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Furthermore, while the facilities which we wished to retain in Malta
after the run down were not vital to our strategy, they were valuable:
without them our commitment to assist in the defence of Libya would
require substantial revision, and it would be difficult for the two
headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation to continue in
Malta.
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Our best course was therefore to seek to help Dr. Olivier to
withdraw from his present extrene position. We should in no circumstances
alter our decision to reduce our forces over a period of four years; and
we should concentrate on means of helping the Maltese to meet the
economic consequences of our withdrawal of forces rather than on a
rephasing of the reductions. It should be a precondition that the
Maltese terminated the harassment of our forces and did not continue with
the visiting forces gislation; we should offer to discuss methods of
helping Malta such as the proposed industrial commission, the setting up
of the Malta Development Corporation which we had earlier proposed, and
the nationalisation of the Malta Dockyard in order to resolve the present
legal impasse with Baileys (Malta) Ltd. But we should also have to offer
some rephasing of the run down of forces since otherwise Dr. Olivier would
be politically unable to accept the offer of negotiations. Officials in
the Ministry of Defence had studied the run down programme to see how far heavy redundancy in the first two years, in particular in 1967-68, could
be avoided: it appeared that a rephasing was possible at some cost both
financial and, in the extreme case, in terms of the operational
efficiency of naval frigates. Of a number of possibilities, the one
offering maximum relief to Malta would cost us about £1 million a year
three over the four years and would bring the reduction in civilian labour
down to a level which was no more severe in any one year than it had been
the
gradual over the previous years since 1961 of/reduction of British forces in
Malta.
We should however avoid if possible agreeing to the maximun and
should certainly start with a minimum offer so as to leave the greatest
possible room for mancouvre.
THE COMMONWEALTH SECRETARY recalled that the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Commonwelath Affairs (Lord Beswick) had visited
Malta in August 1966 for discussions on our run down on the basis of its
being completed within two years. As a result of Maltese reactions in
these discussions Ministers had reconsidered the matter and had agreed
that he himself should go to Malta to make a final offer of a run down
over a period of four years. His discussions in Malta had demonstrated
the unwillingness of the Malta Government to discuss any programme for a
run down of our forces. During his visit to Malta he had also had discussions with Mr. Kingswell of the Malta General Workers Union, who
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