TNAG-1276-FCO40-1626-Resettlement-of-Vietnamese-refugees-from-Hong-Kong-1983 — Page 165

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PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

A E Donald Esq CMG

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BRITISH EMBASSY,

WASHINGTON, D. C.

11 August/1983

Anna Walker 18/

Foreign and Commonwealth Office SW 1

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2-5 AUG 1983

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Dear Alan

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VIETNAMESE REFUGEES IN HONG KONG

1.

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reporting my call on Gene Douglas on 10 August. We and the Americans have been talking past each other on this issue for a while now. -I understand why it is difficult in London to generate any support for taking in more than the 17,000 Vietnamese we already have. Douglas himself acknowledges that this is so, though he believes that he might be able to persuade the Government to take a broader view in what he considers its own ultimate interests.

I am not the judge on this; but I think it might be useful for you to have once again, as background, a little more of the flavour of our conversation than was in our reporting telegram.

2.

On this occasion, Douglas cast himself even more explicitly (but also more genially) as the President's man, charged with the difficult role of selling unpopular but morally necessary refugee policies to the American people. He expected to play a prominent role in the President's re-election campaign which would absorb more of his time from next year onwards. Although he was moderately restrained, he, took the line that the world at large, and the United States in particular, found it hard to comprehend the unwillingness of Britain to play a role in the solution of a major international humanitarian problem. Besides which, Hong Kong was Britain's colony, and he thought there was a perception of surprising callousness towards Hong Kong at a time when people might have assumed that we would wish to alleviate unnecessary sources of strain within the territory. The domestic considerations in the UK were no stronger than in the other countries of resettlement. (He referred to one town in California where the local authorities are faced with an influx (after internal migration within the United States) of 12,000 Vietnamese, of whom only 100 speak English). He clearly hoped to have a chance of convincing us of this during his visit to London by a visit to No 10. He hinted that the President might put down a marker during the Prime Minister's visit in September.

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL

13: My private

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