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Mr Smedley, N&TD
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Reference...FAV 400/548/2
CONFIDENT IAL
h
You minuti of 9 August.
w David #12/0 in hitten or Dam 30/8.
1. Our latest information is that Maideen intends to leave Vietnam between August and the end of the year. He will probably go to Hong Kong first. His later plans are uncertain (see Mr Richardson's minute of 15 July) and may depend to some extent on our response on the UK citizenship matter. He knows that there is no prospect of his British passport being renewed beyond the end of 1977. Mr Tesh will do his utmost to persuade him to leave before then.
2.
The Hong Kong and British Governments owe him much for his services, and we shall want to do all that we reasonably can to help him. The best solution might be to inform him positively that he can enter the UK or Hong Kong and, if he so wishes, remain for the five years necessary for satisfying the requirements for UK citizenship. If he does not accept the offer, the responsibility for making alternative arrangements will be his. I would hope that he could be issued with a document during the five-year period to enable him to pay visits abroad.
3. Am I right in believing that it does not matter to us which of his passports he uses in entering British territory, and that the question of his becoming stateless could only arise if he lost his Indian citizenship (as the result of the Indians' acting on the knowledge that he had a British passport)? I do not think that the Indians will take such action now, a long time after the Indian Ambassador in Hanoi must first have become aware of Maideen's anomalous status.
16 August 1977
cc: -HK&GD
A M Simons
South-East Asian Department
CONFIDENTIAL
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