Office of the Historian

13. Letter From Prime Minister Macmillan to President Eisenhower1

London, April 18, 1958.

During my tour in the Far East2 I was very conscious of the defense problems of the area.

On the whole, I think we are not doing too badly there. I am glad that the recent SEATO Council Meeting went off so well. It has helped, I am sure, to consolidate our alliance more firmly.

It seemed to me, however, while I was out there, that there was one gap in our approach to the defence problems of the area. I felt very strongly that there was need for the four countries which are in a position to deploy effective defence forces in the area (namely, our two countries together with Australia and New Zealand) to undertake, on a basis of complete frankness, some joint consideration of defence policy in South East Asia.

We must not, of course, do anything that might weaken SEATO. We must therefore avoid anything that would look like forming an inner circle of SEATO Powers. At the same time I think you will agree that we cannot honestly put all our cards on the table in the SEATO forum. And, if there is to be any effective military planning for that area, it must be done, unobtrusively, by the four Powers which alone can deploy effective forces in the area.

I should therefore like to suggest that without setting up any new machinery or institutions we should have frank and full discussions on what our forces are doing and can do in South East Asia. These discussions should be quite informal, and we should have to make sure that they were held so unobtrusively as to attract no attention.

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If you feel able to agree to this situation, I will ask Harold Caccia, as a first step, to take the matter up with the State Department and the Pentagon in order to find out their ideas as to where and how the discussions should take place, and what subjects could most usefully be studied.3

  1. Source: Department of State, Presidential Correspondence: Lot 66 D 204. Top Secret.↩
  2. Prime Minister Macmillan left London for a tour which included visits to Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, India, Pakistan, and Ceylon. He returned to London on February 14.↩

  3. Printed from an unsigned copy. Secretary Dulles discussed this letter, among other topics, with President Eisenhower on April 23. His memorandum describing this part of the conversation reads:

    “I said that this was a matter of some delicacy because it was in a way covered by the ANZUS Treaty and talks thereunder, and Australia and New Zealand had historically been rather anxious to keep this a three-power arrangement rather than four-power. I recalled the history of that Treaty (which I had negotiated) and Churchill’s criticism of the Labor Government for having permitted Australia and New Zealand to make an independent arrangement with the US. The President thought that the best line of reply might be to ask Macmillan whether the approach he suggested had been cleared with Australia and New Zealand. I said I had not yet had an opportunity to talk to Secretary Walter Robertson about this and would like to get his judgment before the President replied.” (Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, Meetings with the President)

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