780.5/8–251
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs (Raynor)
| Participants: | Mr. Burrows, British Embassy |
| Mr. H. Raynor, Director, BNA |
Mr. Burrows handed to me this morning the attached summary1 of the Commonwealth Defense Ministers meeting in London in June. [Page 156] He said he knew we had received a report on this meeting through our Embassy2 and that this might add but little to it but nevertheless he hoped it would be useful to us.
He said the significant portion of the summary related to the position of Australia. I said, as I read it, it indicated that the Australians were continuing to hedge with respect to the Middle Eastern commitment. He said this was a correct interpretation and spoke of the importance attached by his government to obtaining an all-out comment from Australia for defense assistance in the Middle East. He said he thought this was going to depend to a considerable extent of the assurances which the Australians received from us with respect to the Pacific. I said the new Pacific Pact3 should be helpful in this respect. He agreed but said that this would depend on how the pact operated. I indicated that this was, of course, true and that it was too early to forecast what the operation would be although I could say that the State Department desired to make something out of this organization. I said that this government was fully conscious of the importance to the British and to the general situation of the Commonwealth contributions to the Middle Eastern defense and I said that as he knew this had been taken into account in connection with the matter of troops for Korea.
Mr. Burrows closed the conversation by reiterating the hope that we would continue to keep the importance of this matter very much in mind.
- Not printed.↩
- See despatch 6403 from London, June 29, p. 154.↩
- Reference is to the ANZUS Pact; for documentation, see vol. vi, pt. 1, pp. 132 ff.↩