296. Letter From the Director of the Office of British Commonwealth and Northern European Affairs (Raynor) to the Chairman of the Operations Coordinating Board Working Group on Antarctica (Dufek)2
Dear Captain Dufek: The receipt is acknowledged of your letter of November 18, 19543 requesting submission of a statement of the Department’s interests and requirements relative to the United States Antarctic expedition being planned for the 1955/56 season. Reply has been delayed beyond January 15, in view of the absence of any requirements of the kind necessitating reservations of space on the expedition. The following, however, is a summary of this Department’s interests in such expeditions.
The interests of the Department of State in Antarctica expeditions are largely derived from other United States interests in that region as they affect our foreign relations. Such interests can hardly be stated completely except in relation to the plans of other departments and agencies. For this reason the process of determining, through the Operations Coordinating Board, what activities will be undertaken on the next expedition is of particular importance to this Department. General comment may be useful, however, on the ways in which foreign relations become involved.
The general interests of the United States require that our Antarctic rights be protected and advanced as much as possible, within the limits of our best judgment of the possible future worth of the Antarctic. On the other hand, the damage to our relations with other countries from some kind of activities could be out of all proportion to the anticipated United States gain. Thus the balance is required in each instance to determine whether the anticipated [Page 608] benefit to our Antarctic rights and knowledge is sufficient to justify the expected effects upon our foreign relations.
It is not likely that tangible returns from our efforts in Antarctica will be large enough in the foreseeable future to make large expenditures seem worthwhile. If disillusionment with the lack of “profit” from the venture should cause a sharp curtailment, the expenditures already made might be largely wasted as far as strengthening United States rights is concerned. In the interests of continuity of national effort, therefore, it is highly important not to “over-sell” the Antarctic in an effort to obtain popular support or to burden the Antarctic program with activities which have no essential relation to the acquisition of needed information not obtainable elsewhere or to the necessary maintenance of United States rights. As has already been seen, large-scale Antarctic activity by the United States tend to call forth greater competitive efforts from other countries, with the possible result of destroying the net advantage the United States had hoped to gain.
To some extent these are problems of properly choosing the areas in which United States expeditions will operate, in relation to the areas of operations and claims of friendly countries. This problem cannot be settled under present circumstances by marking out areas in which United States operations would be permitted or forbidden. The areas of operations for 1955/56, as now understood, are not expected to cause serious difficulties with other countries. An approach to the general problem is proposed in the paper submitted January 21, which is now before the OCB Working Group.4
Sincerely yours,
- Source: Department of State, Central Files, 031.1102/1–3155. Secret.↩
- See see Foreign Relations, 1952–1954, vol. I, Part 2, p. 1766.↩
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Not further identified. Presumably a reference to the earliest version of the special report later circulated in revised form as the OCB Staff Study on the location of U.S. Antarctic interests, dated March 29. (Department of State, S/S-OCB Files: Lot 62 D 430, Antarctica—5424/1)
Captain George Dufek, accompanied by Captain Gerald Ketchum, Deputy Commander of the U.S. Naval Support Force Antarctica, called on Grant G. Hilliker of the Office of British and Northern European Affairs on February 10 to discuss future plans for U.S. expeditions to the Antarctic with particular reference to the possibility of locating U.S. installations at Ross Island in the western part of the New Zealand claim. Hilliker told Dufek and Ketchum that the critical question of such an installation at Ross Island was whether the United States would insist on a claim under existing U.S. policy. (Memorandum for the files, February 10; Ibid., Central Files, 031.1102/2–1055)
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