694.001/8–251
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Deputy Director of the Office of Philippine and Southeast Asian Affairs (Melby)
Subject: Japanese Peace Treaty
| Participants: | Mr. McNicol, Australian Embassy. |
| Mr. Melby, PSA. |
Mr. McNicol called this morning to inquire as to the accuracy of press reports he had seen that negotiations had already been started, according to General Romulo, on a Philippine security alliance. I told Mr. McNicol that, as he realized, security was one of the two [Page 232] main points bothering the Philippines on the Japanese peace treaty and that although we would of course give serious consideration to any proposal the Philippines might make to the end of reassuring them on the question of security, no negotiations had as yet been initiated. I said that I could easily interpret General Romulo’s alleged statement as being for internal political consumption at this time. Mr. McNicol wanted to know whether, if there were negotiations, it would be our idea to conclude them prior to the Japanese peace treaty? I said I did not know since that would depend on the course of developments although presumably there might be advantages to concluding all Pacific arrangements about the same time. He then expressed concern as to whether any possible arrangement between the United States and the Philippines might contain provisions which would be harmful to the Australian-New Zealand trilateral and the arrangements contained therein. I replied that although of course I could not say what any such possible treaty might contain, I thought he could rest assured that there would be nothing in it which would be damaging to United States-Australian relations and arrangements. He expressed his appreciation for the assurance and added that as a matter of fact Australia would consider a Philippine-American alliance a perfectly natural and desirable development, particularly in view of comparable arrangements north and south of the Philippines. He said that although Australia would prefer that any such arrangement be bilateral for a number of reasons, he rather thought that as a last resort Australia might agree to the inclusion of the Philippines in the trilateral if that were the only way out.
[Here follows a discussion of the Philippine position on the draft Japanese peace treaty.]