CONFIDENTIAL
B
4.
Initial media coverage in the UK was a reasonably accurate reflection of the press conference held at the end of the talks. (The front page article in the Daily Mail was the exception: Mr McLaren has minuted separately on this.) But editorial comment today has been more critical. Emphasis has been laid on the fact that
In some cases the boat people may be returned to Vietnam by force.
There are
references are (incorrectly) to the return of refugees. the anticipated comparisons with the return of the Cossacks to the Soviet Union. The Secretary of State forewarned the Prime Minister in his minute of 2 September that the media may attempt to draw emotional and far-fetched analogies of this kind.
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c 5. The Secretary of State's minute provides an opportunity to answer the question in Mr Powell's letter of 5 September abou' endowments for economic migrants to resettle in other countries. This would be a major new departure. If the Vietnamese can be persuaded to take back their own people and we have now made a start this must be preferable to attempting to settle them in a foreign country. I do not think the proposition would have any attraction for the developed resettlement countries, for whom financial aspects are not a major constraint on increased intakes. Other countries, in the unlikely event that they were interested at all, could be expected to exact a very high price for participation in such a scheme. There could be reservations in the international community that these countries might not offer a genuine welcome to the boat people; and they might well not want to resettle in the countries concerned. I believe we should continue to concentrate
our efforts on traditional resettlement of those accorded refugee status, and the return to Vietnam of all those screened out.
Contem
CO Hum
CONFIDENTIAL
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