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C W Squire Esq MVO
South-East Asian Department Foreign & Commonwealth Office London SW1
BRITISH EMBASSY
SAIGON
25 October 1974
353
Dear Bill-
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ILLEGAL EMIGRANTS
1.
I received yesterday from Collard, Director of Immigration in Hong Kong, copies of an exchange between him and Martin Ennals of which I enclose copies now for you. I would like to make two points.
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302.
2.
First, I note that Ennals' letter of 16 September manages to cast the usual slur, in this case on the working of the Embassy in Saigon. I enclose a letter to him from myself but leave it to you to decide if it is better not sent.
3. Secondly, I wonder if it is advisable to allow the Director of Immigration to conduct independently this sort of correspondence. Amnesty are extremely sly in their methods of obtaining information and then playing one Government official off against another. I personally would not have hinted to Ennals, as Collard has, the short-
I dare say it comings of our records of the immigrants.
is impossible for Hong Kong to be instructed to clear correspondence through FCO, but they do perhaps need to be warned to practise the utmost caution. Might it not be a rule that they should pass their replies through you as I am doing with my letter to Ennals?
.
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John
JC W Bushell
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