Jakarta, 15 July 1965
35. Secret Immediate
The Prime Minister’s equation of our situation in Borneo in facing Indonesia with that in Vietnam as being ‘War’ has attracted very considerable attention here.2 It is widely reported in the vernacular press today, and there will certainly be a state3 of violently unfriendly editorial comment to follow. I am cabling separately, in clear, Antara’s version, which appeared tonight. It does not differ significantly from what Radio Australia carried last night.
2. I had the opportunity this evening to talk to a number of Ministers, in particular, Chaerul Saleh, at the Bastille Day and the Iraq National Day receptions. They have no other topic of conversation, and were noticeably less friendly than is customary. Two foreign Office officials (Surjotjondro and Rozif), in friendly and, I believe well meaning terms, warned me to be ‘well prepared’, that ‘certain quarters’ would inevitably take the opportunity to ‘make trouble’ for us. I think that as well, of course, as the P.K.I., they include the President and the still-absent Subandrio.4 A reaction from both is predictable. If what Subandrio’s wife, herself a Deputy Minister, had to say tonight is any indication, one could not be expected to view the prospect with much equanimity. I shall, tomorrow, double-check arrangements at the office in case we are subjected to physical interference.
3. I raise this matter, in the hope that you can speak to Sir Robert and to the Minister about it, with understandable temerity. It does not seem to me that the situations in Vietnam and in Borneo are ‘exactly the same’. While the interest of the Communists in them may be similar, although markedly different in degree, it is, in my humble view, possible to make a very real and rational distinction in the posture which Australia should adopt towards them. I concede, moreover, that these are both cases of interference by an outside authority in the affairs of another country.
4. In Vietnam we are dealing with a ‘government’ which is tenuous in the extreme, led by a figure no-one could call nationally popular, and a State which, in the long run, we are unlikely to have to deal with in anything like its present form. We are also dealing with naked Communist pressure. So far as Indonesia is concerned, we are dealing with a remarkably stable government, led by a man on all accounts, whether we like it or not, accepted and indeed revered by his people, and with which we indeed will have to deal for a long time. Moreover, while you know my views as to its extreme leftist tendencies and its relationship with China and its friends, this is not a Communist Government, and, in my view, is unlikely to become one for a considerable time. I am dealing with our longterm relationships with the two countries, and governments, of Asia, not with one which is under attack, and one which is the aggressor. It does not make much sense to compare our relationship with a reasonable Government of Malaysia, or a member of the Commonwealth (and accepted as such in Asian, including Indonesian, eyes) with the ‘Government’, for this month, of Vietnam.5
5. It has been my purpose here, within, I had assumed, the policy directions of the Government, to try to preserve, in awkward circumstances, as much of a friendly relationship as we could. I have sought, with increasing difficulty, to separate the difference over Malaysia from other problems. The Minister has recently called this the ‘only difference’.6 While this is arguable, as I am sure the Minister was at the time perfectly well aware, it represents a policy which makes sense in relation to a very old neighbour, the dangers of whose policies we must be constantly aware of, but over whom we should not yet give up hope, just as we should not give up hope of devising a workable relationship between Australia and our Asian neighbours, particularly Indonesia.
6. The Prime Minister will be angry with me when 1 say that his statement makes carrying on this purpose difficult, perhaps impossible. He has every right to be cross with such an impertinent official, but he would regard me as less than honest if I did not give him my view. I think that the Government has followed a wise and sophisticated policy towards this country, whose performance has been irritating, aggressive and dangerous. It has not sought to excite public opinion at home in, I had thought, the hope that in the long run we might be able to build up some sincere rather than just professed friendship on both sides. The Indonesians, too, have chosen to play it cool. They have chosen to regard us as part of the Area, and not white intruders, and, against all the dogma of their asinine state philosophy, have tried to separate us from the Imperialist forces. Time and again, from Sukarno down, I have been given the impression, which I have reported, that ‘haughty’ and ‘cocky’ as we may be,—I do not accept either adjective as of the slightest relevance— we can go on doing what we do without serious harm to the ‘special relationship’ provided we do not talk about it too much.7 No doubt it becomes more difficult not to talk about it at home, just as it becomes more difficult for the Indonesians to persist in this fiction.
7. But we have carried on this pretence, one which might have historical logic, with some sort of dignity and usefulness. To say that we are ‘at war’ in Borneo in relation to Indonesia would, I think, have dispelled it pretty successfully.
[NAA: A6364, JA1965/07]
1 Sir James Plimsoll, previously High Commissioner to India, had taken over as Secretary, DBA, on 5 April. (Sir Arthur Tange replaced Plimsoll as High Commissioner to India and would return to Australia to become Secretary of the Department of Defence in 1970.)
2 On 14 July, Menzies had held a press conference in Canberra on his return from the Prime Ministers’ Conference in London and talks with Johnson in Washington on Vietnam. In reply to a question on how he saw Australia’s military position in Borneo in light of the statement that he had made in London that Australia was at war in Vietnam, Menzies had replied: ‘Exactly the same way’.
3 Possibly, ‘spate’.
4 Following the postponement of the Afro-Asian Conference in Algiers, Subandrio was undertaking a number of goodwill missions to African countries.
5 There were twelve changes of government in South Vietnam following the overthrow of Ngo Dinh Diem in November 1963 until the end of 1965.
6 At a press conference in Kuala Lumpur on 21 May, Hasluck had said in answer to a question regarding Australia’s relations with Indonesia: ‘We can be friends. But there is this one unfortunate thing, that the Indonesian Government persists in [—] its confrontation of Malaysia … And so long as it does that we intend to resist it. We hope that they will stop doing that and if they do, there is not a single thing that should remain as an impediment to the friendship between us. Not a single thing.’
7 Shann had gained the Indonesian leadership’s acceptance of the freedom of Australia’s press in the views expressed on Indonesia in return for assurances that Australian ministers would be circumspect in their comments on the Indonesia–Malaysia dispute and not overplay the situation for domestic political expedience.