TNAG-0543-FCO40-638-Strength-of-garrison-in-Hong-Kong-1975 — Page 211

SECRET

DS6 (Mr. Ward)

Copies to:- DUS(P)

AUS(GS)

D of DP(C)

Head of DS11

DS1 (Mr.Jones)

FCO - HKIOD (Mr. O'Keefe) Treasury (Mr. Hansford)

HONG KONG

(309)

Reference. AUS(D Staff)/383/75.

༢༤་

Thank you for sending me a copy of your minute of 8 October with which you circulated the first draft of an address for the Minister of State to give to a joint session of the Executive and Finance Committee when he is in Hong Kong.

2.

I have only one point of substance on the draft. I should like to see the last sentence of paragraph 6 omitted. I do not think that we should refer, in public, to the possibility of reinforcing Hong Kong by the battalion now stationed in Brunei when we said in the 1975 Defence White Paper that, subject to consultations with the Sultan, we propose to carry out the decision, originally taken in 1968, to withdraw the battalion from Brunei.

10 October 1975.

M. &.. Colmer

(dictated by

jor C,A. WHITMORE

in wholúcie?

。(ཨཏྠཾ, ཝ}

AUS (DEFENCE STAFF) in his soun)

SECRET