Singapore, 21 September 1965
Top Secret Personal
I enjoyed our talk today and it was most useful to have had a glance through the paper you showed me.
I was thinking this over flying back this afternoon after the COC Meeting. If I have it right you recognise that we may have to stay here for a long time and that we should be prepared to do so certainly for as long as we are wanted to be here by Malaysia and Singapore. At the same time, we should enter into negotiations with AUS/NZ/AM for an alternate base to go to as and when we saw fit and to use possibly in conjunction with and not necessarily instead of our existing bases here.
You also believe that we would be wrong to acquiesce to the AUS/NZ/AM pressure that to tell the Malaysians and Singaporeans that we were doing this would be dangerous and that such action on our part would precipitate a demand for total withdrawal. You advocate that we should tell Malaysia and Singapore that we are looking around to see what arrangements we can make for alternative bases because we think there may well come a day when, Confrontation over, we may not wish to stay here but we would still wish to exercise our influence and have a military presence in the area. If we don’t tell them what we are up to they are bound to find out anyway; in fact they probably have a fair idea already how we are thinking, therefore it would be wise and sensible to explain now. Not to do so might precipitate our being kicked out and much ignominy. I read your paper through rather quickly but I think I have your argument right.
I personally rather incline to the view that if we were certain we could build a base elsewhere, certain we could get the money to do so, knew exactly what we wanted, and it was our firm intention and policy agreed by one and all to go ahead, then I think it would be sensible to explain privately what we were doing emphasising the ‘base in conjunction with’ and not the ‘base instead of’ angle. But if we let news of this get out before our plans are really and truly fixed and then decide after all that we cannot afford it, or we find that the AUS/NZ/AM boys aren’t with us for some reason or other, we would, to my mind, have unnecessarily put ourselves into a pretty poor position. The story would be out that the British want to leave, Soekarno would be shouting I told you so, the case for staying would be very difficult to argue at home, and Malaysia and Singapore would either have to implore us to stay or else press for our departure and do a deal with Soekarno—bad news.
In other words, there would be a great hullabaloo—none of it to our advantage.
Therefore, until we are absolutely certain what we are going to do, I believe we can afford to keep the locals guessing. I fully recognise the need to renegotiate the Defence Agreement and that separation has provided us with an opportunity to do this; also we would be very silly to let the locals think that they have got us on the hook in that as long as Confrontation lasts they have got their defence for free and if and when it is over they can chuck us out. I recognise these aspects and their importance. Even so, I don’t think they invalidate my point that we should keep mum until we are quite firm as to what we are going to do (not just what we think we’d like to do).
I spoke on these lines to the Chiefs of Staff and, separately, I told Dick Hull2 that I thought you thought the same as me with regard to the importance of not showing our hand at this time. I now think, as a result of our talk this morning, that I may not have accurately reflected your view. If this is so, I must of course put this right and will write to him.
1 Air Chief Marshal Sir J. Grandy, UK Commander-in-Chief, Far East.
2 Sir R. Hull, UK Chief of Defence Staff, 1965-67. Grandy sent Hull a copy of his letter to Head on 28 September 1965.
[UKNA: DEFE 25/105]