Cablegram 82 CANBERRA, 15 February 1946
IMMEDIATE SECRET AND PERSONAL
Your 47. [1] I have carefully noted your comments and should like to be able to meet your views in any way possible. However, after careful consideration and consultation with Dr. Evatt I wish to urge you to accept our nomination of Mr. Macmahon Ball, to whose appointment New Zealand and India have already agreed. [2] Mr.
Officer, whom you suggest as an alternative has already been appointed to an important permanent position to which he should proceed without delay. [3]
I feel confident that while he has had no diplomatic experience as such, Mr. Macmahon Ball and his advisers will ably represent the interests of the British Commonwealth on the Allied Council. in these circumstances, I hope you will agree to accept and will endorse our nomination. [4]
_
1 Document 82.
2 In cablegrams dispatched 25 January and 8 February respectively.
3 officer had been appointed Australian Political Representative (Minister), South-East Asia. He departed for Batavia on 22 February.
4 Attlee replied in cablegram 68, dispatched 20 February, ‘I am sorry that you have felt unable to defer to our views … But in view of what you say I will not press the matter farther.’
_
[AA:A3196, 1946, 0.3209]