Washington, 8 March 1964
669. Secret Guard Priority
Indonesia/Malaysia
My telegram 665.1
1. In view of my talk with Harriman and his young men Friday and of Rusk’s reply of 5th March to your last two messages to him, I see little prospect at present of moving the Americans from their present position.2 I could, of course, go to the President, but I very much doubt that Johnson would, on a matter of foreign relations which does not have much significance for domestic politics in this country, overrule his advisers. (With President Kennedy the position might have been different. Indeed it might not have arisen.) I am, however, going to see McGeorge Bundy tomorrow or Tuesday.
2. The crux of the matter is that the Americans seem determined to make the most of anything which promises to lead to some settlement, particularly since, through Bobby Kennedy, they have assumed for themselves a role on the stage rather than in the wings. This, which must be apparent to Sukarno, ought to give him encouragement and provide ground in which he can manoeuvre in his well-known fashion.
3. The Americans do not see, or if they see they will not admit, that in these circumstances any settlement likely to be obtained can only be at the cost of political concessions by Malaysia which would damage the Tunku’s domestic position and be to the disadvantage of their friends. Furthermore, although they agree that it is wrong for Sukarno to wring such concessions out of Malaysia at the point of a gun on Malaysia’s own soil, they obviously feel that this is an occasion when principle has to be sacrificed for expediency (lower down the line than Harriman they – believe it or not – quote Suez to show, as they think, that British and Australian adherence to principle is no more strongly held by Australia than themselves).3 Otherwise, they argue, there is no alternative but war into which they will be dragged and into which they definitely do not want to be dragged.
4. All this is another illustration of how hard it is to make things stick with this Administration. The Americans have in fact returned from the fairly satisfactory position which they were persuaded to accept when you were in Washington last October. They then agreed that the time had come for all of us to stand firm and make Sukarno face up to his moment of choice. As we suspected, this position must have been unpalatable to some members and officials in the Administration who have since October worked quietly to white-ant it with the success you see. The Kennedy mission was a product of their efforts and the suspicions which we all had about this at the time have now been proven justified. For these people the agreement (so-called) worked out by Kennedy must be sacrosanct, because they think that only through it can there be a settlement, which they badly want, partly for political reasons connected with Bobby Kennedy, and partly because they won’t face the alternatives.4
5. I have similar misgivings about the three point proposals which the Americans say were worked out by Lopez and Razak at Bangkok but which seem to have the trade-mark of Lopez on them.5 The idea of the pace of withdrawal being dependent upon the rate of progress towards a political settlement seems to me to afford Sukarno the opportunity to blackmail Malaysia for weeks to come. I suspect, moreover, that if Malaysia does not yield to this blackmail, she will be blamed by the United States for the breakdown of ‘peaceful’ negotiations. The Americans are great ‘blamers’.
6. Although the discussion with Harriman and the others was blunt and annoyance was displayed, especially by Harriman, (nor did I see why I should meekly submit to the charge that we had wrecked the agreement by giving bad advice to the Tunku), the talk ended on the friendly note of ‘an agreement to disagree’. Officials admitted to Renouf subsequently that the discussion had cleared the air. They also said that the suspicions they had had of Australia’s action had, as they saw things now, been due to a misunderstanding. While it is valuable, I think, to have cleared the air, I do not think we have bridged the obvious policy gap that is between ourselves and the Americans. All that can be said in this respect is that while each side now understands the other’s position, the two sides do not agree. In these circumstances, the Americans will no doubt be watching us closely from now on and clearly we must do likewise with them. I suggest that you might think it desirable to alert our ambassadors in relevant posts accordingly.
6. At present, our best course would seem to be to sit back and follow developments following upon the three-point proposals of Lopez. I shall have a quiet talk to Rusk in a few days and also to Bill Bundy when he returns.
[NAA: A1838, 3006/4/7 part 23]
1 Document 170.
2 Rusk’s reply to Berwick’s letters of 5 (see Document 156) and 20 February (not published), in which Rusk pointed out that the US did not intend to become a ‘principal actor’ in the issue. The US would support Malaysia, the UK, Australia and New Zealand on matters arising from Indonesian aggressions against Malaysia’s territorial integrity, but Sukarno’s political manoeuvring should be countered in non-provocative manner as far as was possible.
3 A reference to Australia’s support of the unilateral Anglo-French decision to intervene in Egypt during the 1956 Suez Crisis.
4 For Australian interpretations of US motives see, for example, Document 147, and paragraph 10, Document 146.
5 Loomes’ advice from Manila at the time also stated that the proposals were worked out by Lopez and Razak.