501.BC Indonesia/1–3048
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Assistant Chief of the Division of Southeast Asian Affairs (Lacy)
| Participants: | Mr. Alfred Stirling, Australian Embassy |
| Mr. Arthur Richards, BC | |
| Mr. W. S. B. Lacy, SEA |
Mr. Stirling called at his request. During the course of informal conversation I drew his attention to the memorandum addressed to Mr. Armour by the Australian Ambassador, copy of which is attached.1 I told Mr. Stirling that the Department was somewhat confused by the approach to the implementation of the Dutch-Indonesian agreement suggested by the second paragraph of the memorandum. I pointed out to Mr. Stirling that the Department considered that principle no. 1 of the 6 principles accepted in identical terms by both parties, provides clear and unqualified sovereignty to the Netherlands in Indonesia during the interim period, beginning with the signing by both parties of the agreement and ending with the conferring by the Netherlands of sovereignty upon the United States of Indonesia; that following the termination of Netherlands sovereignty, the United States of Indonesia became the sovereign in the area. I pointed out that it was the view of the Department, therefore, that the control of external trade and of foreign exchange, necessarily a prerogative of the sovereign, rested during the interim period with the Netherlands, and after the termination of the interim period, with the United States of Indonesia, and that to repose such powers in the Indonesian Republic, or any other state constituting a part of the interim government or of the United States of Indonesia, was to hypothecate the agreement accepted by both parties.
I made it clear to Mr. Stirling that the United States Government was resolved to use its influence to the end that both parties give strict compliance to both the letter and the spirit of the agreement. In this connection, I referred confidentially to the position the Department had taken in respect to certain American business interests who had made an effort to secure monopolistic economic and financial rights in the Indonesian Republic and to the discreditable part which certain Indonesian Republican leaders had played in the negotiation of the contract between the Republic and the American interests.
I suggested to Mr. Stirling that it was possible that his Government had instructed its Embassy in Washington to approach the Department with the suggestion contained in the attached memorandum [Page 89] before the Indonesian Republic had signified its unqualified acceptance of the 6 principles, and that the Republic’s acceptance of the first principle might constrain his Government to reconsider its suggestion. Mr. Stirling acknowledged the possibility of this explanation and assured me that he would discuss the matter further with me after consulting his Ambassador and his Government at Canberra.
- Dated January 30, not printed.↩