TNAG-1058-FCO40-1308-Guangdong-nuclear-power-station-project-1981 — Page 56

511

CODE 18-77

NOTE FOR FILE

cc: Mr Mound, Peking Mr Havelock, DOI

CONFIDENTIAL

Есла

Enea Lorle

Dr Wilson, Political Adviser

17/2

Reference..

Alu Brom.

CECO 164/1

cipue to that com @mclifv

GUANGDONG NUCLEAR PROJECT

HKK 166|1

RECEIVES IN REGISTRY NO. 51

Ch n

During a visit to Mr Stones at CIP yesterday he told Mr Havelock and myself about meetings which has had with Dr Walter Marshall of the AEAINDEX London laktion Tagen appears to have gone to considerable trouble to discover Stones'

whereabouts in the UK.

3

Marshall

IN

Defer.

2. Marshall expressed concern about the outcome of the meeting which he had had with Sir Lawrence Kadoorie and Sir Sidney Gordon in Hong Kong after his return from the feasibility study signing ceremony. He said he had subsequently learned that a letter from Sir Lawrence Kadoorie about his role had "been seen by all my colleagues in Whitehall". Stones commented that he was not clear whether Marshall had in fact had sight of Sir Lawrence's letter to the Prime Minister dated 15 December. It is inconceivable that he has not been made aware of the considerable irritation of CLP following the remarks about Marshall's role which were made to Sir Sidney Gordon and others in early December.

3. Marshall then treated Stones to a breakdown of his strategy on the nuclear project. He referred to the supply of nuclear plant being broken down into five constituent parts, the nuclear steam supply system, the balance of nuclear plant, the fuel the conventional equipment and the civil works. He explained that following the Three-mile Island accident, UK safety standards were likely to require four "trains" covering emergency core cooling and other technical requirements. Marshall claimed that it would now not be possible for the German PWR manufacturers to meet the new British standards and the present French designs did not. Westinghouse would be acceptable because they had been working closely in the formulation of the standards. Therefore Marshall said that if he was now asked to state that the French PWR reactor met UK safety standards, he would have to say that it did not. As a result he thought it best for him to resign.

4.

He

Stones said that Marshall was in a very emotional state. therefore took great pains to thank him for all his past assistance to CLP, particularly the loan of the expertise of Messrs. Collier and Ward to the Equipment Sub-Committee. He said that Dr Marshall's position on safety standards was for him to decide but he thought it essential to make clear that all his readings from Guangdong suggested that if the French were to put in an all-French bid, it would be competitive and they would probably get the order. He believed that if Dr Marshall pursued the strategy of trying to keep the French out of an Anglo-French deal on grounds that their reactors were not safe, he put at risk the opportunity for securing the conventional equipment orders for the United Kingdom.

4 February 1981

se

D M March

Senior Trade Commissioner

EIDENSTAT.