Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952–1954, East Asia and the Pacific, Volume XII, Part 1

Secretary’s Staff Meetings, lot 63 D 75

¹

Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Executive Secretariat (Scott)

[Extract]

²

secret

Washington, July 30, 1954.

Subject:

• Summary of Secretary’s Staff Meeting, 9:15 A.M., Secretary’s Office

2. S.E. Asia Pact.

The Secretary was disturbed at the appearance of “dragging feet” on the part of Mr. Eden. Mr. MacArthur agreed that the Eden position might be seriously destructive of our efforts but felt that Eden was off base mainly on the schedule of issuing the Conference invitations. He stated that they had really not yet hit the Colombo powers and that they were holding out and working towards a chance of having Pakistan and Ceylon and even possibly Burma, joining in the Conference. The Under Secretary stated definitely that Pakistan would join if asked; that Zafrulla Khan had made this commitment to him as he boarded the airplane to leave Geneva.

Mr. MacArthur pointed out that Mr. Eden had not really had much time to devote to the SEATO problem because of his concentration on the Suez question and the resulting domestic Parliamentary crisis.

The Secretary stated that we should consider telling the British that we would drop the whole SEATO matter. They could come to us some time later if they ever decided to build strength in the area. The Secretary expressed his impatience at the continuing delay on the part of the British—that they constantly throw kicks at us and our positions for building S.E. Asia strength and the primary purpose of the whole exercise was to save Malaya. The Under Secretary disagreed with the Secretary, stating that the matter went much further than Malaya; that our own interests were involved.³

Mr. MacArthur suggested that there was some merit in having the Australians and the New Zealanders put the heat on the British for early action. The Secretary felt that the Australians and New Zealanders would not in reality push. The Under Secretary said they had in the past and he felt they would in the future; that we could reduce this whole question to an absurdity by saying we were going it alone. The Secretary felt that we might actually end up going it alone unless we told them just that. It would require some drastic action such as this to bring the British to their senses after 4 months of excuse and delay piled on excuses and delays.

Mr. Drumright suggested dropping the S.E. Asia problem and working with the N.E. Asia powers. The Secretary seemed to see merit in this suggestion.

The discussion broke off without conclusion, with Mr. MacArthur pointing out that the British had not backed out of their commitment to a September 1 meeting.

1. Chronological collections of the minutes of the Secretary of State’s daily staff meetings held twice a week during the years 1952–1960, as maintained by the Executive Secretariat of the Department of State.
2. The omitted material includes a list of persons present (19).
3. The memorandum of a conversation held Aug. 4 between the Secretary, Ambassador Spender, and other officials reads in part as follows: “Sir Percy said that he would immediately report to his government the need to push urgently ahead on SEATO. The Secretary observed that if the SEATO plans fell through we would have ANZUS to fall back on but that Australian and U.S. defensive positions in the Pacific would be seriously isolated and outflanked if Malaya, Indonesia, etc. came under communist control.” A handwritten notation on the source text by O’Connor indicates that the Secretary approved this memorandum. (Memorandum of conversation by Cavanaugh; 790.5/8–454)