611.43/3–1350

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Chief of Protocol (Simmons)

confidential

Participants: The President
The Australian Foreign Minister1
The Chief of Protocol

The President received at 12:15 p. m. today the Australian Foreign Minister, the Honorable P. C. Spender.2

Early in the conversation general remarks were exchanged by the President and Mr. Spender, including expressions of satisfaction at the possibility, here illustrated, that representatives of free nations such as Australia and the United States could talk together frankly and without the old-style diplomatic reservations, concerning important matters of mutual international interest. The President illustrated this point by citing the record of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, of which he was once chairman, and which never, during that time, presented a minority report.

Mr. Spender then came to the principal point which he had in mind. This he described as the basic difficulty now being experienced by Australia in “not having a say” in most of the important international decisions now being made by the friendly powers. He described this as a great handicap to his country. He indicated the existence of a [Page 213] local feeling of frustration that, in a world crisis such as now exists, many important decisions affecting Australia were being made, without Australian participation, by the Atlantic Pact powers and the European powers under the leadership of the “Big Three”. He added that he was frequently being put on the defensive, vis-à-vis local public opinion, on this point.

As regards some form of Pacific agreement similar to the Atlantic Pact, he said that he realized that Great Britain and the United States were disposed to work toward the formation of some organization of this type. He deplored what he indicated as the obstructive attitude of India, which attitude provided the chief stumbling block toward the formation of such a pact. At this point, he advanced the idea that after all India was not, strictly speaking, a Pacific power. He then briefly summed up his concept of a logical geographic division of the four chief power groups outside of the Western Hemisphere. These groups he classified under the headings of Atlantic, European, Indian Ocean and Pacific. He apparently made this point to emphasize his view that India should belong to the third, rather than the fourth, of these groups.3

Mr. Spender continued by expressing the thought that Australia had narrowly escaped a Japanese invasion in the last war, had thrown all she had into that conflict and could be counted upon in any emergency to give the utmost of her manpower and equipment to meet all new crises. This, he believed, should merit a greater degree of consideration in matters of consultation among the great powers. He did not specifically indicate just what form such increased participation might take. He did not, for example, make a plea for the inclusion of Australia as a member of the Security Council.

The President expressed sincere admiration for the people and Government of Australia, adding that his attitude was most sympathetic towards any problems, including the present one, with which Australia might be confronted. He suggested to Mr. Spender that these matters might be taken up in greater detail with Secretary Acheson, who would, of course, be glad to go into the matter more thoroughly and attempt to ascertain whether a satisfactory solution might be found.

The interview closed, as it had begun, in an atmosphere of friendliness and cordiality.

John F. Simmons
  1. Australian External Affairs Minister Percy C. Spender visited Washington on September 13 and 14 before taking up in New York his duties as head of the Australian Delegation to the Fifth United Nations General Assembly which opened on September 19. For his own account of the visit, see Sir Percy Spender, Exercises in Diplomacy: The ANZUS Treaty and the Colombo Plan (New York: University Press, n.d.), pp. 37–42.
  2. For his own account of this conversation, see ibid., pp. 40–41.
  3. For further documentation on the establishment of some sort of “Pacific Pact,” see pp. 1 ff.