611.4731/329
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of the Division of European Affairs (Moffat)
Mr. Keith Officer called on me this morning to say that while he realized our preoccupations which had made it necessary to postpone negotiations for a trade agreement with Australia, nonetheless time was passing so rapidly that he felt he should speak to me again about the situation that was developing. It had now been six or seven weeks since Messrs. Abbott and Murphy had been here and no further step had been taken to his knowledge since they left. This very morning he had received a letter from Mr. Bruce indicating satisfactory progress in the Anglo-Australian talks and an increasing sense of worry at not hearing further from the United States.
At the same time he had received copies of the Parliamentary debates in Canberra showing that there was renewed criticism of the Government for having abandoned its trade diversion system against the United States and gotten nothing in return. This was accentuated by the increasingly unfavorable trade and payments balance.
Mr. Officer had accordingly been thinking out ways and means of taking into account the political situations in the two countries. He said that obviously the best thing would be if we could announce our intention to negotiate late in June and actually sign up within ten weeks. This, however, he admitted was bringing a negotiation very close to our elections.
As a second best solution, which he had not submitted to his Government, was the possibility of the two Governments announcing a “contemplation of negotiation” with the understanding that the “intention to negotiate” and the negotiations themselves should only take place after our elections. He said that he had not put this up to his Government and so must be regarded as a purely personal suggestion.
In any event, if our decision was to be unfavorable he thought it only fair to tell the Australian authorities so early in the game rather than to “kid them along” for months and months and then confront them with a “non possumus”.
[Page 149]I told Mr. Officer that I had not been keeping in touch with developments but would be glad to see that his point of view was given careful attention. Either Mr. Sayre, Mr. Hawkins or I would get in touch with him again in a very short time.