CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL Temporary air deployments to the Southern Region. Provision of offensive air support to North East. Italy. An option for a land force to deploy to North d. East Italy. whether these could be accommodated without significant extra peacetime costs depends on the extent to which our NATO Allies would be willing to provide help with transport and "host" facilities to enable us to carry out these measures. I propose that they should be more fully studied before discussing them with our Allies, but should be referred to in my reply to the Secretary General of NATO. I would not expect to press forward with these studies as a matter of urgency, and I would, of course, refer any significant proposals to the OPD Committee before making any formal proposal to NATO. 13. My proposed reply to the Secretary General of NATO is at Annex C. Public Presentation 14. I propose to include in the forthcoming Defence White Paper the draft passage at Annex D, which reflects the substance of this paper. 15. My proposals are in all substantial details wholly in line with the defence resource decisions reached by the Cabinet before my Statement in the House on 3rd December. They are therefore wholly consistent with the Government's economic strategy and cause no presentational problems on this score... 7 - CONFIDENTIAL CONFIDENTIAL
