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

790.5/7–2051

The Secretary of Defense (Marshall) to the Secretary of State

top secret

Washington, 20 July 1951.

Dear Mr. Secretary: I am transmitting herewith a copy of the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, dated 9 July 1951, with respect to the Trilateral Agreement between the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. At the direction of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, representatives of this office presented this memorandum to Mr. Dulles and discussed it with him on 10 July.¹

The purpose of this letter is to confirm for the sake of the record the agreement reached in that discussion for the rewording of Article VII and VIII as follows:

Article VII:

“The Parties hereby establish a Council consisting of Foreign Ministers or their Deputies, on which each of them shall be represented to consider matters concerning the implementation of this treaty. The Council should be so organized as to meet at any time.”

Article VIII:

“Pending the development of a more comprehensive system of international security in the Pacific Area and the development by the UN of a more effective means to obtain international peace and security, the Council, established by Article VII is authorized to maintain a consultative relationship with States, Regional Organizations, Associations of States or other authorities in the Pacific Area which are in a position to further the purposes of this treaty and contribute to the security of that area.”

Faithfully yours,

G. C. Marshall

[Enclosure]

Memorandum by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense (Marshall)

top secret

Washington, 9 July 1951.

Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense

Subject: Draft Treaty for Consideration by the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

1. In accordance with the request contained in your memorandum dated 29 June 1951,² the Joint Chiefs of Staff have studied the draft security treaty between the United States, Australia and New Zealand which you enclosed. They have examined particularly the revised Articles VII and VIII thereof, inasmuch as there was objection from the military point of view to the language of these two articles in the previous draft.

2. With respect to the redraft of Article VII, the Joint Chiefs of Staff reaffirm their previous position that they consider it preferable, from a military point of view, to exclude all references to, and to make no provision for, the creation of any formalized body such as the proposed Pacific Council.

3. It would appear that a new concept has been written into the present draft of Article VIII; namely, authority for the Pacific Council “to maintain a consultative relationship with States, Regional Organizations, Associations of States or other authorities in a position to further the purposes of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the Pacific area.” This language would appear to authorize the establishment of machinery whereby the Pacific Council, acting as a body, would deal continuously with the North Atlantic Council as a body, and/or the Organization of American States (OAS) as a body, and/or other international organizations or individual states. Under such authority, it is reasonable to expect that the Pacific Council, as such, would address military questions to the OAS or to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Reply to such questions, or military conversations relating thereto, would then involve action by the Inter-American Defense Board or the Standing Group of the North Atlantic Military Committee, as appropriate.

4. Thus the new concept written into Article VIII makes it possible for the Pacific Treaty nations, the NATO nations, and the OAS nations to assume, for all practical purposes, the status of a federation of states, within which there must exist machinery for a wide variety of actions, including military planning and collaboration.

5. The Joint Chiefs of Staff view with concern these implications of the new concept written into Article VIII, for the following reasons:

a. It would require the establishment of a new military agency under the Pacific Council. The Joint Chiefs of Staff previously stated they considered this to be objectionable from a military point of view;

b. The actions flowing from this concept would tend further to reduce, without compensating advantage, United States military freedom of action; and

c. There is considerable likelihood that Australia and New Zealand would become so involved in military problems in the Pacific as a whole as to be reluctant to fulfill their military responsibilities to the British Commonwealth. In this connection, the Joint Chiefs of Staff would emphasize that there are strategic areas of the world other than the Pacific in which the use of Australian and New Zealand forces is considered of major importance. Further, they believe that in event of general war, the primary strategic responsibility for the Pacific—other than defense in a local sense of the territories and waters of certain nations—must inevitably rest with the United States. This was the case during World War II.

6. In view of the foregoing, the Joint Chiefs of Staff from the military point of view recommend:

a. That the proposed Article VIII be redrafted so as to limit its scope to:

(1) Provision for entry of additional members, as desirable; and

(7) Incorporation of the substance of Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty, modified as appropriate; and

b. Further, that the proposed Article VII be deleted from the new draft of the security treaty.

7. The following language is suggested for the redraft of Article VIII:

“In order to provide a more comprehensive system of regional security in the Pacific Area, the Parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other Pacific state in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the Pacific Area to accede to this Treaty. Any state so invited may become a party to the Treaty by depositing its instrument of accession with the Government of Australia. The Government of Australia will inform each of the Parties of the deposit of each such instrument of accession.”

For the Joint Chiefs of Staff:

Omar N. Bradley

Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff

1. No memorandum of this conversation has been found in Department of State files.
2. Not found in Department of State files.