Cablegram K66 BATAVIA, 14 February 1948, 2.53 a.m.
IMMEDIATE SECRET
My telegram K.65. [1]
My immediately following telegram gives Netherlands communique in fall. [2]
2. The Official Government spokesman speaking as a reliable Dutch source con-firmed delay had been caused in negotiations by publication of statement but said it would not be right to say that Netherlands would not continue negotiations. 3. Vredenburch will leave in the morning for discussions at The Hague. He will attend the Cabinet meeting on Monday.
4. A full scale attack is being launched against the Committee.
This may be designed to [drive the] [3] Committee out of Indonesia but it is more likely to be aimed at prejudicing Committee’s case in Security Council and particularly at preventing any expansion of the Committee’s functions.
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1 Document 63.
2 Dispatched on 14 February, Cablegram K67 conveyed the text of a communique issued by the NEI Government Information Service on 13 February. The communique made several critical points about the statements reported to have been made by the Committee of Good offices in its New York press conference on 12 February. The communique argued that the Committee was undermining the foundation of good offices, the confidence of either or both panics; that the Committee would exceed its commission by attempting to contact representatives of territories in the NEI other than Java, Sumatra and Madura; that the Committee was seeking to extend its commission until the formation of the USI;
and that the Netherlands considered improper the Committee’s reported suggestion that nothing but a plebiscite outside Java and Sumatra could decide whether governments in those territories were anything more than ‘puppet Governments’.
3 The words in square brackets have been inserted from a copy on file AA:A4357/2, 48/254, ii.
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[AA:A1838, 403/3/1/1, xv]