Conference files, lot 60 D 627, CF 348
Memorandum by Walter Trulock of the Reports and
Operations Staff
secret
SEAP D–12
[Washington,] August 26, 1954.
Meeting of Southeast Asia Pact
(SEAP)
United Kingdom Proposed Amendments to
Articles ii and iii1
Attached are the UK amendments
to Article II and III.
[Attachment]
Note on United Kingdom Proposed Amendments to
Draft Southeast Asia Defence Treaty2
secret
[Washington,] August 25, 1954.
article ii
For “Mutual Aid” read “consultation and cooperation with each other.”
(“Mutual Aid” has come to be understood as implying financial
assistance.)
Add at the end of the Article the sentence “The parties undertake to
consult together on the means by which the free institutions of the
parties may be safeguarded.”
(The United Kingdom purpose in amending this phrase and removing it from
Article III to its original place in Article II is as follows:
[Page 795]
- (a)
- To avoid any suggestion of interference by the treaty parties
in the internal political affairs of the member States. In
particular we dislike any suggestion of an undertaking to
consult the other parties about strengthening the free institutions of Malaya.
- (b)
- To remove the essentially political concept of “free
institutions” from the economic Article where it seems out of
place.)
The new Article would then read:
Article II—In order more effectively to
achieve the objective of this Treaty, the Parties separately and
jointly, by means of continuance and effective self-help and consultation and co-operation with each
other, will maintain and develop their individual and
collective capacity to resist armed attack and to prevent and
overcome subversive activities directed from without against
their territorial integrity and political stability. The Parties undertake to consult together on
the means by which the free institutions of the Parties may
be safeguarded.”
article iii
Replace the present text by the following:
“The parties recognize that their common aims cannot be realised
without measures designed to promote economic prosperity, social
progress and cultural advancement. The parties furthermore agree
that in the development of such measures economic and technical
assistance can play an important part in supplementing the
individual and collective efforts of various governments in
achieving these aims.”
(In the earlier draft the undertaking “to cooperate” suggests more in the
way of multilateral economic organisation than is likely to materialize
and the inclusion of “other like minded States” would make continued
cooperation with countries like India more difficult.)
