Subject: Press release from Paul Keetch MP

KEETCH TO MEET JFK AID ON US MISSILE PLAN

Embargo;  Immediate, 27th September 2001.

Hereford's MP Paul Keetch will be meeting a top aid of President Kennedy 
next week to discuss the current international situation.  They will also 
discuss the proposed US National Missile Defence plans.

Robert McNamara served from 1961-1967 as Secretary of Defense under
Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. He then went on to be 
President of the World Bank. He is being accompanied by former US 
Ambassador, Thomas Graham.

"It will be a great privilege to meet Bob McNamara", said Mr Keetch who is 
the Liberal Democrat Defence spokesman.  

"He served under President Kennedy as Secretary of Defense during the 
Cuban Missile Crisis. He has a unique understanding of the international 
situation and I am delighted he has found time in his busy tour to 
schedule a meeting with me".

Ends


Notes to Editors;

Robert McNamara served from 1961-1967 as Secretary of Defense under
Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.  During his tenure at the
Defense Department he helped change America's nuclear strategy from that
of massive retaliation to flexible response.  After his resignation as
Secretary, he became president of the World Bank where he remained until
his retirement in 1981.  Secretary McNamara was a member of the Canberra
Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and is an
internationally renowned expert on nuclear disarmament affairs.


Thomas Graham Jr., President of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security
(LAWS), served as the Special Representative of the President for Arms
Control, Non-Proliferation, and Disarmament from 1994-1997. He led U.S.
Government efforts to achieve a permanent Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) leading up to and during the 1995 Review and Extension
Conference of the NPT.  Ambassador Graham has written and testified
around the world on national missile defense and the nuclear
nonproliferation regime.