Canberra, 24 August 1971
Secret Personal
I have been slow in answering your letter of 11th August 1971 about A.T. Griffith.1 I had to wait for a chance to talk personally to Bunting and as we have both been inordinately busy, the opportunity did not arise until last night.
Bunting fully understands the position and will speak to Griffith. He is a perennial problem as I recall from my own days in Washington when I was a frequent recipient of playbacks of his indiscretions. The British also used to cultivate him as a man who could always be encouraged to talk.
I don’t know what paper he refers to as recommending that we put ourselves in a position to withdraw recognition of the R.O.C. This is certainly not Government policy. Cabinet decided that we should not be too much in the vanguard of the defenders of the R.Q.C.2 but this is a far cry from what he alleges. We tried to get the Minister to say that ultimately the Taiwan question must be resolved by all the Chinese people (which is what Chiang Kai–Shek has said) but the Prime Minister felt that even this was going too far.
[DFAT: WALLER PAPERS]
1 Document 236.
2 See Documents 172 and 217.