Canberra, 16 January 1961
53. Secret
For Beale from Menzies.
I hope you will be able to see Dean Rusk as soon as possible after the inauguration.1 I realise of course that it may be difficult to get to him in the early days of the new Administration.
2. I would like you to take up with Rusk the following subjects with a view to both putting our point of view and to eliciting information on the likely trends in thinking of the Administration:—
[ matter omitted ]
(c) China, bearing in mind such issues as representation in the United Nations, the prospects of continuing the moratorium, the possibility of some disengagement from the off-shore islands. It is clearly essential that we should have as clear a lead as possible about United States thinking on this subject. I regard the Chinese problem as one of major importance in the coming year.2
[ matter omitted ]
[NAA: A1838, 3107/33/l/1, vi]
1 On 12 January, Rusk had told the Foreign Relations Committee that the China question was ‘a very complicated one’ which had not as yet been considered by the Administration. Rusk said that ‘the presence in Mainland China of a large and powerful force is one of the facts of the world we cannot ignore’, though he added that he personally could ’see no prospect at the present time that normal relations can be considered or established with Red China’.
2 Beale spoke to Rusk on 27 January but did not have time to discuss China. In a further talk on 4 February, China was again apparently omitted, and it was left for Menzies to raise the issue in Washington later in the month (see Document 90).