Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961–1963, Volume XXIII, Southeast Asia

258. Memorandum of Conversation⁰

Washington, April 17, 1962, 2:34 p.m.

SUBJECT

• Dutch Cabinet Consideration of West New Guinea

PARTICIPANTS

• United States
  • The Secretary
  • Governor Harriman, Assistant Secretary, FE
  • Mr. William R. Tyler, Act. Asst. Secty., EUR
  • Mr. Galen L. Stone, WE
• Netherlands
  • Ambassador van Roijen
  • Mr. E.L.C. Schiff, Minister
  • Jonhkeer Huydecoper, Counselor

Ambassador van Roijen called at his request following his return from more than a week’s consultation in The Hague. The Secretary said that we were very much encouraged by the determined effort of the Dutch Government to be as responsive as possible to Ambassador Bunker’s proposals. Ambassador van Roijen said that it had been very difficult for his Government to reach a decision on this matter. The main trouble had been that the interests of the Papuans were not adequately safeguarded. This was a very real concern to the Dutch Government. It was a matter of conscience to them. They would not agree to a mere face-saving device which was merely a facade. To do so would in the Dutch view be something dishonest. The second Cabinet meeting had taken place on Friday, April 13. The Ambassador said he was not present at that meeting, but he had spoken to the various ministers beforehand. At that meeting the decision was taken to draft the various letters.¹ The main point was that the Dutch Government did not feel it could accept the Bunker plan unless certain modifications and clarifications were made regarding the interests of the Papuans. The Government did not feel that it was up against force majeure either in the political or military sense.

The Secretary asked what the latest Dutch information was regarding developments in the West New Guinea area. He wondered if our impression was correct that things had been relatively quiet over the past week. Ambassador van Roijen replied that things had been relatively quiet recently. Prior to the past week, infiltrations had taken place, but by and large the individuals involved were rather a pathetic lot. Once they ran out of ammunition or food, they either surrendered voluntarily or were brought in by the natives. They were really no problem whatsoever.

The Secretary said he wanted to get a feel of the situation to know whether the very strong representations that we had made in Djakarta had had any effect.² He added that we noted that Nasution had made a further broadcast that day which indicated that the Indonesians were still keeping the heat on. Ambassador van Roijen said that there had been no let up in Indonesian psychological warfare. On the contrary, this has been kept at a very high level and would probably continue until the Indonesians knew that the territory would be transferred to them.

The Secretary said that on the basis of his reading of the various letters, it appeared to him that the Dutch did not reject the time-sequence contained in the Bunker proposals, but that they were concerned regarding adequate safeguards for the interests of the native population. Ambassador van Roijen confirmed that the time-sequence was no longer a problem to them. However, he stressed that automatic transfer of the territory to Indonesia did not hold any safeguards for the population. Under the Bunker plan it was left to the Dutch to prevent any outbreak by the Papuans against the Indonesians. Thus, the automatic transfer was something very dangerous. The Ambassador said that he, of course, could see that the Indonesians wanted to be sure that they would be given administration over the territory by a fixed date. In the Bunker proposals, no provision was made regarding safeguards for the population.

In response to the Secretary’s question as to the type of safeguard that the Ambassador envisaged, Ambassador van Roijen said that the Dutch wanted a provision in the proposal that transfer of the territory would take place only provided the condition of the population permitted such transfer. The Secretary asked if this judgment would be made by the United Nations. Ambassador van Roijen replied that the judgment would have to be made by an impartial authority. There would be a period of Indonesian administration before the plebiscite was envisaged. From the Dutch standpoint, however, they would prefer to see the United Nations administration continue up until the Papuans were given the opportunity to express freedom of choice. The Ambassador said that he had told the Cabinet such an extended United Nations administration was unobtainable and that in the view of the State Department, there must be a period of pure Indonesian administration before the plebiscite took place. The Ambassador said that the role of the United Nations should be specified to show that the United Nations had real authority. The United Nations plebiscite authority must have real control with respect to the plebiscite. This had been the main concession to the Bunker plan.

The Secretary said he had tried to distill out of the several letters the key points involved, and he had noticed that the first of these was a need of safeguards for the population at the time of transfer. Ambassador van Roijen interjected that this would have to be provided for in conjunction with both transfers; i.e., the transfer to the United Nations and, secondly, the transfer to Indonesia.

