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CONFIDENTIAL
in the face of past history) New Hebrides, where something could be done. The refugee population in Hong Kong could not be handled solely by the US which was at present the only country taking them from there. The same argument in his view applied with even more force to France which was claiming racial tension in French cities and budgetary considerations as obstacles to further help. He thought the French could do something using French Guyana or New Caledonia where they could use a skilled population in sectors such as agriculture and timber.
The
5. Referring to Hong Kong's offer to pay transport of refugees to the US, Freeman said that at $550 a head this represented only about one sixth of the cost per refugee. The US commitment was not limited to the $300 million at the international level. cost of settling and adjusting refugees domestically in the US amounted to another $450 million. He mentioned such items as the resettlement grant to the relevant voluntary agency of $4-500 per head, plus public assistance on the medical and food side of $2-300 per annum per refugee. Counting refugees from other parts of the world the total intake to the US this year would be of the order of 120,000 refugees, not counting 12,000 Cuban political prisoners. The total US outlay was thus about $three quarters of
a billion.
6. If the refugee flow continued at the present rate the UNHCR care and maintenance costs for South East Asia next year would be in excess of $400 million. That meant there would be at least another $300 million to find. At present the US paid 40-50% of what it cost the UNHCR in Indo-China, or $41.5 million for the coming fiscal year. If they continued to contribute at this rate, the US would in that event have to find another $150 million, with a comparable amount from Western Europe and Japan. This all seemed most unlikely.
7. They had also been considering the innovative and cost conscious proposal from the Hong Kong Government that some of the refugees might be released into the local economy without thereby forfeiting their right to ultimate resettlement abroad as refugees. The basic difficulty from the US point of view here was the implication of a long term commitment some five or six years down the road to continue to admit numbers of such refugees into the US. The readiness of this or a future President to make such an indefinite commitment was very questionable, though he did not exclude the possibility of being able to respond positively to some
extent.
8.
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Freeman said the Americans liked the British idea of a UN conference even more now that Indonesia had also closed the door. I said it seemed a pity that Holbrooke had in that event not felt able to mention the British proposal in his appearance this morning before a Congressional Sub-Committee which had itself called for an emergency UN meeting. Freeman admitted that this was regrettable. He also confirmed in answer to my question, that Vance had not mentioned the matter to Waldheim on 8 June owing to a bureaucratic hiccup. He added however that a draft cable to Mr Andrew Young was even now being cleared and might get out by the end of the day with instructions to impress on Waldheim the need for urgency and for the conference
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