Canberra, 11 July 1962
Personal
After I got back home I was so quickly and completely immersed in the domestic political tasks that I have not until now got around to writing you about my American visit. It was on the whole satisfactory from both your viewpoint and mine. The President was generous with his time. He gave me two long interviews and a luncheon. I had not seen him for about 14 months. During that time, of course, he has experienced some vicissitudes. I found him as personally attractive as ever but more mature.[…]
In addition to Kennedy, I had adequate discussions with Rusk, Harriman and Ball, to say nothing of some more general talks with people who included Dean Acheson.1
I went to some pains from the very beginning to make it clear that I was not in Washington to argue about words. I told them that I thought the long distance arguments about ‘preferences’ was not likely to achieve any result and that what was really wanted was to put dogma on one side and consider everything in a pragmatic fashion. This view was accepted and thereafter our discussions proceeded in a friendly and constructive way. As I indicated to you at your house, my central theme was this: ‘If you exercise your influence with The Six to resist everything that resembles a Commonwealth preference or even a substitute for it, and, if as a consequence, The Six carry the principle of the disappearance of preferences by 1970 right down the board, you will impale the Government of the United Kingdom on the horns of a dilemma. It will then be said, and with great force, that Great Britain will be choosing between Europe and the Commonwealth. I believe that you are keen, for political reasons, on Great Britain going into the European Community. Harold Macmillan himself is much influenced by the overall political considerations. Surely this is not a time at which your common conception of an extended and powerful Europe should be put at risk by the presentation to Great Britain of a set of conditions which she might well find impossible of acceptance by her as the centre of the British Commonwealth.’
The reactions to this were very interesting and, I hope you will agree, valuable. The President took the opportunity of speaking very warmly about the importance of the Commonwealth and the necessity to build up its strength. You will see a reference to this in the communique which was issued and a copy of which, in case you have not seen it, I enclose.2 It should be emphasised that Kennedy was not employing just a form of words. He has clearly given considerable thought to the nature and structure of the Commonwealth. He clearly attaches a genuine degree of importance to good relations between the United States and Australia. Ball, a man of obvious knowledge and intelligence but whom I had expected to find as my chief opponent, was disposed to be helpful. He said quite plainly that a phasing out of the existing Commonwealth trade arrangements by 1970 would be most unreasonable. At one stage the President took up my cliche about the ‘horns of dilemma’ and said—‘We must avoid any such result. Our practical business seems to be to find a way between the horns.’ I asked whether this meant that instead of dwelling on fixed ideas or contentious principles we, Australia, should discuss with the United States, commodity by commodity, ways and means of achieving some practical result which would help us all. This was promptly agreed to. I was told that if our chief official negotiator (Dr Westerman) went over to Washington, detailed discussions could be engaged in. I should add at this point that I at once arranged for this with John McEwen in Australia and the talks are now in hand. Clearly there are some commodities, of which wheat is an obvious example, about which the Americans feel that arrangements on a world basis are essential.
Two other matters emerged which will be of interest to you.
The first was that the President himself, in the presence of Ball, said something like this: ‘You know, the interesting thing is that if Great Britain goes into the European Community we will be outside of it and you will be also. In these circumstances, we both have a lively interest in maintaining and developing our own trade entry into the extended Europe and in the avoidance of over-nationalistic economic policies in the Community itself. We therefore have a Jot in common and should be disposed to help each other to maintain and expand access for our goods to the European Market.’
The second was that in my final talk with the President and Ball when we were settling the terms of the communique, I said: ‘Would I be right in saying that we both want to maintain our competitive status in the extended European Market?’ To which the answer was unhesitatingly ‘Yes’.
Turning to the communique itself, you will notice the paragraph beginning: ‘The Prime Minister offered the view …’. I had originally drafted this paragraph as a joint statement. The President however thought that it should be set out as a statement by me, not because he disagreed with it in substance, but because he thought that he should not publicly be offering a view on such a peculiarly Commonwealth problem. The final paragraph of the communique was suggested and dictated by the President himself and was, I thought, a useful expression of goodwill and co-operation. You will also observe that in the immediately preceding paragraph the President expressed his understanding of Australian needs in terms of development and growth, and recognised that we had problems of particular regions (e.g. dried fruits, canned fruits, etc).
In the result, I will be disappointed if there is not a reasonable flexibility in the American approach and in the undoubted influence that they can exercise. There is, I think, no doubt that they fully subscribe to your own views about the political developments and that they realise that the price should not be too high.
My present impression is that the negotiations will not have gone their full distance by September. I may, of course, be completely wrong in this. But l do feel sure that if the Prime Ministers meet on September 10 for the first time, and are presented with the outlines of a ‘package deal’, there will be every prospect of strong disagreements and the adoption of politically irrevocable attitudes. I therefore told Duncan Sandys just before I left London that I thought that some quiet and informal discussions between your people and those from the old Commonwealth countries should take place before the actual Conference, under circumstances in which really private discussions could occur. To this end I propose to arrive in London four or five days before the Conference. If you agree, I will propose a similar course to Diefenbaker and Holyoake. We should really work hard to get some common lines of approach to the Conference itself. This might help to reduce the area of conflict, because between us we could exercise a considerable influence on the others. This is not to say that I can as yet see the outlines of agreement; but I am quite sure that we must try to lay them down. For, after all, the relations between Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are to me the most important things in the Commonwealth and we must work hard to maintain them.
I found my discussions in London both interesting and valuable. It is indeed a great pity that some of the journalistic onlookers have tried to manufacture personal disputes between you and me when we both know they do not exist.
1 Former Secretary of State in the Truman administration.
2 Document 187.
[UKNA: PREM 11/4017]