Canberra, 7 April 1971
1652. Top Secret
For Plimsoll
Chinese Representation in the United Nations
The Prime Minister has read your telegram 17462 with great interest. He wishes to be sure that, at this critical stage in the Administration’s policy review, the President has the fullest possible picture of the Australian Government’s thinking on the United Nations representation question. He has therefore directed that, through whatever channel you consider appropriate (presumably either Rogers or Kissinger),3 the appropriate extract from the basic Australian paper on policy towards China should be conveyed to the President.
2. Under cover of AP Memorandum 25 of 1 April, we have despatched to you in today’s bag a copy of LP2/REV.2 dated 3 March.4 Extract to be passed to President should comprise section VI, with:
(a) ‘ on’ changed to ‘of’ in the fourth last line of paragraph 128 and ‘reserve’ to ‘reverse’ in the second last line of paragraph 141,
(b) paragraphs 156, 157, 158 and 159, and the last sentence of paragraph 160 and the first of paragraph 161 deleted. (The second sentence of paragraph 161 will then need to be amended to read ‘detailed consultations with our closest friends’.) These paragraphs in our opinion bear too heavily on the attitudes of our friends to be included in the present exercise.
3. In any covering letter, you might say that Mr McMahon’s conversation5 with Winthrop Brown in Canberra at the end of February will have shown that the Australian Government is inclined to favour the ‘fifth approach’ discussed at paragraphs 149 to 151 inclusive of LP2/REV.2.6
[NAA: A1838, 3107/38/18]
1 Cablegram 1853 (7 April) from Washington had reported that Presidential consideration of the Chinese representation issue wasunfinished and that ‘everything is in a state of suspended animation’. About this cablegram, McMahon queried whether Australian views were known to the White House, whether the United States was consulting Australia, and whether the White House intended to discuss the matter with the Australian Government.
2 Document 168.
3 Henry A. Kissinger, Special Assistant to the US President for National Security Affairs.
4 Not found. This refers to a version of Document 157.
5 See Document 161.
6 That is, an approach which combined elements of the Zambian type and ‘dual succession’ formulas, with a protective ImportantQuestion resolution in an extended form (see paragraph 155 of Document 157). Cablegram 1911 (10 April) reported that the paper mentioned in paragraph 2 of Document 170 had been conveyed to Kissinger’s office on 9 April.