Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955–1957, Southeast Asia, Volume XXII

269. Memorandum of a Conversation, Department of State, Washington, September 24, 1957¹

Washington, September 24, 1957

SUBJECT

• The Problem of West New Guinea

PARTICIPANTS

• The Secretary
• Foreign Minister Luns, The Netherlands Foreign Minister
• Ambassador van Roijen, The Netherlands Ambassador
• Mr. C. Burke Elbrick, Assistant Secretary, EUR
• Mr. H.G. Torbert, Jr., WE

After a tour d’horizon Prime Minister Luns said that he regretted very much having to raise one unpleasant subject. He had a cable from his Prime Minister instructing him to register a protest with the Secretary about one paragraph in his article in the October issue of Foreign Affairs magazine.² This paragraph mentioned article 14 of the United Nations Charter concerning situations which are likely to impair the general welfare of friendly relations among nations and characterizing the “West Irian” situation as one which might disrupt world peace and comity. He said there were three reasons why the Dutch Government was very unhappy about this reference. In the first place, they dislike the name “West Irian” which is not the proper geographic designation of this area but only a name developed by the Indonesians for propaganda purposes. It is from the Malayan tongue rather than that of the native Papuan. Secondly, the Netherlands Government had understood that the United States was restudying its position on the West New Guinea question in the United Nations and, thirdly, it very much regretted to see Indonesia getting support for its thesis that it had a valid justification for raising this question in the United Nations.

The Secretary said that he frankly had not realized the complications of the name in this context. This section in the article had originated, he believed, with someone else in the first instance. He had thought that the name Irian was somewhat like using the name Taiwan rather than the Western form Formosa which we were used to, and he recalled various political connotations that we had encountered in the spelling of the name of the city Peking. The Secretary requested that we check with our authorities on the name designation. As to the question as a whole, he said that we certainly had no intention of taking sides and that the implication of the wording in his article might be that the threat to the peace came from Indonesia. He could see, however, that the phrasing was possibly subject to misconception; he did not know exactly what could be done about the matter at the moment but he would undertake to clarify his position should this article be used against us in the debate in the UN.³

Prime Minister Luns said that he and Ambassador van Roijen had both been sure that this reference was unintentional and there was nothing personal in this protest but it was necessary to point out that the use of this phrase could become a source of some slight friction between the United States and the Netherlands. The Netherlands feel the United States should support them in the United Nations and help to call off the agitation generated by the Indonesians. They would also hope that we would see fit to tell the Indonesian Government that its behavior on the Dutch debts was exceedingly bad and while new countries had certain privileges it was also incumbent upon them to keep their side of the bargains made.

The Secretary said that we had started to restudy the question of our position in the UN on West New Guinea; we have not yet made a final decision but he thought only fair to give Foreign Minister Luns notice that the weight of our opinion was so far against changing our formal position on the matter. This was because we felt that a change this year might jeopardize our influence with certain elements in Indonesia which we thought should be maintained. Foreign Minister Luns said that he was very sorry indeed to hear this; that he felt unfortunately we might be influenced by certain Indonesian statesmen, some of whom were very good men, who he had found frequently talked out of both sides of their mouths. When they talked to the United States they blamed all the troubles in Indonesia on Dutch obduracy in giving up West New Guinea. They then turned around and talked to the Dutch disclaiming any personal interest in West New Guinea whatever but saying it was only Sukarno who insisted on it. Our assessment of Sukarno’s position as rather equivocal was entirely correct but supporting him would not help to bring him around to our way of thinking. The Secretary said that this was very interesting and he felt that Mr. Luns should talk to Mr. Walter Robertson, who felt very strongly that any change of position in favor of the Dutch would alienate us with the Moslems. Mr. Luns and the Ambassador indicated that they had an appointment to talk with Mr. Robertson.⁴ Mr. Luns explained at length the attitude of a number of Far Eastern statesmen who all realized the Dutch position was morally right, but politically they could not support it.

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 756C.022/9–2457. Secret. Drafted by Torbert.
2. The text of the article, entitled “Challenge and Response in United States Foreign Policy,” is also printed in AFP: Current Documents, 1957, pp. 35–52.
3. Dulles explained his position in a letter of October 3 to Lodge, noting that if any aspect of such issues came before the General Assembly, the U.S. position would be made known through the U.S. Delegation. A copy of the letter was given to the Netherlands Minister on October 14 and is attached to a memorandum of conversation of that date by Lancaster. (Department of State, Central Files, 756C.00/10–1457)
4. See footnote 10, Document 271.