Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964–1968, Volume XXVII, Mainland Southeast Asia; Regional Affairs

122. Memorandum of Telephone Conversation¹

March 23, 1964, 9:30 a.m.

SUBJECT

• Cambodia

PARTICIPANTS

• The Secretary
• Mr. R.A. Butler, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

Mr. Rusk noted that Sihanouk had postponed his deadline to March 30th, and Mr. Butler agreed.

Mr. Rusk said the main question was to work out an approach that would meet the needs of Thailand and South Viet-Nam, and Mr. Butler responded by picking up the suggestion that the United States go all out for a quadripartite conference. Mr. Rusk agreed that this should be the next move, and suggested that the British say to Gromyko that agreement among the four would resolve the issues among the non-signers of the Geneva Accords and thus would be an appropriate and essential step before the Geneva Conference was convened.

Mr. Butler said that the bilateral Cambodian-Vietnamese meeting appeared to have “broken down.” Mr. Rusk responded that it was not yet wholly clear what was meant by the joint announcement of “postponement”. The Vietnamese had been very forthcoming throughout, and it seemed to him worth waiting a day or two to see just where this did stand.

Mr. Butler said the British in general were rather impatient that measures must be taken to see that Cambodia did not “go Red.” At the same time, he recognized that it was difficult to summon a Geneva Conference unless the Thais and the Vietnamese were ready to participate and thought that he should tell Mr. Gromyko this point as well. Mr. Rusk responded that they should not quote the United States as the source on the Thai and Vietnamese attitudes.

Mr. Butler returned to the point that the next move should be for the United States to go all out on the quadripartite front, and Mr. Rusk responded that we would have “to turn this one around” with Bangkok before seeing just what the move would be.

Mr. Butler then said that the British would welcome a visit by Mr. Bundy to London and Paris next week, and that he also thought well of the suggestion for consultation at Manila between Carrington, Couve, and the Secretary. He also raised the question of a United States high-level emissary, and Mr. Rusk repeated that Sihanouk had given us no encouragement on this, but that we were ready to do it when and if it seemed the right thing. Mr. Rusk also noted that it was very difficult to have quiet talks with Sihanouk.

Mr. Butler said that one of the UK concerns was that they were very anxious to hold on to their position as Co-Chairman of the Geneva Conference. He indicated that there was some danger that the French might move in and try to take over this position.

Mr. Rusk repeated that we were prepared to go ahead and see what could be done on the quadripartite front. He thought it might be helpful if the British again reminded Sihanouk that we had never seen any texts of proposals that he might make at a Geneva Conference. He reminded Mr. Butler again of the agreement between Butler, Couve, and the Secretary that we would not let a Geneva Conference take place without firm prior agreement on what would be the outcome.

The conversation then turned briefly to the Prime Ministerʼs nuclear statement and to events in Libya. On the latter, Mr. Butler agreed that the British would go slow (I did not know the context, so am not clear what this signified).

Returning to Southeast Asia, Mr. Butler reminded Mr. Rusk of the general understanding that the UK would be as helpful as possible on South Viet-Nam, and that the US would be as helpful as possible to the British on Malaysia. He thought that they were doing their part, and hoped that we would continue to do ours. Mr. Rusk responded that of course we would.

Returning to the contents of the British message to Gromyko, Mr. Butler finally suggested they might take a quite clear line with Gromyko that the best they and the Russians could do at this point was to encourage the settlement of issues among the four powers, as a necessary prelude to a Geneva Conference. Mr. Rusk responded affirmatively to this.

1. Source: Department of State, Central Files, POL 23–13 CAMB. Secret, Limdis. Drafted by William Bundy and cleared in S on March 29. Rusk was in Washington; Butler in London. This conversation was on a secure line.