TNAG-2031-FCO40-2894-Visit-by-Douglas-Hurd--Secretary-of-State-for-Foreign-and-Co-1990 — Page 38

Mr Burns, News Dept

Secretary of State's visit to Hong Kong:

Media Aspects

The Secretary of State was grateful for your submission of 8 January. He agrees:

to make an arrival statement;

that Mr Yeo, if willing, should receive any petitions at the airport. Thereafter we can decide how to handle petitioners on

a

case by case basis;

that there should be no interviews on Sunday. We should also avoid media being present at the border. The Secretary

of State has not commented on the idea of a drink with British correspondents;

that we may need longer than 45 minutes for the press conference. It is, however, very important that the time available to Mr Heap should not be curtailed. I should be grateful, therefore, if Mr Paul could look at a possible revision of the programme. Maybe the meeting with the British Trade Commission could be brought forward to 1430-1630 hrs. Preparations for the press conference and the press conference itself could then take place from 1630-1930 hrs. The call on the Joint Liaison Group office would have to be squeezed in at some other time, eg 0830 hrs on Tuesday 16 January.

The Secretary of State thinks that the visit to the boat people camp will have to be very well prepared, both in terms of what the Secretary of State actually does and media arrangements.

9 January 1990

CC: PS/Mr Maude PS/PUS

Mr Gillmore

Mr

McLaren

Mr Paul,

HKD

Protocol Dept

Awal

(J S Wall)