On 17 October 1975, Adolf C. McCarthy of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) sends a letter to Sir John William Denys Margetson, Head of Chancery at the United Kingdom delegation to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), concerning the future of Western European Union's Standing Armaments Committee (SAC). The FCO advocates abolishing the SAC, arguing that it serves no useful purpose and is a burden to the Ministry of Defence. However, the FCO advises proceeding cautiously, since although the French appear to be losing interest in maintaining the SAC, too firm an insistence on the part of the British to abolish it could have the opposite effect of what is desired.