Washington, 17 October 1963
2785. Secret Priority
Please pass following to Critchley in Kuala Lumpur.
I should be glad if you would take an early opportunity to see the Tunku and convey to him the following message from me.
2. I feel that you will be interested to have my impressions of the outcome of the talks which I have just been conducting with the Americans in Washington.2
3. These have gone well, and I think that they have been useful from your point of view as well as mine. I think that you will now find less pressure upon you to agree to some kind of early tripartite meeting.3 At some stage, I myself believe that such a meeting could be useful, but I am convinced that that time has not yet come. The first task will be to persuade the Indonesians of the unprofitability of their confrontation policy—if indeed this can be done. But it must be tried and I have no doubt that you will agree with me that it is important that there should be nothing in the way of statements or actions from the Malaysian side which would serve Sukarno as fuel to stoke his fires still higher.4 I know that such a course calls for tremendous patience and forebearance but any other course will endanger the result of the splendid diplomatic triumph which you have so far achieved.
[NAA: A1209, 1963/6682]
1 Barwick was in Washington for a further round of quadripartite talks on Indonesia which commenced on 16 October.
2 In addition to speaking ‘firmly’ on Western support for the Tunku and Malaysia at the talks, Barwick had ‘long and close discussions for two and a half hours’ with Averell Harriman and Roger Hilsman, Director, Intelligence and Research, State Department, on 14 October.
3 The Americans agreed to stop pressuring the Tunku for an early tripartite meeting, and to ‘show favours of a material kind’ to Malaysia.
4 In a separate cablegram to Critchley, Barwick instructed him to ‘be unceasing in your efforts to keep the Tunku from making public statements of a provocative or even retaliatory nature’. Barwick believed it was ‘vital that Sukarno should be left to make his next move without any excuse deriving from Malaysian actions’.