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Mr Simons, SEAD

REFUGEES FROM VIETNAM

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1. As you know, the Secretary of State, in his letter of 16 January to the Home Secretary, undertook that the FCO would prepare a paper for circulation within OCR about the Vietnamese refugee problem. UN Department will take the lead on this. The Prime Minister has commented that Ministers would need to consider the problem if there is any question of the UK admitting further groups of refugees beyond the 1,500 agreed by the Home Secretary.

2. One matter we must take into account in preparing our paper is the size and likely rate of the potential flow of refugees from Vietnam. Could SEAD give us an assessment of this? We should then need to consider the implications for the UK and for Hong Kong: that is, whether we and Hong Kong might need to admit further large groups of refugees and whether we should consider action to try to head off the problem.

Kimi (2000 small

home refugees San'atore)

26 January 1979

CC

Mr MacLaren, HK&GD

HKK 243/1

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MK O Simpson-Orlebar UN Department

W William for J357.

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$22911

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