811.24590/9–946
Memorandum for the File, by Mr. Edward T. Wailes of the Division of British Commonwealth Affairs
On the basis of the attached memoranda from the War and Navy Departments96 and subsequent telephone conversations with Captain [Page 622] Dennison of the Navy and Mr. Gerig of DA, I asked Mr. L. E. McIntire, First Secretary of the Australian Embassy, to call on me this afternoon to discuss Article VII of the Australian draft trusteeship agreement for New Guinea. Miss Beard of BC was present.
I told Mr. McIntire quite frankly that we felt Article VII of the Australian draft was not sufficiently explicit and that we greatly preferred Article IX of the New Zealand draft. He said he was not surprised to hear this comment. At the suggestion of Captain Dennison I then added that if the Australian Government adopted phraseology similar to Article IX of the New Zealand draft we, of course, would want them to consider such phraseology sufficiently broad and inclusive to provide the necessary means for their entering into a base agreement with respect to rights at Manus such as we had discussed with them on previous occasions.97 I added that we felt that the phraseology of New Zealand’s Article IX sufficiently inclusive to permit such an agreement and that we only wished to make sure that the Australian Government felt so likewise.98
- Neither printed. A War Department memorandum of August 23, signed by Colonel J. E. Bastion, Jr., of the General Staff Corps, noted that “the trusteeship agreement for New Guinea as proposed by Australia does not make any provision for the future use by U.S. Forces of the base we developed on Manus Island. Nor does the Aide-Mémoire mention any plans for providing an agreement on the use of Manus… The New Zealand form of trusteeship agreement is considered much more favorably by the War Department.” After suggesting that an attempt be made to persuade the Australians to revise their agreement to the form of the New Zealand agreement (that is, Article IX (3) of the New Zealand agreement) the War Department memorandum concluded: “In event the Australians decline to change the form of the agreement it is recommended that an expression of intent be obtained from the Australians with regard to their intentions on future military base agreements with the U.S.” (890.0146/8–2346) A similar point of view, stated in more general terms, was expressed by Captain R. L. Dennison, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Navy Department, in a letter of August 27 (890.0146/8–2746).↩
- Documentation on the discussions relating to military bases is found in vol. v, pp. 1 ff.↩
- The Embassy at Canberra had already been notified of this Government’s position in telegram 180, September 6. “Please press this point. …” (890.0146/9–646)↩