Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, East Asia-Pacific Region; Cambodia; Laos, Volume XVI

19. U.S. Minutes of the ANZUS Council Meeting, Department of State, Washington, October 1, 1958, 10:05 a.m.–5:55 p.m.¹

ANZ MC–1

Washington, October 1, 1958, 10:05 a.m.–5:55 p.m.

[Here follow a list of persons present (24) and discussion of the situation in the Taiwan Straits, the Middle East, Japan, and Indonesia.]

Minister Casey: The military aspects of SEATO, I don’t know whether you propose to take that up now with the Military Advisers speaking?

Secretary Dulles: I thought we might ask our Military Advisers to say something about that. Prior to that, however, I would just like to ask Mr. Allen Dulles to comment, if he felt like it, as to what we said just before his coming into the room. Allen, Mr. Casey was saying he felt rather discouraged at the lack of cooperation of the Asian members of SEATO in any effort to deal with the Communist subversive activities. Apparently in efforts being made at these meetings, we are the ones to make all sorts of suggestions, and they sit there and listen, but you can’t get any really effective response. Do you share that view?

Mr. Allen Dulles: I think one of the reasons for that is the problem of security. None of these nations—we are speaking about the South-east Asian nations—have any real security in their counter-subversive apparatuses. They are probably all penetrated. I believe they all know that they are all penetrated, and therefore each probably is ascribing even worse things to his neighbor, is not willing to do much talking in any body about their own efforts against the Communists, to go very far even in identifying Communists, and I think that is one of the great difficulties and it is a very real difficulty, because they are afraid that if there is any common plan that is worked out, that plan will become generally known to the Communists and be frustrated. And it worries us, I think it worries the British, and I think it worries you both also, because that is a very real situation, and you know there has been somewhat the same difficulty in that there is a Committee in NATO, and even though the security of NATO is a great deal better than the security in Southeast Asia, there has been a great reluctance on the part of the security services to come clean and to get together with the others in any common planning with respect to Communism for fear that that will leak out.

I have just come back from Europe, and I have discussed that matter with several of the security services of the NATO countries. Now that doesn’t go necessarily to the heart of the matter, but that is one of the reasons, I think, why anything in the nature of a secret or covert plan to combat Communism probably cannot be surfaced in an organization like SEATO or even in NATO. There probably are certain areas where one can operate in the more overt areas, where it doesn’t make much difference whether it is known or not, and where more can be done, and I think that ought to be more thoroughly explored.

Secretary Dulles: We might have a report from the Military Advisers at this time, if it is agreeable.

Prime Minister Nash: There is one other menacing danger associated with what Allen Dulles has said, what he has had to say, that it might be people with Communist background that are good character people, as you think, and talk with them, but they might have a loyalty to the Communist philosophy that would enable them or urge them almost to make sure that that wings to other countries, and that is probably one of the most menacing features of your own economy. Who can you trust? Some people say you can’t trust a Communist anyhow. I wouldn’t want to trust them with anything that I knew might be useful to somebody else outside. That is where the danger lies.

Minister Casey: Does what Mr. Allen Dulles says point to more bilateralism in anti-subversive work?

Mr. Allen Dulles: Yes, it does.

Minister Casey: You and the Thais and other people. I imagine that has not been overlooked.

Mr. Allen Dulles: No; that has not been overlooked and you both can play a more useful role and you both have been very helpful, I think, Mr. Casey, and more of that can be done. We try to help them develop organizations in this field that are reasonably effective to try to teach them security. The British are doing quite a good deal of the same type of work, and that, I think, can be effective.

Prime Minister Nash: I wouldn’t say you could talk in SEATO the same as you can talk in here. You can’t in SEATO.

Minister Casey: We haven’t been penetrated yet.

Prime Minister Nash: It is too difficult.

(Laughter)

Start Top Secret

Secretary Dulles: Shall we hear from the General? General Wells.

Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Wells:² Mr. Secretary, since the Military Planning Office of SEATO was formed in February of 1957, a great deal of useful spade work has been done on a planning basis. The latest edition of that work was in the logistics study³ of the forces that could be maintained in the Southeast Asian area through the existing ports and airports which are strictly limited in that area and both rather vulnerable too. This work was taken [to?] quite a stage by the planners on the spot, and it is being followed up when the meeting agreed with the suggestion of Admiral Felt’s that it was time now to put in a working party of logistical experts with which the planners can coordinate their work and arrive at more definite determination of the actual capacity of the forces, air and land, that could be employed in that area and maintained.

This planning office, as the Prime Minister of New Zealand has said, is now functioning more smoothly and more efficiently since the arrival of the New Zealand appointment of the Chief Planning Officer, Brigadier Thornton, who is a high-grade officer with a lot of experience in planning in both peace and war, and under him the team has settled down contentedly, and I am certain the results being obtained now are better than we have been able to obtain in the past. And I would think that as a forecast we could say that that little planning team will now give us the full value of which it is capable within the limitations which are inseparable from the SEATO organization and one of which has been so clearly indicated just previously by Mr. Allen Dulles.

Today also the specific discussions are getting under way in Honolulu, where our planners are meeting for the first time there and they have got a program which they plan to take a week to complete.⁴ The three most important subjects that were listed in the directive, that was the agreement between the countries, are being taken first in this week, [3 lines of source text not declassified]. They are also dealing with the question of the support for SEATO in both a cold and a limited war operation in Southeast Asia, and finally studying the logistic and base requirements in the Southeast Asian area, and that of course is on the next plane from the one that was dealt with in the SEATO planning office.

I would like to point out without those examinations to guide the member nations in the SEATO area, it is really difficult for national authorities to plan the force requirements and logistical requirements adequately. Each nation does need to know the extent to which it has to provide its own national logistical requirements or the extent to which it can depend upon a common logistical supply arranged by SEATO. Also whether it will be able to use the amphibious capability of another power, such as we did in 1939-45. Studies of those natures, I think, should provide a sound agreement on which the future development of the separate forces of each member can be based. And also those studies should supply and fill many of the gaps that so far SEATO planning has been unable to fill and does not look like filling.

I would like to say here a word on the military side of ANZUS as well. With this new organization making these studies in this area, which is the one of the four-country organization, it does mean that much of the military studies of ANZUS now go into that other forum, and there will be very little in the way of military studies left for the military representatives of ANZUS to undertake. That is not material. But what is most material is that we do not lose this close, intimate, and high-level contact that we have on the military level in ANZUS, and we would urge that we continue to have them, and in the meeting in Honolulu we agreed, they should press this point that we should agree to maintain the military level, even though there is not much work to do, and to maintain those close links of the same intimate contact, so that it is always available to us, and that it is not replaced by the other planning that we are doing, and so that in the event of an ANZUS emergency the arrangements ought to be able to function smoothly. Therefore we agree that we should continue on the same military basis as we have in the past in this ANZUS forum.

Maj. Gen. Weir:⁵ I have got nothing further to add to what General Wells has said on SEATO except to endorse his last remark on our agreement on the ANZUS military level, that we would like to preserve that military relationship, intimate relationship which we have developed over the last five or six years.

[1 paragraph (2½ lines of source text) not declassified]

Secretary Dulles: Admiral Felt.

Admiral Felt: I would like to add one thing, Mr. Secretary. One of the Military Advisers, Admiral Choudri⁶ made quite a point at the last SEATO Military Advisers meeting⁷ that we should plan in the framework of global, possibly nuclear war, and he didn’t get very far with it. He was a one-man party. But it is indicative of how they are thinking. I just wanted to mention this so that you would be alert to this. It might come up in Wellington at the next Council meeting.⁸

Do you want to add anything to that, General Wells?

Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Wells: No.

Secretary Dulles: I think it might be interesting, while it isn’t directly relevant to ANZUS or SEATO, if you care to take just a minute or two to state to us what is the military power which we now have in the Taiwan area.

Admiral Felt: In the Taiwan area?

Secretary Dulles: Yes.

