Canberra, 28 February 1961
Top Secret
I thought you should have the attached Defence Committee Minute as soon as possible.1 Mountbatten mentioned it to the Defence Committee in a fairly casual way but this, together with a few other points he raised, all start to indicate the U.K. intention to reduce their commitments in the Far East by more than we have been led to believe, and, if possible, force Australia into the position of permanently accepting more. I understand that Mr. Townley 2 will be sending the Prime Minister a letter on the attached paper in a day or so.
2. The points made by Mountbatten which I considered to be relevant are as follows:
(a) At the Ministerial Meeting 3 he put the Prime Minister on notice that if the United Kingdom were not successful with Norstad 4 in having the British Army on the Rhine reduced from 55,000 to 45,000 very soon, they may have to reduce still further in the Far East. I pressed Mountbatten on this at the Defence Committee, both as to when we would know NATO’s decision and his expectations of success. He gave a fairly fluffy reply into which I read that they do not expect to get much out of NATO. I see the reductions of forces in the Far East, which Mountbatten outlines, as a first manoeuvre only, from which position it will be easier to go into the second series of reductions. These could have the effect of forcing us into the inevitable position of having to take on heavier responsibilities than we can afford or of a type that we would not want to assume, e.g., the internal security role in Malaya, at present being undertaken by the United Kingdom.
(b) He asked that we allow our Hercules aircraft to be used to shift U.K. troops from Singapore/Malaya to the Western Pacific if their troops were required to go to Fiji, Samoa, etc., in an emergency for internal security purposes. This, of course, cannot be a starter.
(c) Mountbatten wanted the Australians and New Zealanders to join with the United Kingdom in telling the other SEATO partners that Plan 4 and 6 5 were impracticable because they would not be able to commit to them anything like the number of forces required. He would like to ask SEATO to scrap these Plans. However Australia and New Zealand argued strongly against this action because of the implications of such a line on Thailand and the Philippines whose opinion of SEATO was already so low.
(d) The attached plea by Mountbatten for us to take the initiative in offering more troops to take over internal security duties in Malaya/Singapore.
3. All these things seem to indicate that Mountbatten told us only half the story about United Kingdom intentions as he knows them and we will have to assess thoroughly the implications for us of any moves by the U.K. and be very careful lest we find ourselves accepting or feeling under an obligation to accept commitments we will regret later. This is only a rushed note to put you in the picture.
1 Not published.
2 A.G. Townley, Australian Defence Minister, 1958-63.
3 See Document 5.
4 US General Lauris Norstad, Supreme Allied Commander (Europe), NATO, 1956-63.
5 SEATO Plan 4 covered the defence of the SEATO Treaty Area against major aggression by China and North Vietnam. It therefore encompassed a general \var situation. Allied strategy envisaged holding a communist invasion in front of the vital areas of Thailand and South Vietnam, launching massive air and naval interdiction of communications in North Vietnam and southern China, and then mounting a general offensive, principally a major amphibious and/or airborne assault on North Vietnam. SEATO Plan 6 dealt with North Vietnamese aggression against South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (UKNA: FCO 46/636).
[NAA: A1209, 1961 94]