Canberra, 18 July 1963
487. Confidential Priority
Malaysia
We have repeated to you, Washington telegram 1840.1 We think you might encourage the Malayans to give thought to the points in paragraph 8.2 It is desirable that the Summit should keep control and while using the resources of the Secretary-General, avoid U.N. political involvement which could lead to delay and further difficulties. It might, therefore, be risky to include representatives of Committee of Twenty Four, but investigating committee might include several personalities.
2. Positive instructions from the Summit could include a variety of things, such as verifying that the recent elections in North Borneo and Sarawak were fairly conducted. There was, as well, the fullest consultation of representative ‘functional’ groups. This process for the expression and registration of the will of the people could be represented to be in accord with Indonesia’s own ideas of consensus and representative opinion (musjawarah). The terms of which the Borneo territories will enter the federation take full account of minority views and there is the likelihood that these may be expected to change in favour of Malaysia as national unity grows.
3. We should like you to explore these ideas with the Malayans subject to your own judgement about how far you should go.
[NAA: A1838, 3006/4/7 part 9]
1 16 July 1963. It was incorrectly printed and copied in Canberra as cablegram 1480. It reported on the State Department’s instructions to Ambassador Howard Jones in Jakarta for his meeting with Sukarno on 16 July.
2 Paragraph noted that State Department officials had been looking for ‘avenues of possible agreement’ that might be achieved at the summit. The Americans felt that a compromise had to be found between holding a plebiscite, and a UN ‘walk-through’ the Borneo territories. They thought it ‘could suit the Indonesians’ if the summit could ‘give positive instructions about actions to be taken by UN including possibly specific listing of organisations and leaders to be consulted and election results to be checked’.