Margaret Thatcher may have made a breakthrough for discriminated groups when she became Britain's first woman Prime Minister, but she was less forgiving to other nationalities. That is the verdict not of the latest political biographers of the "Iron Lady" but in her ministers' recollections contained in official documents which were released for public inspection at the end of December.

According to notes in the margins of official government notes, Thatcher's Yes-Men are known to add their own comments. The Downing Street notes reveal a shocking personal racism never displayed in her public speeches. Thatcher initially tried to block United Nations requests for Britain to house 10,000 Vietnamese refugee "Boat People" who were among 60,000 that had escaped war in Indo-China to British colony Hong Kong.

Thatcher, who is known years later to have delayed the abolition of VISAs for Poles entering the UK, argued that to allow Viet refugees to receive social housing would lead to rioting by the local population and that she would only accept refugees if other immigrant admissions were reduced to compensate.

Thatcher said "that she had far less objection to refugees, such as Rhodesians (Zimbabweans), Poles and Hungarians, since they could more easily be assimilated into British society."

Her stance was embarrassing after she had lectured Soviet premier Alexey Kosygin on the tragedy of the Boat People of Vietnam and Cambodia who had fled "the tyranny of communism."

The documents were released by the National Archives in Kew, Surrey, where they had been classified as secret for the past 30 years. The documents, from 1979, represent the first to be available from Thatcher's time as premier. Thatcher first came to power after winning the May 1979 general election.

In 1992, Thatcher's successor John Major abolished VISAs for Poles to enter the UK.