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Japanese Foreign Minister's Visit
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3. Mr Murray said that he had just learnt from Geneva that the Irish,
under pressure from the Under-Secretary General responsible for arrangements, Hr Buffum, had agreed to cede its place in the speaking
list to Vietnam. The French were also pressing to be allowed to speak before the UK. We would not cede our place to the French but it seemed unlikely that we could prevent the Vietnamese move, and it was perhaps not totally disadvantageous that we should be able to answer any claims that the Vietnamese made in their statement. This change
in order however made it all the more important that Mr Sonoda's speech should tackle the root causes of the problem, i.e. Vietnamese Government policies, in a satisfactorily firm way. Mr Blaker agreed that it was important to make this point to Mr Sonoda on Wednesday, 18 July.
4.
Mr Blaker commented that when the delegation referred to the question of orderly departure and the right of freedom to leave one's country, the stress should really be on the question of freedom of choice to decide whether to leave one's country or not. It was agreed that the briefing should cover this point, including the relevance of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Preparatory Work
5.
It was
Hr Murray described the programme of preparatory meetings. unfortunate that the French and Japanese had withdrawn from the process of preparing consultative papers, but nothing could be done about that now. The Asian states were playing it coy and had not agreed to merge the likeminded and Asian Ministerial dinners on
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