Admiral Felt: Well, we have had quite an augmentation of United States military power in the past month. As you know, the backbone of our deterrent power in the Western Pacific has been the Pacific Fleet, the Seventh Fleet specifically. That Fleet was augmented by a carrier being sent from the Sixth Fleet through the Suez and around to the Pacific. At one point we had as many as five carriers out and actually in the needed area, so we will be able to maintain four in another month or so. There was considerable Air Force augmentation of interceptors and fighter bombers, and a squadron of C–47’s and associated air lift, to the point now where we have what you might call a tremendous force out there, able to engage in war with conventional weapons while at the same time maintaining a readiness to engage in atomic war at short notice.

Secretary Dulles: I thought it was interesting and in fact quite relevant in indicating the capacity which we have to mobilize very great power fairly quickly out there.

Admiral Felt: As one example, a squadron of F–86’s moved from Okinawa down to Taiwan in four and a half hours after the word “Go.” The squadron of F–104’s, the fastest airplane in the world, moved out in air transports and with their crews and all the air transport, and they were flying within a matter of four or five hours after arrival in Taiwan. It was a remarkable exhibition.

Minister Casey: In the talks that are going on, I think, or just going to begin in Pearl Harbor on a four-power basis, I understand amongst or in the agenda there is not at present a reference to any study of the military significance of an Indonesian attack on Western New Guinea. Would that be a matter that could be either added to this agenda, if it is not too late in the day, or a matter for discussion at some future seminars or conference? I don’t know whether that should be under SEATO or ANZUS.

Admiral Felt: Before the Military Planners could take that up, they would have to have some political policy guidance as to some of the assumptions, and this perhaps is the body to give it to us. One of the troubles with Plan Number Four before it was overtaken by events was that the assumptions do not obtain in the light of present-day conditions.

Prime Minister Nash: I just wonder if we could obtain any comments from those who are competent to make them with regard to transport of men and equipment from one point to another. You mentioned one from Okinawa to Taiwan. Suppose we had sort of small commitments, and it came to that, and we had no facilities for transferring them from where they were to where they were required.

Minister Casey: Air transport?

Prime Minister Nash: No, not necessarily. Not only air. First of all, the discussions that we have had, whether they were right or wrong, would suggest that there was no chance of safely transferring thousands by sea, by surface ships. There might be a fairly good chance of transferring the men and ultimately finding ways of making the equipment available by air. I wonder if the Admiral could give us some idea with regard to the truth of the statement? Is it just physically impossible to safely transfer men in thousands, one, two, five, ten, twenty to thirty thousand, into a given area by sea?

Admiral Felt: I can’t imagine where that statement came from, Mr. Prime Minister. There are two parts to it. One is transport and the other is safety. I don’t know where the emphasis might be put.

Prime Minister Nash: Transport is no good unless it is safe.

Admiral Felt: Then there are two aspects we need to consider. Are we transporting troops to be landed ashore in combat, or are we merely making an administrative lift. During the last war, now, there were thousands and thousands and thousands of soldiers who moved in troop ships by administrative lifts.

Prime Minister Nash: Yes.

Admiral Felt: On the other hand, fighting the Battle of the Islands, that was done with troops loaded to land ashore in combat. That is an entirely different thing. Now, the amphibious lift available to take troops and land them ashore in combat is limited. But the world shipping capacity is very, very large, and you must have quite a bit of your own merchant shipping, all of which could be converted to troop ships quite readily. But it depends on what we are talking about, Mr. Nash.

Prime Minister Nash: We have got no other than troop ships and some passenger ships that could be so used, but the general feeling is that it seems an unlikely transaction for it to be completely associated with the transfer of thousands of men by surface to an area where they might be most properly and usefully employed. You see, we had a commitment under certain circumstances, shall we say, to transfer 23,000 men. Now the statements that have been made, whether rightly or wrongly, I don’t know—I take more notice of what you say than what the other parties said—they said it is just physically impossible to transfer those men safely under present conditions irrespective of what happened in 1939.

Ambassador Beale:⁹ You mean because of the modern submarine?

Prime Minister Nash: Yes. That is what we wanted to do. Because there may be other means of transporting, transferring them. That is what we ought to know. But the statement with regard to the ships and men was that it looked—if there is affirmation—there is a lot of affirmation nowadays, if affirmation means anything—it was that it was impossible as an operation.

Admiral Felt: If we are putting the emphasis on safety—

Prime Minister Nash: Safety.

