SECRET
officers to Thailand, we await comments from
Arar de la Mare. His original comments
suggested that they might not have much to do
that was not already being done by the Americans.
does
However, it did occur to us that one possible
function for which they would be peculiarly
suited would be as a link in the chain for inter-
cepting drug cargoes once they had left Thailand.
At a preliminary view we do see substantial
Л
difficulties in the idea to search Thai trawlers
on the high seas. But we are encouraged by the- in the fish context in stopping
recent success in-tracking a cargo of arms illegal cargoes once they have entered teritoral waters intercepting them once they had entered Irish
waters. Presumably a large part of your diffi-
culty at the moment is that you do not know what
if
to search. But, acting on information received
through the liaison officers in Thailand, we
could establish surveillance of given voyages
by particular trawlers I imagine that the task
of your preventive service would be greatly
eased. We take the point that the drugs might
be transferred to junks outside Hong Kong
sell territorial waters but agrom there might be a
possibility of descreet surveillance which would
enable the junks to be pinpointed and boarded
as soon as they came within your grasp.
At any
rate the possibility seems worth exploring along
with the idea of searches on the high seas.
4. On the other proposals in your papers, you
will see from the record of our meeting that the Home Office have agreed to ingestigate the
/aacetic
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