Canberra, 4 August 1964
Secret
I attach some notes towards a speech to Parliament next week, on the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ meeting …
[ matter omitted ]
4. You will find it very much a narrative with not much highlight and not much analysis. Therefore what I want to say in this note is that if you wish to give the statement a bit more character, you might take Malaysia as your particular theme.
5. I feel that your attention to the principle of the resistance of aggression and of the defence of Malaysia’s integrity was the central part of your advocacy, and that you achieved a great deal by it.
6. In the first place, it is a principle of the greatest possible importance in its own right. It has the additional merit in a speech to Parliament that you can cite Article 2.4 of the United Nations Charter in its support.1 Second, it is a matter of the greatest importance to Australia. The preservation of Malaysia is part of our own preservation. Next, it is a most important principle to the newly independent Commonwealth countries—even though you had to wring the word ‘support’ out of them for the Communique, I would regard your remarks against aggression as having left an enduring mark on them.2 Finally, and perhaps most important, I regard the response last week of the United States President and the Canadian Prime Minister to the Tunku’s mission as not at all unrelated to what you had to say to each of these people about the need to sustain Malaysia and to thwart Indonesia.3
7. Therefore, because I feel you have an achievement to put on record, I suggest that you consider constructing your statement around the attention you gave to the proposition in relation to Malaysia, that force aimed against the territorial integrity of one of the Commonwealth members is a matter of close concern for the whole Commonwealth. But I have another reason for suggesting the same thing. I feel that I have noted, partly from views expressed orally by the Minister for External Affairs, partly from his recent letters to you, and partly from comments by other Ministers around the Cabinet table, a trend away from full support of Malaysia.
8. Perhaps I could mention a couple of things in my mind. Mr. Hasluck’s letter (21st July) puts the view that on Malaysia we may have to walk along a fine edge and not become ourselves as extreme in our declarations as a large section of the Australian public might wish.4 Then a bit later he says that we need to do enough to check Indonesian confrontation and maintain the independence of Malaysia, but not so much as to make an enemy of Indonesia. Our clear purpose is to preserve Malaysia and prevent aggression from succeeding, but we have no other reason for making war on Indonesia.5
9. One cannot of course take objection to those views as views. Yet I feel that there is in them a hint of winding down our attitude against Indonesia.
10. Next, in the Cabinet Committee discussion the other day, there was great concern expressed about the possible weakness of Malaysia—militarily, economically and politically. You yourself had something to say on these matters and you have taken steps to have them brought in tender fashion to the notice of the Tunku. But I feel that your colleagues are not without a view that these questions about the stability of Malaysia mean not that we should encourage and help Malaysia with advice and aid, but that our attachment to Malaysia’s cause and our support of her may be misplaced and that we should, in self-interest, be thinking of disengaging rather than adding to our support.
11. I could go on. I feel that our readiness to assist Vietnam is in some degree not much more than the excuse to do less in Malaysia. I think that a recent view, put in the Cabinet Committee, that we should concentrate on aiding Malaysia in the economic and social fields is at least partly a device for turning away requests on the military side. (I don’t necessarily criticize that but it is a sign of an attitude.)
12. I would be glad to find that I am mistaken in the way I read the atmosphere, but I do not feel that I am. And I have not enjoyed butting in against the views of your Ministers. But I feel that unless you as Prime Minister take steps to renew our position of firm support for Malaysia, it will dwindle, become ambiguous and in due course be forgotten.
13. I have developed this minute in so personal a fashion that I think we must now agree to keep it as private between you and me.
[NAA: A4940, C4025]
1 Article 2.4 states: ‘Membership in the United Nations is open to all … peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.’
2 See footnote 1, Document 195. Menzies had stressed an independent state’s right to resist aggression from without or subversion from within, and had made it clear that ‘support’ did not necessarily mean military support. He argued that it could mean moral support, which could be given either diplomatically or in other less specific ways. After considerable discussion, the communique stated that the Prime Ministers ‘assured the Prime Minister of Malaysia of their sympathy and support in his efforts to preserve the sovereign independence and integrity of his country and to promote a peaceful and honourable settlement of current differences between Malaysia and neighbouring countries’.
3 In the joint communique issued after meetings with Tunku Abdul Rahman on 22 and 23 July, President Johnson reaffirmed US support for ‘a free and independent’ Malaysia and for Malaysia’s efforts to preserve its sovereignty and maintain its security. He agreed to provide military training for Malaysian officers and to consider favourable credit terms for the purchase of military equipment. On a personal level, the President expressed ‘his appreciation for the earnest endeavors’ of the Tunku in seeking ‘a peaceful and honorable way out’ of the current crisis. Following the Tunku’s meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister, Lester Pearson, on 22 and 28 July, Canada agreed to make available $6 million under Colombo Plan aid, and to send a military mission to Malaysia to assess the federation’s defence needs. These vents followed Menzies’ talks with Johnson on 17 July, and with Pearson at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in London. In late July, the State Department acknowledged that in providing Malaysia with tangible evidence of US support, the US had acted on Australian suggestions to make some such gesture.
4 Hasluck’s letter set out for Menzies the background to the drafting of the ANZUS Council communique released at the conclusion of the meeting on 18 July and his efforts to strengthen the public reference to Malaysia. The view referred to here—which Hasluck wanted discussed in the FAD Sub-Committee of Cabinet—had derived from his belief, following a discussion with Rusk on Malaysia, that the US was firm in its support but did not want this attitude to be portrayed as a change in US policy to a more hard line approach towards Indonesia.
5 The context of these remarks was that it was ‘essential that Indonesia be aligned with us and not with China’.