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in Washington. For the time being, anyway, I do not think we need press the Americans further.
4.
Meanwhile, the French are still prepared to take out anyone with French connections and the French Consulate- General has told us specifically that the French Ministry of Defence would take up to fifty Army officers from our camps if they had fought at any stage for the French in Indo-China. The Austrians are in the process of selecting a hundred cases with the help of the UNHCR representative here, but it is going rather slowly. The Canadians, I understand, are likely to take up to another thirty although they joked that if we were prepared to take General Quang off their hands, they would take a further 500! I see with pleasure that there are also some prospects of the Home Office agreeing to let in refugees who wish to go to Britain, which may dispose of another fifty depending on how many have already gone elsewhere. I understand from the UNHCR representative that some Latin American cases are coming on well and even the Swedish Consul-General has been making encouraging noises about four cases. But, as you are aware, we are not making much progress with the 45 cases who are keen to be repatriated to Vietnam, and there is little prospect of this coming off soon.
5.
What everyone is now beginning to look at is the question of the "residue". If the Americans take up to 1,300 (i.e. another 400 odd) and the other programmes mentioned in the preceding paragraph bear fruit, it looks as though we may have left a hard-core of 1,200 - 1,500 by the end of this month. The UNHCR believe that it will then be up to us to try and launch a "second wave appeal", based not on the connections which any of the refugees may have with other countries, but on humanitarian grounds alone. It may be too early to consider this question any further at present, but I have noted with interest the Australians are beginning to make noises about taking a "second batch". The reason for this, I believe, is because Whitlam promised Ford in Washington that Australia would take 10% as many Vietnamese refugees as the Americans and that figure is still very far from having been reached. We would certainly hope to take advantage of any Australian generosity/embarrassment that may be going, but it is clear that if we do try to launch a "second wave appeal" to resettle the residue, we will depend considerably on the UNHCR to help prick the consciences of the world.
6.
Meanwhile, unfortunately, the morale in the camps has rather deteriorated, despite the amount of movement during the last month. Because the Harcourt Road camp in the middle of town was difficult to administer, we tried to transfer its inmates (who are single men) by instalments to fill the places left empty in the Dodwell's Ridge Camp in the New Territories, which has hitherto been reserved for families only. But this
/contd.
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