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and the conditions in which to make overt and detailed plans and
put them into operation. A situation of this nature is to be
covered in the study of Hong Kong's long term future now in
preparation.
4.The following notes are included on matters on which the
Secretary of State's colleagues may require some elucidation.
(a) "Crash" operation
questions may be asked about the effectiveness of any plans made and executed in forty-eight hours or less (see paragraph 2(ii)
of the Paper). The point is that this is all the time we are
likely to get once it became public knowledge in Hong Kong that
we were withdrawing . We would expect the decision to withdraw
to have been taken some time before this. Planning could start
immediately that decision was taken and some time would elapse
before there was any need to disclose our intentions.
(b) xisting plans
Flan DIGIT, prepared in 1953, is described at paragraph 11 of
the Feasibility Study (Appendix I). Because of the need to
preserve absolute secrecy about its existence it has not been
regularly revised and is out of date. For this reason, and
because of the lack of effective arrangements within Hong Kong
for implementing it, it could not possibly succeed. In any case
it related only to the evacuation of non-Chinese women and
children and elderly persons. Some preliminary work was later
done on preparing lists of particularly vulnerable and sensitive
people, irrespective of race. But because of the danger of a
leakage, these preparations were not taken very far, nor was there
any continuing process of keeping the lists up to date for the
same security reasons as face us to-day.
5. On the second point, it may need to be stated why we consider
it would be so catastrophic if it became publicly known that we
were planning to evacuate the Colony. The first point is that,
if our intention to stay in Hong Kong was in doubt, the great
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