Washington, 30 October 1963
2926. Secret
Malaysia
Further to our 2886 para. 4,1 Cuthell2 discussed with us at greater length today his recent visit to Malaysia.3
2. He concentrated on an interview the congressional group (our 2646)4 had in Kuala Lumpur on 12 October with the Tunku and Ghazali which, Cuthell suggested, had done Malaysia considerably more harm than good in the eyes of Congress—the House at least.
3. During this interview, the Tunku was asked how he saw the shape of things to come in Indonesia. In replying he said there were two forces working against Sukarno and Ghazali elaborated by saying that the first force sought the reconstitution of Indonesia as a federation, while the second sought the country’s complete fragmentation. The Tunku nodded at this mention of the second and suggested that a ‘Malay Commonwealth’ derived from the fragmentation of Indonesia, would be a desirable objective.
4. Subsequently the Tunku adopted another approach to future events in Indonesia concentrating on the problem of the communists and Sukarno’s dangerous alliance with them. The Tunku suggested that Sukarno ought to be forced, by refusal of aid from all other sources to go over to the communist side completely for assistance. Indonesians would then see Sukarno in his true colours as a communist and 50 million Moslems would revolt against him. At another point in the interview the Tunku said, however, that Sukarno was not in fact a communist but simply foolish and irresponsible. He also paraded other facts denigrating Sukarno, and the Congressmen, while not in their own minds disputing them, had clearly thought the Tunku at fault for belittling another Head of Government to a third party.
5. On the subject of Maphilindo the Tunku said there could be no question of an alliance while the PKI remained intact. He added that the Indonesian Army was clearly not as reliable as he had previously thought.
6. Commenting on the foregoing, Cuthell said the Tunku had not altogether helped his own cause. On the other hand, he had, perhaps unwittingly, produced the useful effect of demonstrating to Congressmen like Broomfield5 that all was not black and white in South-East Asia and that the tendency towards irresponsibility was not peculiar to Indonesia.
7. Emphasizing that he was speaking personally and not for the State Department, Cuthell said he had some difficulty in deciding what the Tunku had been up to. He could, of course have been indulging in some of his periodical loose talk; he could, on the other hand, have decided that tough and extreme talk was the best to be employed for the benefit of American Congressmen. Cuthell was worried, however that the Tunku may have been speaking fairly seriously. There was a certain cockiness and aggressiveness of tone detectable in Malaysia at present and the Tunku’s talk of a fragmentation of Indonesia and the overthrow of Sukarno as a result of complete identification with communism would be consistent with this. There was also the view in Malaysia that the country would be bound to have it out with Indonesia at some stage and it could be that the Malaysians were considering the advantages of bringing matters to a head sooner rather than later, in the early days of determined British and Australian support.
8. Cuthell said he would not wish to overstate any of these considerations but it was worth worrying about how much Western problems in the area would be magnified if both Indonesian and Malaysian leaders got it firmly into their heads that it might be practical politics to topple the other’s Government and even dismember their territories.
9. We contested as far as possible Cuthell’s more alarmist interpretations. It might be worth bearing in mind, however, that his views could serve as a new point of departure for an American initiative to bring the Maphilindo powers to an early meeting. It would also be better if the Tunku did not speak to United States Senate leaders6 in the same way as he apparently did to the representatives.
[ matter omitted ]7
[NAA: A1838, 3027/10/1/1]
1 25 October, reporting a discussion with Cuthell following his return from a trip to Southeast Asia. Paragraph 4 related to his visit to Malaysia. Cuthell had said he believed that Indonesia’s confrontation policy was unifying the Malaysians and promoting the growth of Malaysian nationalism. He thought this would make it difficult to persuade the Tunku ‘that some normalisation of relations with Indonesia was desirable’. He added his view that Australia was ‘the only country with any significant influence over the Tunku’ at this time.
2 David Cuthell, Deputy Director, Office of Southwest Pacific Affairs, US State Department.
3 In early October, Cuthell had travelled as adviser to a congressional political group from the Far-Eastern Sub-Committee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs during their two-week visit to Saigon, Vientiane, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Manila.
4 4 October, advising Canberra that the congressional group’s visit to the region was in progress.
5 William Broomfield (Michigan), member of Foreign Affairs and International Relations Committees of Congress.
6 Senator James Fulbright (Arkansas), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations since 1959, was due to visit Kuala Lumpur in early November.
7 Matter omitted related to Senator Fulbright’s travel arrangements.