Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, Africa and South Asia, Volume XI, Part 2

711.56346E/2–254

The Ambassador in Ceylon (Crowe) to the Department of State

top secret
No. 401

Colombo, February 2, 1954.

Subject:

• Possible US Requirements in Ceylon

Reference:

• Department’s CA–3476, January 5, 1954¹

The Department’s instruction under reference inquires whether the Embassy considers it practical and desirable to attempt to negotiate now with the Government of Ceylon for facilities in this country for our Armed Forces.

I have sought to make as thorough a study as possible of this question but have concluded that the reply I can now make can only be of a limited nature. To give a more positive response and to be more helpful I believe that the Embassy requires further information from our Government on such questions as the full nature of our military needs here, how we propose to attain them and what we can give in return. Thereafter I venture to hope to be able better to assist the Department of State and the Department of Defense in determining whether and when we might seek to negotiate for military facilities in Ceylon.

The situation here is complicated, as the Department is aware, by various as yet unsettled problems. The first of these is the nationalistic sensitivity of Ceylon over any encroachment on or derogation of its sovereignty. A major part of this reflects the internal political situation, particularly “face” of a small country only recently become independent and still obsessed with apprehensions over possible external domination. Not only the opposition group but as well much of the majority government party is highly affected by this sensitivity.

The second problem concerns Ceylonese-Indian relations. While on the one hand fearing India and strongly rejecting what are generally believed to be its intention to dictate to if not control this country, on the other hand Ceylon realizes it must live with India and presently has several important questions to settle with that country. The first of these is the issue over Indian immigrants in Ceylon, now numbering almost one million people of a total population of the country of eight million. An agreement was reached last month by the Ceylonese Prime Minister, Sir John Kotelawala, and Pandit Nehru of India for a solution of the issue. This agreement still has to be ratified by the Cabinets of the two countries. Until this is done the Ceylonese Government will have to proceed carefully in any steps that it might take as they could affect Indian opinion.

Of all things that would be most likely to induce the Indian Government not to ratify the agreement is that of India’s learning of negotiations between the United States and Ceylon for the granting of military rights to the United States in this country. The resentment shown by Mr. Nehru to the alleged negotiations between the United States and Pakistan over our military assistance to that country would immediately be directed as well at Ceylon. Moreover, most public opinion here is skeptical of any military “intervention in this neutral” part of the world. If now, coming right on the heels of the controversial subject of the United States–Pakistan alleged military negotiations it should become known that we are also conducting military negotiations with Ceylon, public feeling here would unquestionably become aroused and there would be emphasized the point of view that there is indeed a good deal of justification to the apprehension that the United States is trying militarily to encroach on the Middle East. There would be an increased tendency to side with India’s contention that this is the case and to support Mr. Nehru’s energetic opposition to such an assumed situation. Accordingly even should the Government of Ceylon be willing to negotiate with us for definite military facilities it is hardly likely that it would dare to do so and thereby incur the criticism of its parliament and people.

Besides this factor in the Ceylon-Indian relations there is the initiative which the Prime Minister of Ceylon himself has taken to call a conference of the Prime Ministers of Southeast Asia to be held here at the end of April of this year. Although in a sense only incidental to that meeting, Sir John Kotelawala would probably feel that he had to avoid any chance for Mr. Nehru to seize on the subject of United States military rights in Ceylon either to refuse to attend the meeting or to use it merely as a sounding board in attacking both Ceylon and the United States for such an act.

The third unsettled problem and that of direct relation to the United States is the prohibition of any Point Four or TCA aid to Ceylon as a result of the Ceylon–Communist China Rice-Rubber Agreement now in effect. This is coupled with a feeling on the part of the Ceylonese that by “right” we should either make long-term low-interest loans or out-and-out financial grants to this country to help it out of its straightened monetary situation and help finance its agricultural and industrial development. Other things being equal, a concession of military privileges would not be easily distinguishable in the Ceylonese mind from just a one-sided and therefore unwarranted favor to us.

Based on these considerations any direct effort at the moment to obtain the military facilities for our Armed Forces would not only probably be unproductive but as well imprudent. If they become public knowledge, which in the nature of things here I believe could very well happen, a serious propaganda defeat might result for us here, aside from India. (Reference New Delhi’s telegram to the Department 1155 of January 21, 1954.)²

As has been indicated in the beginning of this despatch, however, it seems to me that the subject is incompletely and limitedly dealt with without a wider basis for consideration. This would in turn affect any consideration of timing once, as may be possible in the future, the immediate impediments arising out of Ceylon’s problems with India and the regional stress brought about by the uncertainty of our military negotiations with Pakistan are out of the way.

