Editorial Note
In the course of a message to President Truman of July 30, Secretary Acheson commented as follows with regard to the forthcoming ANZUS Council meeting:
“I expect no problems which will require soul-searching at the ANZUS meeting and believe we should emerge with a satisfactory machinery for bringing Australia and New Zealand into closer relationship with us in planning the defense of the Pacific Area. We should be able to further clarify the aims of the three nations concerned and to arrive at a better understanding of the strategy and resources required to fulfill those aims. Despite the tendency of Australia and New Zealand to magnify the importance of the treaty at the first meeting, there will be no spectacular results and we are making every effort to guard against giving our other friends in the Pacific area any reason to suspect that this is a future NATO for the Pacific or that it is ‘white man’s treaty’ or that we are making any private deal with Australia and New Zealand on matters of concern to other countries in that area. We will maintain that the spirit of the several Pacific security treaties to which we are a party is one of encouraging cooperation among all free nations of the Far East.” (Message is an attachment to covering note from William J. McWilliams, Director of the Executive Secretariat, to William J. Hopkins, Executive Clerk at the White House, requesting transmission to the President, then in Independence, Missouri; 790.5/7–3052.)
Acheson’s press conference statement of July 30 concerning the Council meeting, together with his remarks made before emplaning for Honolulu August 1, are printed in the Department of State Bulletin, August 11, 1952, page 219.