790.5/9–552
The Deputy Under Secretary of State (Matthews) to the Secretary of Defense (Lovett)1
Dear Mr. Secretary: Reference is made to your letter of September 4, 1952,2 transmitting a draft message from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to CINCPAC on which the concurrence or comments of the Department of State were requested with reference to possible political connotations of the draft message. The message constituted, in effect, a directive concerning the initial meeting of the [Page 219] Military Representatives to the ANZUS Council, tentatively scheduled to be held September 22, 1952.
The draft message to CINCPAC contained in Appendix “A” appears to the Department of State to be in conformity with the United States proposal regarding military machinery (ANZUS 1/5, August 6, 1952)3 except that paragraph three might be subject to some misinterpretation. I understand that the basic policy stated at the conclusion of this paragraph properly prohibits communicating to any foreigner United States plans which I understand to mean the war plans developed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I note, however, from the earlier part of the paragraph the Joint Chiefs are in agreement with Admiral Radford that planning information will be exchanged. I assume that these instructions therefore would give the United States Military Representative to the ANZUS Council sufficient latitude in exchanging planning information to permit the development by each of the three member countries of national plans which would result in the proper coordination of the forces of the three countries in case the plans needed to be put into effect. I assume that acting under these instructions the United States Military Representative would be able to maintain with his Australian and New Zealand colleagues that degree of frankness and mutuality of interest which was developed at the recent meeting of the ANZUS Council and which in the opinion of the Department of State is of very great importance in our relations with those two countries. If the Australian and New Zealand Military Representatives obtained a contrary impression, I believe it would have unfortunate political repercussions in our relations with these two countries.4
Sincerely yours,
- Drafted by Ambassador Jessup.↩
- Supra.↩
- Not printed, but see the section headed “U.S. Paper” in HON MIN–6 of Aug. 6, p. 198.↩
In a letter to the Secretary of State dated Sept. 25, the Secretary of Defense indicated that he interpreted Matthews’ letter as concurrence and wrote:
“The Joint Chiefs of Staff have been informed concerning your comments. They have expressed no objection and have forwarded your views to Admiral Radford for his information.” (790.5/9–2252)
The JCS forwarded both the instruction (substantively unchanged from the draft forwarded to the Department on Sept. 4) and Matthews’ comments to Admiral Radford on Sept. 15 in telegrams JCS 918517 and JCS 918528, respectively. (JCS files, CCS 381 (2–18–51))
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