Office of the Historian

127. Memorandum of Conversation1

Washington, July 20, 1965, 5:35 p.m.

SUBJECT

  • U.S. Communications Equipment for Indonesian Army

PARTICIPANTS

  • The Secretary
  • Thomas M. Judd, EUR/BNA
  • Sir Patrick Dean, British Ambassador

Secretary Rusk said he wished to make sure that London is fully informed concerning our decision to permit the commercial sale of about $3,000,000 worth of communications equipment to the Indonesian Army. The Indonesian Army had originally asked to buy $13,000,000 worth of equipment but we had said no. The Indonesian Army people had come to us privately saying they needed some secure means of internal communication within the army. Commercial communications were in the hands of the PKI. The equipment we were selling would be used only on Java and would be stationary.2

Ambassador Dean thanked the Secretary for his presentation. He said that the Embassy had previously been informed of the situation by FE.

  1. Source: National Archives and Records Administration, RG 84, Djakarta Embassy Files [formerly FRC 69 A 6509, Box 116], DEF 19–8 Indocom. Confidential. Drafted by Judd and approved in S on August 16. The memorandum is part 5 of 5. The discussion took place in Rusk’s office.↩
  2. In telegram 46 to Kuala Lumpur, July 20, the Department instructed the Embassy to inform Razak or other appropriate officials at the Ministry of External Affairs of the U.S. decision to grant an export license for tropospheric scatter fixed communications systems to be installed at Djakarta, Bandung, and Palembang and to stress that the Department had determined that the equipment would not assist in Indonesia’s military confrontation against Malaysia. (Ibid., RG 59, Central Files 1964–66, DEF 21 INDON)↩