Admiral Felt: And we are talking about the submarine menace, it is thoroughly recognized that this menace of the Soviet and Chinese Communist submarine fleet is great. However, so are our antisubmarine capabilities. Here again it is not a hopeless thing. Antisubmarine warfare is a war of attrition. Now in any given convoy situation, dependent upon the situation in other areas, adequate protection can be given for convoys. By “adequate” I don’t mean that that convoy will get through unscathed. As you know, we lost an awful lot of ships in the Atlantic in World War II and almost lost that war until we got command of the situation. If we are talking in terms of a limited war down in your area of the world—

Prime Minister Nash: No, no. It would not be a limited war, unless you mean Southeast Asia is our area. It is not very likely to be much down our way.

Admiral Felt: You are making a contribution to a limited war.

Prime Minister Nash: To the north and to the east.

Admiral Felt: That would be a limited war, and so far—

Prime Minister Nash: Yes; for the time being.

Admiral Felt: So far we have had no submarine operation in a limited war. I would believe that if the Russians started to use their submarines in any kind of a war, we would get in then and we would be on the way to expanding it into a bigger war. Would you assess it like that, Mr. Secretary? In Korea, you remember, there was no submarine action whatsoever.

Prime Minister Nash: No.

Ambassador Beale: But if the Soviet were to loan its Soviet submarines to Soviet-trained Chinese Communists operating submarines actively in that area, would you still say we were on our way to a general war?

Secretary Dulles: I would think we would be on our way to a bigger war, yes.

Ambassador Beale: I can see that; yes.

Secretary Dulles: Whether it is general war in the sense that it would involve an exchange of nuclear weapons between the Soviet Union and the United States, I don’t think it necessarily follows. We would have a much more extended war, I believe, in the Far East than we have now, and without its necessarily leading to the other thing.

Prime Minister Nash: There are two pictures there, really. The really limited, normal war, insofar as you can limit it, the growth of it, both of the major parties, or two or three of them, are inclined to keep it to a local war, from being a global war. That is a certainly different picture to what a global war would be.

The transport facilities that I was thinking of for the moment, and I hope you are not giving too much time to our little country, would be facilities necessary to take those that are likely to be affected to a given area, to go to an area where they would be useful to fight in limited numbers. If the global war circumstances come, we would want to have ten times as many, perhaps more than that. At that point is the evidence available today such as to think that the possible carrying by surface ships is likely to be sound and safe? Or would it be better to think in terms of air traffic? It does not mean the air is always safe. It does not mean that at all. It might mean that the quickness of the handling or facilities to handle might take them to places where they wouldn’t be able to have landing. There would not be any ports. It is those two things that I would like to see, if there is something that would enable us to think differently. We are very small. You have to watch that. We would be likely to be the farthest away.

Admiral Felt: I could make this comment. In terms of the New Zealand-Australian-U.K. Navy contributions to the defense in the area, we would like to think that the effort is being put into antisubmarine warfare, and those navies have considerable capability if they get the necessary budgetary support to buy the modern equipment that they need.

I might make another comment: That surface transport is by far the cheapest and best way to transport bulk—that includes lots of men. Air transport is by far the most efficient transport of perishables and items that are urgently needed. It is necessary to have both. And if New Zealand is going to make a contribution of troops in any limited war situation, I think we should definitely plan to provide safe transport by surface certainly.

Minister Casey: Have you come to the end of the military?

Secretary Dulles: I thought we were approaching the end of that.

Minister Casey: I wonder if we would have Air Marshal Scherger have a word on that?

Air Marshal Sir Frederick Scherger:¹⁰ Perhaps I should stand to make myself seen and heard, sir.

