London, 19 February 1963
814. Secret
Washington Talks
Oddly enough British do not appear particularly disappointed at course of talks.1 Peck2 yesterday seemed happy enough and secret summary reports from Embassy3 (which he let me read) show no resentment at lectures they received or at firm intimations that Malaysia was basically their problem and that they carried main responsibility for smoothing its path. In fact, reports describe Australian attitude as ‘satisfactorily robust’ and express appreciation that Beale and Tange opened certain points with them privately so as to minimise any embarrassment before Americans. Peck also expressed understanding and appreciation that we would be taking important part of the brunt for Malaysia in Committee of 24.4
2. It seems clear that British proposed the talks in hope of persuading Americans and ourselves to under-write Malaysia more fully both by combining in deterrent measures against Indonesia and also by giving some assurance of military support if Indonesia intervened militarily. Measured against this hope the results of the talks may appear rather thin. At the same time I believe that the British had a substantial fear.
(a) that, with the new complication of Indonesian and Filipino opposition, the United States might not even be prepared to continue political support for Malaysia, and
(b) that we, preoccupied with our own relations with Indonesia, might not be prepared to do anything to discourage Indonesian adventures in Borneo and might exclude completely any possibility of military support if Britain and Malaya were hard-pressed by Indonesian military intervention.
3. I believe that, as result of talks, British
(a) are reassured as to continued political support from United States and ourselves;
(b) are reasonably hopeful, despite cautious and non-committal attitude of our delegation, that we would, in fact, help out militarily if it came to the pinch; and
(c) feel that, despite all the disclaimers by United States delegation, American military help in extremis need not be entirely ruled out.
4. I feel that something on above lines probably explains their apparent contentment. I am not yet sure, however, how seriously they have taken in the accompanying message that there is substantially more for them to do to give best possible political face to absorption of Borneo Territories in Malaysia and to remove, by further consultations, any legitimate grounds there might be for Indonesian and Filipino opposition. Clearly they think that both countries are mainly actuated by malice and/or cupidity and that their more plausible objections are pretexts and not genuine reasons. Furthermore, I think the British feel that they have already gone well out of their way to meet these supposed misgivings and that they do not much relish prospect of further explanations, particularly to Indonesians, on the implied assumption that the misgivings are genuine. (On the latter aspect see paragraph 6 my 802.)5
[NAA: A1838, 3034/7/1/1 part 2]
1 Quadripartite talks in Washington, 11–12 February. Barwick submitted an account of the talks to Cabinet on 26 February (see Document 42).
2 Sir Edward Peck, Assistant Under-Secretary of State, Foreign Office.
3 That is, the British Embassy in Washington.
4 The UK and Australia were the major supporters of the Malaysia proposals in the UN, and both were members of the Committee.
5 19 February. It contained Eastman’s response to Canberra’s instruction of 18 February to discuss the conclusions reached on Critchley’s and Shann’s assessments (as set out in Document 34) with British officials. Paragraph 6 referred to Peck agreeing on the need for bilateral consultations between UK and Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines on regional security problems and pointing out that these were already taking place, although the British were ‘not convinced that this would materially improve position’.