was also raised at my meeting with Vance.
I gained the impression that the DEA were keer that a very hard line should be taken with the Turks. They clearly wished to side with the hard liners in the Senate and Congress who were already calling for the withdrawal of all US aid from Turkey. There was talk of their losing credibility abroad if they did not take retributive and exemplary action. They spoke of the threat that the resumption of growing in Turkey presented to Europe, now that the routes to the US had to some extent been broken, and the American market was being met, to a greater extent, by supplies from Mexico and from Asia. The State Department reaction seemed, on the other hand to be on a much lower key. They appeared to realise that diplomatic or other pressures would not produce a revocation of the Turkish decision, and that the solution was to try to press the Turks to adopt some sensible and viable means of controlling production (this was disri ced by the DEA officials as impracticable).
15. Vance discussed with me possible means of advising the Turks. I made it clear
hat I had no brief to give the UK view on the matter, because I had no notion of the resum tion before leaving London, and that any opinions were expressed off the cuff and subject to reference. I shared his view that bilateral assistance or advice from, for example, the UK or the US, was not really a starter, partly because adequate expertise does not exist in the UK (and I am not sure that it does in the US), but mainly because the involvement of one country could be of extreme er barrassment to that country if the schere did not succeed, since the Turks would have a scapegoat. The intervention of the international organisations seered a better course, although We were doubtful of the prestige of the secretariat of the International larcotics Control Board and of the expertise of the present Board. A third alternative mentioned was sine for of independent team of advisers financed, perhaps, from the Un Fund for Drug Abuse Control (which wo ld give a UN involvement and thus give the authority of the international organisations). We discussed who might be merbers of such a team and Vance suggested that Sir Harry Greenfield might be prepared to lead it. I undertook to discuss these ideas with the FCO and to consider whether we might approach Greenfield informally and circumspectly to see if he was interested.
16.
Vance appeared to be by no means satisfied with the present management of the UN Fund for Drug Abuse Control, and he was critical of the Acting Executive Director, Sten Martens. Arparently Vance had su gested to Kartens that Harvey Wellman, the Assistant Secretary on narcotic matters at the State Department, who was about to retire, should join him as Deputy Director of the Fund. Martens had welcomed this in Kay, but had done nothing since. Vance suspected that he feared that his own influence and prestige would be diminished by the arrival of Wellman, and was temporising for that reason.
17.
I expressed my unease about the activities of the Colombo Plan Drug Adviser. The State Departrent had also been taken unaware by the pro osed Colombo Plan meeting in Bangkok and had sought further information about it. They had concluded that the nature of the agenda, the advanced state of preparation and the involvement of the Thai Government, made it undesirable for them to press for the date of the meeting to be altered. However, Vance accerted the arguments which I advanced about the dangers of overlapping initiatives in the Far East, and said that they would certainly give serious consideration to them before the meeting of the Colombo Flan Consultative Committee later this year. I asked that they shorld give us some prior notice of the way their thinking is going before the Committee meets, and we might consider following this up through our Embassy in Washington when the Drug Adviser's report becomes available.
CONCLUSION
18. I consider that this meeting was a success. It was very well received by the US, and Rolph said that he had found it most useful. We exposed a number of areas where closer co-operation, on the lines proposed, could produce substantial operational benefits for the UK and Hong Kong. The discussions at this meeting were predicated uron a further meeting. and another seems to me to be desirable to consolidate the position. But I am not sure how long it will remain necessary to have meetings to develop co-operation of this sort, and I would con: ider that we
8.
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