One of our most pressing problems is to find airplanes with which we can replace our present operation infantry. If we want them and buy them in small numbers, we buy them from the manufacturing country, as we have with transports. We have bought the C–130, as with maritime antisubmarine we have bought the P2V5, and I hope we will have some P2V7. But our real difficulty is with the airplane which is now designed as the technical [tactical?] fighter. The Tactical Air Command here use extremely big airplanes; they are complex, they are sophisticated, and they are tremendously expensive both in cost and in the ground environment you need from which to operate them effectively. Both the airfield’s length and the strength of the airfield is such that in the Southeast Asian theater there are about five airfields from which they can operate. And if you add Admiral Felt’s four carriers, that makes nine. But it still leaves the opponent with a fairly easy problem, and we have been desperately seeking a small, versatile airplane which can range over the whole area and which can operate from the thousand and one 6000-foot strips left over from the last war and which still are there and from which commercial airplanes are still operating.

We believe we have found the airplane in a project which has been raised and was having a little difficulty here, the Northrop–156, which is a development of the T–38 supersonic trainer. It is a light airplane and can have a lot of sophistication in it, but we don’t want a lot of sophistication. We want it in a fairly cheap and uncomplicated form. It is the kind of thing we can build and build relatively cheaply, and it is the kind of airplane which could be used right throughout that area, where we ourselves are perhaps the most capable in the use of modern equipment. But we know that the Filipinos and Thais and the Pakistanis are having more than a little trouble in operating the F–86’s. They can fly them all right, but even they require a fairly good airfield, and their ferry range isn’t all that much. We want an airplane that can go across Australia and from the top end of Australia, across the Philippines, up to Singapore.

I found the philosophy in airplanes here is to build a single-seater airplane which costs over two million dollars a copy, which demands, if you are going to make it mobile, in-air refueling capabilities, which we can’t afford, and which requires an eight-to-eleven thousand foot runway. That kind of airplane is beyond our capabilities.

We find ourselves approaching now the time when it looks as though we are going to be priced out of being able to buy airplanes with which we can suitably arm ourselves. It is a fairly disturbing proposition, sir. And it is one which I thought perhaps, and Mr. Casey agreed, should be aired here, because it is the kind of military problem which I believe ANZUS could solve and I believe should solve. We are willing to build it, we are willing to operate it, and we are very willing to supply it, if we can manufacture it, to the whole SEATO area, if they can afford to buy it and if arrangements can be made for them to get them and use them. That is our problem, sir: How to get the airplane and where to get it—where to get it, rather than how to get it. Europe has nothing. The small NATO fighter which has been proposed to me, the F–91, is just like the Australian boomerang. It is never out of sight. It won’t go far enough. You have these F–105 airplanes, which are over $2,000,000 a copy. Even if we could afford them or build them in sufficient numbers, we couldn’t afford to operate them.

The same applies to the naval tactical fighter, the thing that carries ordinary, or shall I call them conventional bombs. I don’t know why these airplanes are so complex and so sophisticated unless perhaps it is that they are all designed around a nuclear capacity, which of course we don’t possess. We have to base whatever we have on a conventional capacity. I think that is it.

Secretary Dulles: Do you want a reply?

Mr. Irwin: Marshal Scherger brings up a very difficult type of air operation which has been under consideration by the Pentagon for some time in connection with the Northrop F–156 aircraft. I am not completely up to date as to what the current status of the studies are on it, Air Marshal. We had thought of it at one time in connection with NATO and the European countries as well as in the Far East and the Pacific. From the point of view of assisting and financing the manufacture and sale of the planes, the question really revolved around finding a market for it after you had gone all through the expense of development and production in large enough quantities to justify the expense. It was thought at one time that Germany might be interested in the N–156, and possibly Japan. Japan has decided against it and went to Grumman, I believe. Germany also appeared to have rejected it, although I am not sure whether that is completely final or not. So the problem is, if it were available, it is still on the drafting board or has not even been produced in prototype. The question really is, by the time you produce it, is it an adequate airplane for the period of 1961–1962, the period that it is coming in? There is question about it in Europe, and I think there is also considerable question, at least as far as Japan and that part of the Far East area goes. There is undoubtedly a need for a less-sophisticated aircraft that can meet the problem. Of course, you run into the question, then, as to the control of the air. It would be useless in an area when you are facing a MIG–17 or MIG–19, although obviously you aren’t going to have a big MIG–17 or MIG–19 everywhere you are going to need another airplane. It poses a great problem of financing as well as the tactical application of it. I think the Air Marshal is coming over to the Pentagon tomorrow, I understand.

