TNAG-0542-FCO40-637-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 43

SECRET PERSONAL

MINISTER OF STATE FOR DEFENCE

WHITEHALL LONDON SW1A 2HB

ΛΟΣ

D/MIN/WR/8/7

Д Пинау

Telephone:

01 - 218

دل

7112

(Direct Dialling)

01 - 218 9000 (Switchboard),

NOF

October 1975 1975

I am

10/10

"M. O'Keefe on

cic M. Male

Minister

Many thanks for your letter of 29 September. looking forward to my visit to Hong Kong and much appreciate your kind suggestion that I should stay with you.

I plan to travel by the RAF milk-run (the Defence Department has no money to spare these days) but I hope to be recovered from the consequences before the real business

begins.

I take your point about not raising the temperature. I shall certainly be happy to spend time looking at the garrison, and at Hong Kong generally. My previous visit

was for 30 minutes, en route for Manila and Sydney. may be unrealistic to treat the occasion as a routine

Ministerial visit.

But it

In the first place, my party will be rather larger than would otherwise be justified. More important, there is genuine interest here in how we are to deal with defence costs in Hong Kong. The House of Commons returns next Monday and we are top for Questions on 21 October. I cannot exclude the possibility that we shall be pressed on how soon a new agreement with Hong Kong is to be concluded. In this case I would have no alternative to putting my visit plainly

in this context.

Sir Murray Maclehose KCMG MBE Governor and Commander-in-Chief Hong Kong

SEC SECRET & PERSONAL NAL

/Nevertheless