1
CONFIDENTIAL
prevent Pan Am from removing the aircraft if they wished, since they were fully entitled by law to do so. All that I could do would be to convey the sense of his request to delay the departure of the plane to the appropriate quarters, but I could give absolutely no quarantee that we could do anything. In the last resort, if Pam Am took their property away we all had to accept it. Both Huynh and Chuong then said that they "understood our difficulties". Their objective vas to keep the issue "in dispute" until such time as they were able to get back to Saigon and give an account of the situation.
I gave as my opinion that the plane was practically worthless since it had lain on the Kai Tak airfield for five months and had not been fully maintained. I thought that Pan Am might have some difficulty in finding buyers and that probably in the end of the day it would not be such a prise to have. The PRO delegation repeated that they understood our difficulties but that it would be extremely helpful if no action took place until they got back home. (I took this to mean - and of course I may be wrong - that they realised how exposed they might be if the plane were removed from Kai Tak actually during their mission in South-East Asia and that for reasons of "face" they had to be able to report to their masters in Saigon and possibly also in Hanoi, that they had done everything in their power to get the plane back, It would also give them a chance to explain the realities of local conditions.)
9.
Throughout all this exchange, the Vietnamese være quite cals and expressed pleasure at the recovery of the DC3 engines from the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company, They even accepted that the Hong Kong Government had tried to ensure through Pham of the DRV Trade Mission that the PRG ware adequately warned of the problem.
10.
Only one other aspect of the Boeing 707 business vas brought up. They alleged that the liong Kong courts had possession of some $600,000 which had been extracted from FREMEX at the time of the garnishee proceedings for the payment of the creditors. They suggested that twice the amount of money had been extracted than vas necessary for one particular debt, will look into this.
11.
I
The questions of Hong Kong residents detained in saigon and Vietnamese refugees have been adequately covered in our telegram No. 964. On the Vietnamese refugees, we should by close of play tonight have reduced the number to just over 1,200 in the camps here and there are good hopes that the Americans will take several hundred more. It would probably make more sense to get the new representative of the UNHCR, Rasanagayam, to do any negotiation that is necessary with Pham of the DRV Trade Mission, although there are so fev refugees that actually want to return that the problem may not be of much size.
/contd..........................
CONFIDENTIAL