Canberra, 24 November 1965
1428. Priority Secret
After delivering Prime Minister’s message1 to Sir Robert Menzies on 20 November, I saw him today and spoke as instructed in your telegram No. 2977. Minister of External Affairs and Acting Minister of Defence were also present.
2. Australian Prime Minister explained his view that we should stay in Singapore ‘even in adversity’ as meaning that we should not give up and go simply because there was criticism of the base. He was thinking particularly of our own concept of withdrawing in ‘good order’ which to his mind could lead us to withdraw before political conditions obliged us to do so. (Bunting has already emphasized Australian anxiety on this point to me, my telegram No. 1330 not repeated, and paragraph 5 [? grps. omitted]. I asked if this meant that in the Australian view we ought to stay in the base against the wishes of the Singapore Government. Sir R. Menzies and his colleagues replied that this was not their wish, but Mr. Hasluck added that he hoped we would stay on until the last possible moment ‘and then some’.
3. As regards the possible threats to the base which I had outlined, Sir R. Menzies admitted that they might2 arise but said that the Australian view was less pessimistic about them than our own. After all, it would be flatly against the interests of both Lee and the Tunku to demand the expulsion of British and Australian forces; they were therefore, in practice, unlikely to do so. I said that that would be correct if we were dealing with rational people; unfortunately, however, this was not the case. I had had some personal experience of military bases in the East,3 and knew how expert oriental peoples were at taking the bread out of their own mouths. Sir R. Menzies conceded this point and said that the peoples of the East were indeed masters of ‘elementary and juvenile humbug’.
4. Mr. Hasluck said British withdrawal from Singapore would have a most unfavourable effect throughout India and South-East Asia, where an American strategic presence was not enough and a joint Anglo-American one was required. I said that I was interested that he should have quoted India, whose Government had just branded us as imperialists for setting up strategic facilities in certain Indian Ocean islands. Sir R. Menzies rejoined that what the Indian Government thought on these matters was very different from what they said.
5. As regards to the risk which we saw of Malaysia and Singapore being ready to come separately to terms with Indonesia, Sir R. Menzies thought that recent events inside Indonesia had somewhat reduced this. If the Generals maintained themselves in power, it would be rather more likely that confrontation would die down anyway without requiring efforts by Singapore or Malaysia to make a separate peace.
6. Sir R. Menzies said that he supposed that the Singapore base was a heavy budgetary burden to us, but might become less serious if we succeeded in eliminating our balance of payments deficit. I said I did not know what would come out of the defence review but even when we had got our payments back into balance we would certainly still need some cooperative arrangements in the Far East which would reduce the financial burden on us. Sir R. Menzies replied that the Australian Government recognized their community of interest with us in Far East defence, and would consider any concrete proposal which the British Government might put to them on the subject. I asked if this meant, for example, a proposal for direct financial assistance. Sir R. Menzies replied that it did, or for help in the provision of bases in Australia if we needed some in addition to Singapore. I said that this was an important and helpful statement which I would report to my Government.
7. I then asked if the Australian Government were so confident of our ability to stay on in Singapore that they would be against the planning of any alternative. Sir R. Menzies said that at the time of the retreat from Tobruk in 1942 he had asked Mr. Churchill whether he was planning any position to fall back on and that Mr. Churchill replied: ‘We must plan for victory and not for defeat’. I said that luckily someone had planned the Alamein position all the same. Sir R. Menzies said that one of the dangers about alternative planning would be that of leakage to the Press. I said that there was already so much Press speculation about a British base in Australia to replace Singapore that nothing could make this worse. Mr. Hasluck said that it was difficult for ministerial statement to be made denying that planning was in process when in fact it was. Sir R. Menzies said that this could be got round by taking the line that what was being planned was not a substitute for Singapore but arrangements by Britain and Australia in their joint defence interests.
8. Australian Prime Minister and his colleagues concluded by reminding me of strongly expressed American interest in our retaining the Singapore base.
9. I have reported our conversation perhaps over-frankly and trust that this telegram will be treated as for United Kingdom eyes only.
10. Comments follow.
C.R.O. please pass Kuala Lumpur 136, BHC Singapore 61, POLAD Singapore 116, Washington 37.
1 See Document 43.
2 Emphasis throughout in original.
3 Johnston had served in Japan ( 1939–42). in Egypt ( 1942–46), as Ambassador to Jordan ( 1956–60), and as Governor of Aden (1960–63).
[UKNA: PREM 13/889]