The Secretary said it was clear that the activity of the United Nations plebiscite administration would have to be gone into thoroughly and would have to be spelled out. As he had understood from the various points which the Ambassador had raised in his letter to Ambassador Bunker, they seemed essentially to be a spelling out of paragraph four of the Bunker proposal. He asked if this was correct that it was mainly paragraph four that the Dutch were concerned with. The Ambassador replied affirmatively, but added that this should not be taken to mean that the other matters were not important, also. At the time of transfer of administration to the United Nations the attitude of the Papuans would have to be taken into account since they might turn against the Dutch at that point, if they felt they had been betrayed by them. Thus, the problem of a security force arose chronologically even before the question of self-determination which was covered by paragraph four.

The Secretary asked if The Hague considered the timing envisaged in the Bunker proposal satisfactory. Ambassador van Roijen said that the matter of timing had met with no objection so long as the interests of the Papuans could be safeguarded. No specific objections had been raised as regards the timing. The Secretary said that he supposed that in a situation where Dutch administrators had been working intimately with the Papuans, and these Papuans were the most articulate ones, it was almost inevitable that they would tend to express opinions which were in accord with the Dutch. He wondered how the Dutch might be able to defuse this situation and obtain a genuinely unbiased Papuan expression of opinion. Ambassador van Roijen pointed out that it was not only the Dutch who had influenced the attitudes of the Papuans, but this matter went back to the 16th Century when the Sultan of Tidore used to go to the territory to recruit slaves. During the last war there had been the Japanese occupation, and now there were Indonesian broadcasts which had been counter-productive in terms of influencing the Papuans to be favorably disposed to Indonesia. He was sure, however, that an effort in this direction would start as soon as the United Nations administration took over. The Secretary said he understood that the plan that Foreign Minister Luns had submitted to the United Nations last fall did not call for expression of choice by the Papuans. He presumed this had been because the duration of the United Nations control had been an indefinite one. Ambassador van Roijen said that provisions had been made for free Indonesian access to the people, but the Indonesians had said that this was not sufficient and they wanted administration of the area for a period before any plebiscite.

The Secretary asked how the Dutch assessed their influence with the Papuans and wondered if the Dutch were to say to the Papuans that the United Nations would be present in West New Guinea to assure their self-interest, and if the Dutch further were to inform them that they should agree to this arrangement, he wondered what the effect on the Papuans would be. The Ambassador said that the Papuans were a highly intelligent people so that it would be impossible to deceive them. It would be necessary for the Dutch to say there would be a period of Indonesian administration before they were given an opportunity for the expression of free choice. The Secretary commented that again this came back to the realities of the arrangements of paragraph four of the Bunker proposal. Ambassador van Roijen added that there would be some inclination on the part of the Papuans to say that the Dutch were selling them down the river.

The Secretary said that to the extent that this involved building on paragraph four of the Bunker proposals, he supposed we should try and get Malik back here and resume talks about it. Ambassador van Roijen said there was also the matter of United Nations security forces. Ambassador Schurman had raised this subject with U Thant the day before, and U Thant had seemed to think it would be possible for the United Nations to recruit such forces. Not only the Dutch troops, but also the Dutch police force would have to be phased out. The Secretary asked what percentage of the police force was composed of local Papuans. Ambassador van Roijen replied that he did not know the number in the police force, but he did know that something like 60 percent of the people in the local administration were Papuans. The Ambassador said he was much concerned about the continued availability of the lower-level Dutch administrators. He understood that the Bunker proposal envisaged that these people would remain on for a time. He was afraid, however, as soon as it became known that there was to be a transfer of administration, these people would rush back to Holland in order to get such jobs as were available. They would feel that those returning first would get the best jobs. This was only human nature.

The Secretary said that the situation by and large turned on what was not said in the Bunker proposals. He wondered if the time had not come to get Malik back here and endeavor to spell out in greater detail what was involved. Ambassador van Roijen said that Malik would only return if the Dutch agreed to the principle of transfer, and they would only agree to transfer if there were sufficient safeguards for the interests of the Papuans. Mr. Tyler said that this was precisely the object of the talks. The Secretary pointed out that the Bunker proposals could not be much more than a statement of principle. Ambassador van Roijen commented that the Bunker proposals spelled out in great detail the manner in which transfer of the territory would be made, but left very vague the manner in which the Papuans would be given a choice in their future. The Dutch wanted to know what arrangements were going to be made to safeguard the interests of the Papuans before they agreed to the transfer of administration to Indonesia. The Secretary said that there were differences in the stages and pointed out that there would be no agreement until agreement had first been reached on an agenda. If the principle of transfer to Indonesia was in itself not a basic obstacle, then there ought to be a disposition on Sukarno’s part to give the Dutch the assurance they wanted regarding the interests of the Papuans. The Secretary pointed out that the Dutch would not have reached real agreement until formal negotiations had been concluded.

