Office of the Historian

149. Telegram From the Secretary of State to the Department of State1

Honolulu, March 14, 1957.

Dulte 12. Eyes only Acting Secretary for President from Secretary.

Dear Mr. President:

I have been reflecting on my flight from Australia to Honolulu on two long-range matters. The first is the eagerness of Australia to develop itself into some kind of a defense production base in the Far East. They do not want any charity but enough business to permit of acceptable unit costs. The whole attitude of Australia is one of an eager desire to meet any conditions to cooperate with the United States. Their dependability and geographical location are such that it seems to me more thought should be given to this topic as a long range program. It has advantages over Japan and there are some risks in depending wholly upon Japan.2

The second thing is Antarctica. I believe that our policy of not making any claims ourselves and not admitting any claims of others is getting us nowhere and encouraging the Russians to develop what may in years ahead prove to be a very important base of operations from which to threaten the southern hemisphere. According to the [Page 331] Australians possibilities for Soviet submarine base already exist. I believe we should have a fresh review of our policy by the NSC.3

Faithfully yours, Foster.

Dulles
  1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 790.5/3–1457. Top Secret. Sent from CINCPAC.↩
  2. In his memorandum of a conversation held with Menzies at 10 a.m., March 13, Dulles stated:

    “Mr. Menzies discoursed at some length about the necessity of Australia coordinating its defense production effort with that of the United States. He said that from a logistic standpoint this was necessary and he felt that it was in the interests of the United States to have a dependable production base available to it in the Western Pacific. He spoke particularly of plane production and of the fact that their cost would be awfully prohibitive unless we could do some purchasing ourselves of our models produced in Australia.” (Memorandum by Dulles; Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, General Memoranda of Conversation)

    ↩
  3. For documentation on U.S. policy with regard to Antarctica, see vol. XI, pp. 607 ff.↩