790.5/9–1052
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Director of the Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs (Raynor)
Subject:
- UK Participation in ANZUS Military Representatives Meeting in Honolulu on September 22.
Participants:
- Mr. George Laking, Counselor, New Zealand Embassy
- Mr. L.J. Lawrey, First Secretary, Australian Embassy
- Mr. H. Raynor, Director, BNA
After discussing the question of the reply to be made to Mr. Eden’s personal message to the Secretary1 advocating some form of participation in the meeting of the ANZUS, meeting in Honolulu September 22, with Messrs. Perkins and Allison I asked Messrs. Laking and Moodie to call to discuss this matter. Mr. Moodie asked if he could send Mr. Lawrey to which I agreed.
I told them that we had received a further British request2 for some form of participation in ANZUS which specifically requested representation at the September 22 meeting of the Military Representatives. I said it was my understanding that Mr. Eden had sent similar messages to Mr. Webb and Mr. Casey.
I said that we had considered this problem carefully and while the British in a certain respect had made a strong case we felt that the time had not arrived when it was advisable to change the decision which had been reached on this question at the recent meeting of the Council in Honolulu. I said, however, that before the Secretary replied to Mr. Eden’s personal message that we wished to consult Mr. Casey and Mr. Webb on it and the purpose of this discussion was to ask if the two Embassies would report this conversation to their governments and let me know the reaction obtained as soon as possible as it was important to reply to Mr. Eden promptly. I said we assumed, inasmuch as this request came so shortly on the heels of the discussion and decision reached at Honolulu that both governments would agree with us that we should maintain the Honolulu position.
Mr. Lawrey made no comments of significance except to confirm that Mr. Casey had received a similar message from Mr. Eden.
Mr. Laking pointed out that this was a very difficult problem for Mr. Webb as he believed the New Zealand Government would be [Page 221] loath to turn down a second request on this matter from the U.K. He asked if the factor that ANZAM arrangements would be on the agenda could possibly be held to constitute a matter of special interest to the U.K. In this connection he referred to the Secretary’s remarks to Mr. Menzies that in due course perhaps some form of U.K. participation could be developed by bringing them in, for instance, when something of special interest was apt to come up and then broaden the practice. I said in reply that if the time were ripe to begin such a process I thought the ANZAM item might be the type of thing which could be utilized for that purpose. I said, however, that because of the broader general Far Eastern considerations that we felt that this was not the time to begin such a process. I said that as it was there had been a certain amount of adverse reaction in the Far East in the Philippines, for instance, to the Council meeting in Honolulu.
Mr. Laking and Mr. Lawrey both promised to report home and thought they would be able to obtain prompt replies for us. In the course of the conversation I told them we intended to inform the British Embassy that we had reconsidered the question and felt that the Honolulu decision should be maintained but that the Secretary was referring his reply to Mr. Eden until we have consulted Mr. Casey and Mr. Webb.
I also said that assuming we all agreed to maintain the Honolulu position on U.K. non-participation that we assumed the Australian and New Zealand Military would see that the British Military were fully informed on the September 22 meeting.3
- Dated Sept. 2, p. 213.↩
- Documentation on this second request has not been found in Department of State files.↩
In memoranda of telephone conversations held Sept. 12, Raynor stated that Moodie of the Australian Embassy had learned that Minister Casey, while anxious to meet the difficulty of the United Kingdom on the matter, could think of no practical means of giving effect to Eden’s desires at that stage, and that Laking had received word that Minister Webb agreed entirely that the United Kingdom should not be invited to the meeting of ANZUS military representatives. (Both 790.5/9–1252)
During a meeting held Sept. 18 with F.S. Tomlinson and R.H. Belcher, Counselor and First Secretary of the British Embassy, respectively, Raynor handed them the Secretary’s reply to Eden’s message. Text of the Secretary’s message has not been found in Department of State files but in a memorandum of conversation on the subject, Raynor stated: “I told Messrs. Tomlinson and Belcher that I could assure them that Mr. Eden’s request had been sympathetically considered but that the more we thought about this question the more firmly convinced we were that our position on this matter for the time being was the correct one. I referred to the adverse criticism in the Philippines and elsewhere in the Far East of even the ANZUS meeting of the three of us in Honolulu.” (790.5/9–1852)
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