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The Governments of Singapore and Malaysia had reacted in a nore helpful and constructive way than we had had reason to expect and if we
could maintain their co-operation there would be a better prospect of achieving the reductions we desired in the time proposed. We should regard the survival of the present regine in Singapore as essential to our plans for an orderly withdrawal in the years ahead. The importance
attached by both countries to our maintaining some form of continuing
military capability for use in the Far East after the mid-1970s was a
factor which we must bear in mind in considering whether or not we should
announce in the immediate future our intention to leave the mainland of
Asia by that date.
In the light of these considerations we should now complete the
interdepartmental consultations necessary to achieve total reductions in
the Far East by 20,000 by 1st April 1968 and authorise detailed planning
on the reduction of our forces by about half by 1970-71, on the basis
that we should then retain mainly naval and air forces and that, subject
to further discussion with Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth
Brigade would not be maintained after 1969: we should also plan to reduce
or restrict our force declarations to SEATO and to announce at the
appropriate time a further reduction in the Gurkhas to about 5-6,000 and
we should plan to make provision for some military capability for use if
necessary in the Far East after 1975-76, though we should not pre-judge
the character, size or deployment of this capability until we had rade
further progress with the defence expenditure studies as a whole.
We should also consider urgently how best we could carry out the
further consultations with our allies. It would be preferable to hold
these in London, not as a single conference of all concerned but as a
series of talks. It would also be to our advantage to hold these further
discussions with the Tunku and the Prime Minister of Singapore before those
with the Prine Ministers of Australia and New Zealand since the prior
agreement which we might well hope to reach with the former would enable
us to withstand more effectively the pressure which the latter would exert upon us to stay in Singapore in the late 1970s.
In discussion there was general agreement with the proposals of the
Defence Secretary in respect of the proposed reductions up to and including 1970-71. It was, however, suggested that there would be advantage in having more precise information in respect of the number of forces, and
of civilians employed by the forces, in Singapore and Malaysia under these proposals by 1st April 1968 as compared with the numbers in both
categories before the beginning of the Indonesian confrontation.
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