84. Memorandum of a Conversation Between the Counselor of the Department of State (MacArthur) and the British Ambassador (Makins), Department of State, Washington, February 29, 19561

SUBJECT

  • SEATO Military Planning
[Page 180]

Sir Roger Makins called on me at his request today and handed me the attached memorandum2 regarding SEATO Military Planning proceeding on the assumption that nuclear as well as non-nuclear weapons will be used in defense of the area. He had been asked by Foreign Secretary Lloyd, he said, to give this to the Secretary, but in view of the great demands on the Secretary’s time he was handing the memo to me for transmittal to the Secretary.

I read the memorandum hastily and said I would of course personally see that it was brought to the Secretary’s attention. I said that commenting personally, I thought there was general agreement on the part of all members of SEATO that SEATO defense planning did not involve the delegation of the responsibility of the member governments for putting military plans into action in the event of hostilities. I said also that we fully recognized the importance of handling any publicity with respect to military planning in such a manner as not to create psychological problems. Obviously, however, if military planning was to be of any use whatsoever, the military planners on a contingency basis had to take into account all the types of forces and all the types of weapons at their disposal. Any planning which did not take into account nuclear weapons would obviously be unrealistic and not worthwhile.

I concluded by saying that in my own mind I was not certain whether the Foreign Ministers themselves would have to have a detailed discussion of this subject, and that one possibility was that the Foreign Ministers could simply approve the Military Advisers proceeding with their planning along the lines which the Military Advisers had discussed. Sir Roger said he did not know what the procedure would be at Karachi, and I replied that I felt sure it could be handled in a satisfactory manner so as not to create new problems.

  1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 62 D 181, CF 656. Secret. Drafted by MacArthur.
  2. In this memorandum, not printed, the British Government gave its preliminary views on the question of whether the SEATO Military Advisers should proceed on the assumption that nuclear as well as non-nuclear weapons would be used in defense of the area in the event of conflict.