Cablegram [N]6 [1] CANBERRA, 13 December 1943
SECRET
Your N.40. [2]
Please inform van Kleffens [3] whatever may be the position later in 1944 the present time is quite inopportune to establish the formal organisation or set-up which would inevitably be associated with presence of gubernatorial regime in Australia itself. It would multiply existing difficulties and tend to duplicate direct relationships with Netherlands Government. Moreover, it would establish a completely false feeling of complacency on the ground that re-occupation of the Netherlands East Indies was imminent.
Please convey to van Kleffens message from me to the effect of our intention shortly in the New Year to call a conference on ministerial level of countries concerned in the South-West Pacific Area and that I am hoping that he will be able personally to represent the Netherlands Government, as his knowledge and experience would be of inestimable value.
_1 Inserted from Bruce’s copy on file AA:M100, December 1943.
2 Document 348.
3 Netherlands Foreign Minister.
_
[AA:A989, 43-44/600/5/1/5]