TNAG-0556-FCO40-651-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-into-othe-1975 — Page 99

CONFIDENTIAL

HKK 18/21

PRIVATE SECRETARY

Cc:

PS/Mr Ennals

PS/Lord Goronwy-Roberts

PS/PUS

Sir O Wright

Sir J Killick Sir D Watson

Acting Chief Clerk Legal Adviser

Mr Hawley Mr Squire Mr O'Keeffe News Department M & VD

Consular Department N Am Department Financial Relations D

VIETNAM

1. The Secretary of State will want a brief round up.

2. General. Public communications between Saigon and the outside world (though apparently not Hanoi) were re-opened on 7 May. Saigon is being run by a Military Management Committee headed by a General of the North Vietnamese Arm The PRG have issued a number of statements and the "Minis of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of South Vietnam" have sent communications (via Hanoi and Paris) to several Govern- ments. A PRG representative from Paris called at the FCO on 7 May.

There are some twenty-eight British subjects, including eleven journalists, in Saigon.

It is publicly

3. Recognition. We have not yet recognised. known (eg the Times of 8 May) that we propose to recognise as soon as the new Government's position is clarified. A separate submission recommends that our criteria can now be taken to be fulfilled and that we should recognise, provided that in the talks in Washington the Americans did not raise over-riding objection. An advance group under the Consul-General as Chargé d'Affaires is ready to re-open the Embassy immediately flights are resumed. The Ambassador is poised; the question is whether he will be acceptable.

Refugees. The Home Secretary is prepared to accept into the United Kingdom a relatively limited number (of the order of one hundred) of those evacuated by the Americans, addition to those already brought here and such Vietnamese in the UK as ask with good reason for permission to remain. Over and above this the Home Secretary is prepared to admit others able to show a connection with the

in

UK.

/5.

CONFIDENTIAL