Ambassador van Roijen wondered why paragraphs one and two of the Bunker proposal had been so clear and paragraph four had been so vague. The Secretary said that he did not see how the five or six important points which the Ambassador had raised could be worked out except in actual discussion with the Indonesians. Ambassador van Roijen said that there was also the question of a United Nations resolution which would be involved and added that it would seem that the Dutch would not have to wait for a United Nations resolution if they could get certain assurances on safeguarding the rights of the Papuans. The Secretary referred to the Ambassador’s earlier reference to impartial judgment of the timing of transfer. Such impartial judgment could range all the way from the General Assembly itself to the Acting Secretary General himself. He wondered what the Dutch had in mind. Ambassador van Roijen said he had no instructions on this point, but that his idea was it would be the Secretary General, based on recommendations of his representative in West New Guinea whether that representative were High Commissioner or something else.

Mr. Schiff said that he presumed that a United Nations resolution would authorize the Secretary General to cosign the Dutch-Indonesian agreement so he could commit funds, etc., and would require that the Secretary General report back to the General Assembly. Ambassador van Roijen said that he was not sure that that language would be strong enough.

The Secretary said that he understood Ambassador Bunker would be talking with him later in the afternoon.³ He did not see how the Bunker proposals could be revised without further discussion between the parties. Ambassador van Roijen said that it might be possible to add a covering letter to the agreement which would spell out these points. The Dutch would agree to resume the talks on such a basis but without signing the Bunker agreement. The Secretary pointed out that at no time was it envisaged that the Dutch would have to sign the Bunker agreement. The Bunker proposals contained a skeleton only on which the flesh would have to be added by further negotiations. As we saw the matter, the Dutch were not bound to anything until they had obtained an agreement at the end of the road.

Ambassador van Roijen said this was true with the exception of the Indonesian insistence on transfer of administration. The Secretary pointed out that this, however, was not the only issue in the Bunker proposals. In such an event, Ambassador Bunker would say to the Indonesians that there remained this further aspect of the matter. Ambassador van Roijen commented this was like signing a blank check. Governor Harriman pointed out that such a check could not be cashed, however, until the name of the bank had been filled in. Certain objectives had been set down in the Bunker proposals, but they all had to be spelled out.

Ambassador van Roijen said that the Indonesians wanted the Dutch to commit themselves to transfer. The Dutch say that if they agree, then the Indonesians have got to commit themselves to safeguard the interests of the Papuans. He asked that such guarantees be obtained.

Governor Harriman summarized the conversation by saying that on the one hand the Indonesians knew that they were to get the area. The Dutch, on the other hand, knew that freedom of choice on the part of the Papuans must include the option for the Papuans to vote themselves out of Indonesia. Ambassador van Roijen said that on this basis and the talks at Middleburg he did feel that Malik (though he did not know if this could be taken as the definitive position of the Indonesian Government) envisaged that the Papuans would be given the opportunity to opt out of Indonesia.

0. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 656.9813/4–1762. Drafted by Stone and approved in S on May 11. The meeting lasted until 3:34 p.m.; van Roijen remained alone with the Secretary for a few minutes after the meeting. (Johnson Library, Rusk Appointment Book)
1. Reference is to letters from Prime Minister de Quay to President Kennedy, Luns to Rusk, and Luns to Bunker, all April 14. (Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Country Series, West New Guinea, 4/12/62–4/17/62, and Department of State, Central Files, 656.9813/4–1462)
2. Telegram 1132 to Djakarta, April 6, instructed Jones to tell Sukarno or Subandrio that the West New Guinea/West Irian issue was at a critical juncture. Indonesian military actions, reports of fighting, and attempts to humiliate the Netherlands would cause the United States to reconsider its role in helping to settle the problem. Jones reported in telegram 1800 from Djakarta, April 8, that Subandrio promised to “do everything possible” to control both acts and belligerent statements. Subandrio expressed no desire to humiliate the Netherlands, but stated that the Netherlands would never yield unless pressure was applied. (Both ibid., 656.9813/4–662 and 656.9813/4–862)
3. According to telegram 1187 to Djakarta, April 18, Bunker met with van Roijen and showed him revised language for the agenda of potential discussions based on the Bunker formula. Van Roijen was first critical but then saw some merit in the suggestions. He was pleased to learn that the agenda had not yet been shown to the Indonesians. (Ibid., 656.9813/4–1862)