Air Marshal Sir Fredrick Scherger: That is right; yes.

Ambassador Beale: Mr. Secretary, could I supplement what Air Marshal Scherger said. This is quite a serious problem for Australia. We have got a first-class aircraft industry in the country. We have a profound political and military necessity for maintaining that aircraft industry in Australia. It is in danger of languishing because we just haven’t got aircraft to make and we can’t plan ahead. A year or two ago we made a decision to buy and probably also to build to sell the F–104, but when a mission came over here,¹¹ we were, I think, very rightly told, “Don’t be silly. Don’t build that one. It is far too sophisticated for you. If that type of aircraft has to be used in a war which you are planning to participate in, we in the United States will be there with that aircraft.” And quite rightly we would have made a great mistake to build the F–104. And we were also told at the same time, “Why not have a look at the Northrop and one or two others?” This was on the technical level.

The minister in charge of aircraft at the time we were agonizing over this agreed. Now we are told by our air force advisers that this is the type of plane which will suit Australia’s needs. It is not yet, as you say, Mr. Irwin, quite off the drawing board. I think something like one dozen prototypes ought to be made and flown and tested before anybody can say for sure that it is the aircraft. Now what I think the Air Marshal has said is, will the United States give some consideration to making the funds available to take that airplane up to that stage, because if it proves itself I think it is pretty likely, I think it is certain that the Air Force would be advising the Australian Cabinet that “This is the airplane we want and this is the airplane we should build in Australia.” I think New Zealand might become interested in the same sort of aircraft, because it has a characteristic to suit our particular needs. And if we can’t get that one or something very like it, we just have nowhere else to turn for another one to build. We were told to build the Sabres for another year or two or three more. But in the meantime we have a real fight, we have a real professional difficulty in making up our mind as to what type of aircraft it should be.

Mr. Irwin: We have maintained at least to date going ahead on the N–156, trying to resolve this question or problem, but in large measure, it comes down to the financial problem with us, because it is financed by military assistance funds. The question is whether or not if you finance it through the ultimate to have enough prototypes to decide whether it is worth going ahead, are you going to have enough customers to justify the research and development and production of it when you have diminishing military assistance side to keep it up. [sic] They cut the program three hundred million dollars this past year, and we anticipate this next year it will be more difficult.

We have a great many calls on the program throughout the world. We are going to have the situation with Taiwan, and Taiwan has eaten into the program a great deal more than the normal expectancy would have been if there had not been the Taiwan crisis, because equipment had to go to the Chinese Nationalists because of the ammunition situation, etc. So you have a choice of not only do you have a question as to the people that actually would buy this airplane in the time frame of the early 1960’s but you have also the question of priority of the use of the military assistance funds over these few years until there would be production. So it presents a grave complication that the enthusiasm for the airplane itself has to date not been sufficient to justify final decision to go ahead with it.

Minister Casey: So far as the United States is concerned.

Mr. Irwin: The most likely customers had seemed to be Japan and Germany.

Minister Casey: If these aircraft were brought to the prototype stage, isn’t it likely that you would have potential customers in the Asian-SEATO partners in the smaller countries, and it would suit Australia and New Zealand, and there would be more generalized use than your highly-specialized aircraft now.

Mr. Irwin: That seems to be a possibility.

Minister Casey: I think the Air Marshal is seeing Mr. Quarles and Mr. Douglas tomorrow.

Mr. Irwin: I would suggest he also speak to our MAP people.

Minister Casey: I think that is worth raising.

Secretary Dulles: Yes.

[Here follows discussion of unrelated subjects.]

Military Planning

Major General Weir: I am sorry, sir, am I breaking in? It was just before we closed, on the item of Indonesia, sir, on behalf of the Military Representatives, to ask the Council to take note of that study which had been done by the ANZUS planners in March about the circumstances which you have just described and which have been very largely overtaken by events. As General Wells has mentioned, the matter is being restudied at Pearl Harbor this week under the four-power council.

