Richard Nixon, former vice-president (and future president) of the United States, condemned as 'false' and 'shockingly detrimental to the Chinese who live here' a Peking charge that the US was using Hong Kong as a military base.
Speaking at Kai Tak Airport before leaving for Saigon, he said: 'The US is not using Hong Kong as a military base and we don't want to use it for a military base.'
The US was using Hong Kong only as a place where servicemen could come on leave, he said.
'If, because of pressures, the US servicemen who come here are forced out, they will go to Sydney, Manila or Tokyo. Thus the Chinese people of Hong Kong would be the only ones to get hurt in that hundreds of millions of dollars would be spent elsewhere,' he said.
Three days later, rest-and-recreation visits to Hong Kong by American troops stationed in South Vietnam were suspended.
A Hong Kong government spokesman said the government did not request the discontinuance, but added that the matter had been under discussion for some weeks.
