Cablegram 354 WASHINGTON, 12 March 1947, 5.50 p.m.
IMMEDIATE SECRET
Indonesia.
Your telegram 286 and our 350 of 11th March. [1]
Minister today again saw acting chief Division of Southeast Asian Affairs and also Morgan acting chief of Division of North European Affairs.
They said that they had today had a telegram from U.S. Embassy at The Hague reporting that Van Vredenburch Political Director of Netherlands Foreign Office had expressed himself optimistically as to early finalisation of agreement. This was the first time they had had any such optimism from the Dutch side. They concluded that this meant the Netherlands Government were now prepared to make some recession which was likely to be acceptable to the Indonesian authorities.
Having regard to this information plus the report (our telegram 350) that the Indonesian National Committee had authorised final signature of the Cheribon agreement they felt that U.S. should mark time for say next ten days in the hope that agreement would be reached by then.
They promised to keep us advised of any developments which would necessitate their taking action.
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1 Documents 9 and 10.
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[AA:A3300/2, 441]