State-JCS Meetings, lot 61 D 417
Memorandum on the Substance of Discussions at a Department of State-Joint Chiefs of Staff Meeting1
[Extract]
2Mr. Nash: There is another question I would like to bring up. The 6th of April Radford will be holding his Five-Power Military Talks. In our recent talks with the French we were asked what progress had been made in developing the military position in regard to Chinese Communist aggression in Southeast Asia. I could only answer them by reviewing what has happened up till now. I think we will probably be pressed again in Paris to move further in developing our position.
[Page 285]General Collins: I personally don’t think any further military talks about Southeast Asia will be fruitful without further political guidance.
Mr. Nash: We need to get somewhere on our position after the Pearl Harbor talks, which will be unimpressive. We can expect to be under pressure in Paris to go forward towards some sort of understanding.
Mr. Allison: It was my impression in the ANZUS talks that Australia and New Zealand were somewhat closer toward our position. Could we not use them to put some pressure on the U.K.?
General Collins: It was my impression that the ANZUS talks were primarily addressed to the contingency of global war and it might be that the Australians and New Zealanders were addressing themselves to that question rather than the question of local aggression in Southeast Asia.
Mr. Nitze: It seems to me that we might undertake to try and get up some sort of draft of a political understanding which might be useful as guidance for military talks.
- A note on the title page of the source text reads: “Draft. Not cleared with any of participants.”↩
- A list of participants (20) forms part of the omitted material. Of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Collins and Admiral Fechteler attended. Matthews headed the Department of State group.↩