MEMORANDUM NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL INFORMATION March 1,
1973
MEMORANDUM FOR: MR. KISSINGER [HK
initialed] FROM: JOHN
H. HOLDRIDGE [JHH
initialed] SUBJECT: Australian Prime Minister Asks Indonesian
President to Press Thailand for Removal of U.S. Bases There
According to the Australian record of Prime Minister Whitlam's discussions with
President Suharto in Jakarta
last month (passed to us by a "high Australian source" in Jakarta),
Whitlam asked
Suharto to discuss with
Thailand the need for an early removal of the U.S. military presence,
adding that he planned to take the matter up directly with Thailand in
the SEATO framework. Whitlam reasoned that the U.S.
military presence in Thailand would only provoke North Vietnam, which
would destabilize the situation in Indochina again. Whitlam alluded to his axiom
that, after the Korean War and the Geneva Accords on Indochina, the
great powers had lost the chance to secure peace in Asia, and that
Australia and others must now ensure that this does not happen
again.
Suharto politely demurred,
saying that some other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand might
very possibly feel a need for U.S. bases until they were able to build
sufficient national unity to withstand external pressures.
Hanoi as a Potential Threat
Suharto in the previous day's
discussion had also asserted that North Vietnam — as well as the PRC — still posed a subversive threat to
Southeast Asia, and suggested that Australia, New Zealand, and Japan
help economically as well as militarily these countries' efforts to
strengthen themselves against this threat. Suharto thus ranged himself against
Whitlam on an
additional score, since Whitlam has taken the position in a recent major public
statement of his foreign policy that North Vietnam must not be thought
of as replacing the PRC as a threat to
Southeast Asian stability, or that Thailand will now necessarily replace
South Vietnam as Hanoi's primary target. (Whitlam in that same statement
then went on to support Malaysia's neutralization scheme for Southeast
Asia, and to say that Australia would be mobilizing the support of
others for this scheme.) Whitlam has also withdrawn its military assistance to
South Vietnam and Cambodia.
Whitlam Differs with
Suharto on Re-structuring
Asian Regional Cooperation
During his first day's discussion with Suharto, Whitlam broached his plan for a wider regional grouping
— which he professes can develop consultative and cooperative practices
that will insure the peace and stability of Asia. Suharto rejected such an expansion
in the near future, saying that the most that can be hoped for would be
ASEAN's plan to bring Burma and the
four Indochinese states into its fold. Suharto suggested that Australia and others might become
observers at meetings of such an expanded ASEAN.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Malik subsequently indicated to the press
something of this difference between Whitlam and Suharto on an expanded regional
grouping. This was played in the Australian press as Suharto's rebuffing a rather naive
Whitlam proposal,
much to the consternation of Whitlam and his party. Whitlam in his second day's
talks with Suharto took the
line that he had "proposed" nothing, but was merely "exploring" the
possibility of expanded regional cooperation.
1 Source:
National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 504, Country Files, Far East, Australia,
January 1972–December 31, 1973. Secret. Sent for information.
Kissinger
initialed the memorandum on March 20.