Diplomat Ian Hamilton led operation to save desperate refugees afloat on the South China Sea

It was an image that caught the world’s attention: A rusty freighter, the Hai Hong, appeared off Port Klang on the coast of Malaysia in early November 1978, its filthy decks teeming with 2,500 refugees from Vietnam. It had been three years since the fall of Saigon and the collapse of the South Vietnamese regime to the communist forces. There had been an initial outflow of refugees fleeing the country but by 1978 that stream had turned into a torrent, creating what became known as the “boat people” crisis, as tens of thousands of Vietnamese boarded any watercraft, no matter…