Minister Casey: It was a point, Mr. Secretary, that I brought up before, the suggestion that we might ask the military planners, the four-power, I suggest, planners at Pearl Harbor, to take on a study of the implications of an Indonesian attack on West New Guinea. That would be a study at the planners level and without any implication that governments—

Secretary Dulles: I would like to defer giving an actual political decision on that matter until I have had a chance to talk it over a little bit more with Mr. Robertson and with our military people.

Minister Casey: Could I mention that to the British, the fact that I have made this suggestion to you?

Secretary Dulles: Yes. I don’t think that there is any reason why the British should not be kept fully abreast of any of our discussions here.

Minister Casey: Because if it is a four-power thing, they will in due course be informed anyway.

Prime Minister Nash: Do you feel it necessary to get the best out of the area from the protective, democratic point of view? Then we ought to get the British in. If they don’t know what you are doing, and we don’t know what they are doing, then we are in a bad spot.

Secretary Dulles: They would play quite a role. In fact they did play quite a role in cooperation with us before.

Minister Casey: Could I just mention one other subject in just two words, a very bad subject, disarmament, merely to ask, to say that we would be very happy to be kept informed of the progress of negotiations on disarmament that have been going through your mind.

Secretary Dulles: Well, that will not overwork you or us. (Laughter)

I just saw a brief flash report which came in on the note we received from Moscow today on this meeting planned for the 31st of October on suspension of testing, which said everything had been agreed to except the level of the meeting, and that they insist now that there should be a Foreign Ministers meeting.

Minister Casey: Could I repeat a thing, sir, that I said last year: That is, that if at any time you in the United States have in mind that you would like to have any bases or depots on Australian soil, I hope you will be not in any way inhibited in bringing it up to us, and the use of Woomera.

Mr. Irwin: We appreciated that very much at the time we sent the technical mission.¹²

Minister Casey: The use of Woomera.

Ambassador Beale: We can guarantee 365 days of visibility. That is better than you can do at Cape Canaveral.

Mr. Irwin: All the distances, once you start from South Australia and moving northwesterly—

Minister Casey: And we have now got, as you know, Christmas Island.

Ambassador Beale: We are developing the intermediates with the British, and I think there is some American interest in it, but there it is.¹³

[Here follows discussion of unrelated subjects.]

1. Source: Department of State, Conference Files: Lot 63 D 123, CF 1128. Top Secret; Limit Distribution. Attached to a covering note dated November 3 by Dudley Miller of the Reports and Operations Staff. The portion printed here is from the afternoon session which began at 2:25 p.m. The full text of the minutes is included in the microfiche supplement.
2. Chairman of the Australian Chiefs of Staff Committee.
3. Not further identified.
4. Reference is to four-power talks among military planners from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand.
5. Major General Cyril E. Weir, Chief of the New Zealand General Staff.
6. Of Pakistan.
7. The Ninth SEATO Military Advisers Meeting was held in Bangkok September 16–18.
8. Scheduled to be held in Wellington April 8–10, 1959.
9. Howard Beale, Australian Ambassador to the United States.
10. Chief of Staff, Royal Australian Air Force.
11. Apparent reference to a group headed by Sir Philip McBride, then Australian Minister of Defense, which visited Washington in late May and early June 1957.
12. A U.S. technical mission spent most of October 1957 in Australia. A brief description of its activities is contained in despatch 186 from Canberra, November 12, 1957. (Department of State, Central Files, 743.5–MSP/11–1257) Further details concerning implementation of its recommendations are in ANZ B–3/51, September 26, 1958, a background paper prepared for the October 1 ANZUS Meeting. (ibid., Conference Files: Lot 63 D 123, CF 1128)

13. For text of the communiqué of this meeting, see Department of State Bulletin, October 20, 1958, p. 612.

    According to a memorandum of a telephone conversation between Dulles and President Eisenhower at 6:02 p.m., the Secretary commented on the meeting as follows: “The Sec called right back to say they finished the ANZUS meeting—he said it was a good meeting. Nash is a bit wobbly but we have a good communiqué backing our position in Taiwan, Quemoy and Matsu. Nash came from NZ and Casey also. The Sec said they relieved the Pres of social obligations—they were willing to do it on an informal basis.” (Notes by Phyllis D. Bernau; Eisenhower Library, Dulles Papers, Telephone Conversations with the President)