TNAG-0527-FCO40-622-Visit-of-James-Callaghan--Secretary-of-State-for-Foreign-and-1975 — Page 15

Mr Scrivener

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CONFIDENTIAL

се

Deputy Chief Clerk Mr Male

FED

HKIOD

RIO HONG KONG

1.

Nu. O'Keeffe

ли

19

Au Toner Kellime that the is in his way relevant to "Brikună HK." Since his iRDffice ver, naturally enargh, wower played an pout

ий

мем

information effor in HK

I had half an hour with Miss Gibson in Hong Kong on 15 December. I also discussed the RIO with Mr Youde in Peking, Mr Donald and Mr Longrigg.

2. I am afraid that I did not find Miss Gibson's attempt to justify the maintenance of the office fully convincing. That the New Zealanders find the product useful really is irrelevant.

I did, however, suggest that as she felt that her product, was in such demand she might consider the possibility of getting it to pay its own way, le get recipients to pay an economic price for the product. This is, I suspect, "pie in the sky", as the cost per copy would have to be very expensive.

3.

Mr Youde and Mr Donald could see no advantage in maintaining the post; indeed they saw some disadvantages in our current relations with China where the Hong Kong interest lies in keeping a low profile in Peking. Mr Donald confirmed that this was also the Governor's view. Mr Longrigg equally saw no value from his point of view. He mentioned that when he had .wanted to leak a certain piece of in- formation unattributably the office had been unable to arrange this and it had emerged in the English language press attributed to a diplomatic source!

4.

I suggest that unless IRD' can produce some more convinving arguments than I have seen so far or unless Miss Gibson can produce a viable economic scheme we should plan on the basis of phasing out the RIO when Miss Gibson's tour ends in, I understand, the summer of next year.

1

Hart Collings

HAH Cortazzí

19 December 1975

CONFIDENTIAL

***.

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