hunt.

(Denis Healey)

The Rt. Hon. Harold Wilson, OBE., FRS., MP.

,

SECRET