TNAG-1749-FCO40-2468-Visit-by-Sir-Geoffrey-Howe--Secretary-of-State-for-Foreign-a-1988 — Page 77

Private Secretary

CONFIDENTIAL

FROM:

DATE:

Cc:

H

Co m3 MAY 1988

Hong Kong Department

13 May 1988

12

PS/Lord Glenarthur

Mr Gilamore 3

Mr McLaren 0.14

Mr Meyer, News Department

SECRETARY OF STATE'S VISIT TO HONG KONG: SPEECH

1.

I submit a first draft of the Secretary of State's speech at his lunch

with community leaders on 30 May.

2. The Secretary of State agreed to make a brief speech at the lunch, provided

that it was a good one. I hope this is a start in the right direction. I

have tried to keep the speech short, punchy and based on a well-defined theme.

It should take well under 10 minutes to deliver.

3*

An omission from the speech, as at present drafted, is a reference to

Vietnamese boat people. This would not fit easily into the flow: but if the

issue turns out to be the dominant one it would probably be unwise to omit any

reference to it. In any event I recommend that we send the draft to the

Governor for comment. I suggest that at the same time we seek his advice

on the desirability of including a passage on the boat people.

Colten

CONFIDENTIAL

CO Hum