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4. The major difficulty here is that, if it became
known in Hong Kong that we were preparing for withdrawal,
public confidence would evaporate immediately and our
position could become untenable overnight.
Because of the
danger of leakage, it is impossible to prepare a plan in
Hong Kong or even in Singapore.
5. There is an existing evacuation plan (DIGIT") prepared
in the early 1950s providing for the evacuation of non-Chinese
It is out-of-date and
women, children and elderly men only.
It was prepared in
inappropriate to present circumstances.
Hong Kong but not issued outside a very small circle of top
officials. Its success would have depended on the ability
of government and military officers to interpret correctly and quickly give effect to sets of detailed instructions that would have been issued only when the Governor had given the order for the plan to be put into operation. It is exceedingly doubtful
whether it could have been successfully implemented in these
circumstances.
6. Any plan prepared under the arrangements recommended in the
inherent weaknesses. We must report will have the same
expect that we shall not be able to achieve the evacuation of anything like the numbers of people mentioned in paragraph 11 of the report. Apart from the weaknesses of the plan, it is unlikely that we should either have time enough or sufficient
transport for our purposes.
Nevertheless, we think it important
that such a plan should be prepared so that we can make as good use as we can of the opportunities that may be offered.
Hong Kong & West Indian C Dept.
Commonwealth Office.
21 July, 1967
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