Cablegram, Wellington, 5 April 1951
115. SECRET
Following telegram has been received from Sir Carl Berendsen. (Please make copy available to External [Affairs], Canberra).[1]
Begins.
No. 103. Your No. 105. Secret.
1. I saw Franks this afternoon and conveyed your views. He undertook to keep us advised of the progress of his discussions (which we will as received transmit to you) and he emphasised that it was his intention to preface his remarks to the State Department with the statement that in everything he was about to say he hoped it would be understood that his purpose was not in any way to prejudice the negotiations between the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
2. I am of course not without apprehension that if discussions on the security arrangement are in fact ‘spun out’ too long the Japanese Treaty proposals may solidify to such an extent that events might force us to accept them without a security arrangement and that we might find ourselves out on a limb.
3. I would add the following observations for what they are worth - (a) Even were the State Department finally to be persuaded to proceed with the tripartite arrangement, and from chance remarks let drop here and there I would not exclude that possibility, there could be no assurance that such an arrangement would pass the Senate. Indeed I feel sure it would not unless perhaps at the same time the Philippines were given, e.g. by bilateral treaty, the same kind of American guarantee as would be contained in the tripartite arrangement, and even then I would be doubtful.
(b) While I would naturally prefer a tripartite arrangement I am fully in agreement with your view that ‘if the inclusion of the Philippines is the price we have to pay for the proposed draft, then we should be prepared to pay it’.
Ends.
_1 Forwarded as instructed to the Australian Department of External Affairs through the New Zealand High Commissioner in Canberra.
_
[NAA : A6768, EATS 77, iv]