The firm stand of the Prime Minister now being taken against communism and the confidential statements of Sir John Kotelawala and Sir Oliver Goonetilleke thoroughly approving our extending military assistance to Pakistan show an appreciation on their [part] and through them on the part of an element of the Ceylon Government of the need for cooperative international defense against communist aggression. As reported in my telegram 233, January 29,³ the Prime Minister again reiterated his former statement to me that his primary reason for calling a conference of the Southeast Asia Prime Ministers is to confer on methods of fighting communism.

In a conversation which I had with Sir Oliver Goonetilleke this morning (February 2) I inquired what he had in mind when, as was reported in the Department’s memorandum of conversation between Sir Oliver Goonetilleke and Mr. Henry A. Byroade in Washington on December 23, 1953,⁴ he hinted at the possibility of US help in the defense of Ceylon. His reply was that Ceylon must “remarry England”, that it required Great Britain’s economic and military Support and that in turn the United States should assist the British here. In this respect he declared that Ceylon would never let itself become a part of Nehru’s “neutral bloc” but would immediately join the side of Great Britain and the United States should a war occur. He then spoke of the Ceylon-Great Britain Defense Agreement of 1947 and said that it was a definite one without time limit. On his own initiative he offered to send me copies of the documents concerning this agreement.

The thought of our in a sense going through the British had previously occurred to me. I enclose a letter from the Acting British High Commissioner in response to the Naval Attaché’s inquiry at my request as to what military rights Great Britain has in Ceylon.

It is evident that this concern over the defense of Ceylon and its possible cooperation with the United States as well as Great Britain to assure it of such defense has not flowed down to parliament or the people as a whole. A turn in the public mind will probably be based on more definite events and particularly on the conviction that cooperative defense measures are not only needed but can be welcomed without loss of “face” or national pride nor that they imply any derogation of Ceylonese sovereignty.

In any event here might be the beginning for a favorable situation eventually to develop for the negotiations with Ceylon for mutual defense.

To be able to judge how and when we could seek to make an approach to attain the military facilities I feel that we should now have the answers to questions as to the conditions that would be acceptable to us for that purpose. I particularly stress that it will probably be necessary to act quickly, secretly and positively. By positively I mean that we should know not only what we want but just what we are willing and prepared to give in return.

Accordingly I pose the following questions and hope that I may receive the Department’s answers to them as soon as possible:

1. Are we only willing to negotiate for military facilities on the premise that they concern only mutual defense and therefore require no payment from us? This will be such a restricted basis that we might presume that we would have to wait a very long time if we could hope to be successful in obtaining them.

2. Are we prepared to pay in some way or other for the facilities? This would mean in my view either a large financial grant of some millions of dollars, possibly war ships and/or airplanes, several merchant ships for the Ceylonese merchant fleet and, should it be eventually possible, Point Four–TCA assistance or an elimination of the prohibition of such aid.

3. The exact facilities which are desired. I assume that those listed in the Department’s Instruction No. 15, May 23 [28], 1953,⁵ are still what are contemplated at this time. Could these be combined? At least the communications facilities? Our chances of getting them would be greatly enhanced, I am sure, if there were just one unit or complex.

One other alternative suggests itself as far as the radio communications are concerned if our Armed Forces did not agree to cooperate with the British. That is an unpublicized expansion, by agreement with the Ceylonese, of our VOA network here. Certain disadvantages suggest themselves to this procedure, however, which seem quite obvious.

4. If we do obtain the facilities, does the Department of Defense have the funds available, over and above the purchase price I have mentioned above, to build them here? A delay in implementing the agreement would be unsatisfactory and might suggest that we should put off the whole matter until we were sure that we could meet our end of it.

5. Should our approach for the facilities be made directly to the Ceylonese and merely bilateral or in conjunction with the British?

There is much to recommend the latter approach. I present for the Department’s consideration that it might be well for us to use the British in a sense to obtain the requirements for us here with, of course, the concurrence of the Ceylonese. In the first place this would be a cover for us and in the second place it might be much more feasible of realization. It should be provided under such a three-way arrangement that the Ceylonese would grant assured long-term rights to the British at Trincomalee, Negombo and either the airbase at Minneriya near Sigiriya or the airbase at Jaffna, and we in turn have a formal agreement with the British for our participation in these facilities. I would hasten to add that I do not, of course, entertain the thought that there would be a joint operation with the British for the radio communication station or stations but that the same land with separate facilities could be arranged.

In view of all the publicity in connection with Pakistan, in view of the attitude of the Indians and in view of Ceylon’s relationship with India, I wish again to reiterate that I consider it of utmost importance that if and when we do seek to obtain the military requirements we must be able to act quickly and positively.⁶

Philip K. Crowe

1. Ante, p. 1596.
2. Ante, p. 1596.
3. Supra.
4. Ante, p. 1594.
5. Ante, p. 1572.
6. No record has been found of any subsequent approach to or discussion with Ceylonese officials on this subject.