Kuala Lumpur, 13 November 1964
Top Secret
I refer to your letter of 10th November, reference 3006/4/9 and 687/9/2.1 As you can imagine I was very pleased to get the Minister’s standing instructions and I have been quietly doing what I can to influence the Tunku and other Ministers in accordance with them.2
We are heavily dependant on the Tunku personally for avoiding retaliation. Ghazali is also a ‘dove’ but I doubt if he would have much influence in a crisis. The leading ‘hawks’ appear to be Razak and General Tunku Osman. Razak talks about the importance of striking back so that the people’s morale can be maintained. He is probably influenced by Army thinking. Tunku Osman, for example, claims that retaliation will boost Army morale. However, I find it difficult, in view of the Indonesian failures, to believe that morale is a serious problem. Frustration seems to be a much more potent factor. The Malaysians know that the Indonesians are preparing for incursions at bases just across the Malacca Straits and it is easy to understand how frustrated they must feel that no action is being taken against these bases.
Ismail came back from New York convinced that another effort in the Security Council was desirable before any retaliation but at the time of Kesang he swung around and appeared to be supporting Razak. Following discussions during the past fortnight, Ismail has again agreed that it would be a mistake to call on the British for retaliation at this stage but he strongly favours training Malaysian Commandos to undertake retaliatory raids on the training camps in Sumatra. Retaliatory raids are much easier to talk about than to organise. Even if they are carried out efficiently there is always the risk of a failure with heavy casualties. However, I did not discourage Ismail. It would take many months to equip and train Malaysians for commando raids. His plan would at least give us a breathing space.
Razak does not seem to have given up completely his idea of borrowing British jets and crews and giving them RMAF cover. As I have already commented, this proposal makes little sense to me and I am sure it will continue to be resisted by the British.
You will see from the foregoing that there is no stable and reasonably predictable policy in existence and that it would be risky to make any firm predictions about Malaysian reactions. Much will depend on the nature of the Indonesian provocation and the situation at the time. If the Tunku is about, however, I am confident that he will exercise a sensible influence and the decisive voice.
The issue of hanging of Indonesians seems to be settling down and is unlikely to become serious—at least for some time.3 I have nothing at this stage to add to my telegram 11984 and I shall let you know as soon as I do.
[NAA: A1838, TS687/9/2 part 2]
1 See Document 225.
2 See Document 220.
3 See footnote 3, Document 225.
4 30 October, in which Critchley had advised that the Indonesian sentenced to death had appealed and that the case was sub judice. He believed, however, that it was ‘most unlikely’ that the Malaysians would carry out the death sentence, even though there had been no Indonesian response to the Tunku’s request for talks.