Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951, Asia and the Pacific, Volume VI, Part 1

790.5/10–3151

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Regional Planning Adviser of the Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs (Emmerson)

confidential

[Washington,] October 31, 1951.¹

Subject: Pacific Pact.

Participants:	Mr. David McNicol, Second Secretary, Australian Embassy, and
	Mr. John K. Emmerson, FE

During the course of a luncheon conversation Mr. McNicol referred to the problem of security arrangements in the Pacific and said he had heard rumors that the United States Government was considering some plan for the extension of these arrangements. We discussed Mr. Dewey’s speech referring to a Pacific Pact² and newspaper accounts suggesting that Prime Minister Churchill might propose an extension of Pacific security arrangements. I referred to the inherent difficulties in a Pacific Pact and said I knew of no concrete plans beyond the present series of bilateral and trilateral agreements.

Mr. McNicol said he hoped that no negotiations would be started for additional security arrangements before the present ones were fully in operation. He said that he felt it was most important to put some “meat on the bones” of the pacts which had been signed. He referred to the importance of bringing Indonesia into closer relationships with the West but cited the Indonesian attitude toward New Guinea as an obstacle. He felt that Indonesia did not have the capability of administering Netherlands New Guinea nor of exploiting its resources.

Mr. McNicol said he assumed nothing further would be done toward working out plans for implementing the trilateral agreement until Ambassador Cowen³ took over his new duties. It was clear that the point Mr. McNicol wished to make was the importance his Government attached to making the United States–Australia–New Zealand Agreement “something which worked” and not just a paper agreement.

1. Memorandum drafted November 2.
2. Apparent reference to Governor Dewey’s speech delivered on September 18 before the Convention of the American Bar Association. Text is printed in the New York Times of September 19.
3. On October 10 Ambassador Cowen had resigned his post. On November 15 he became Consultant to the Secretary with the personal rank of Ambassador, with special responsibility for aiding the implementation of the Mutual Defense Treaty with the Philippines and the Security Treaty with Australia and New Zealand. For text of the press release describing his appointment, issued October 23, see Department of State Bulletin, November 19, 1951, p. 808.