161. Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, June 29, 1976.1 2
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Memorandum of Conversation
DATE: June 29, 1976
SUBJECT: Working Luncheon for Indonesian Foreign Minister: Multilateral and Bilateral Issues
PARTICIPANTS:
- Indonesia
- Adam Malik, Foreign Minister
- R.B.I.N. Djajadiningrat, Director General for Political Affairs
- Rusmin Nuryadin, Indonesian Ambassador
- Sumarjo Sosrowardojo, Chief, Foreign Minister’s Personal Staff
- Major General Soekemi Sumantri, Assistant for International Cooperation, Defense Department
- Ferdy Salim, Director, Foreign Trade Policy
- Adrianus Mooy, Deputy Director, BAPPENAS
- United States
- The Secretary
- Brent Scowcroft, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
- Daniel Parker, AID Administrator
- Philip C. Habib, Under Secretary (designate) for Political Affairs
- William D. Rogers, Under Secretary for Economic Affairs
- David D. Newsom, Ambassador to Indonesia
- Robert H. Miller, Acting Assistant Secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs
- Morton I. Abramowitz, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
- Edward C. Ingraham, EA/IMS(notetaker)
Mr. Habib: As you know, Mr. Secretary, we have been having a series of US-Indonesian meetings over the past two days.
[Page 2]The Secretary: How have they been going? Mr. Minister, could you tell us?
Malik: All right.
Ambassador Newsom: Both sides would have liked to do a little better, but we have generally agreed.
The Secretary: I understand you have been ill with hepatitis, Mr. Minister. Where did you get it?
Malik: In Thailand.
The Secretary: And how is the situation in Thailand?
Malik: Clearer.
The Secretary: Clearer in a good sense or in a bad sense?
Malik: Clearer in a good sense.
The Secretary: I don’t know what the Thais gain by asking us to leave.
Mr. Habib: Was this discussed at the Manila ASEAN meeting?
Malik: Yes. I have just come from there. I came here directly from Manila.
The Secretary: How did you come, through Honolulu?
Malik: No, direct from Tokyo to New York. It is a very long trip.
Ambassador Newsom: Flight time from here to Jakarta is 30 hours. I am leaving for Jakarta tomorrow.
The Secretary: It used to take 16 hours just to fly to Europe.
Tell me, what has been agreed upon at your meetings so far.
Mr. Miller: We have not reached any particular agreements in the political talks, but have been exchanging views. But there was agreement in the security talks at the Defense Department on the FMS credits for FY 1976.
[Page 3]Ambassador Rusmin: Yes, I am going to sign the overall agreement tomorrow. We intend to review the list of equipment to be obtained under grant aid. But the credit is going through.
The Secretary: What is the problem with military aid?
General Sumantri: We want to look at our aid requirements as a whole. It is difficult to plan for just one year.
Mr. Abramowitz: Yes, it is difficult to plan for periods of less than three to four years.
The Secretary: Why can’t we do that in this case?
Mr. Abramowitz: The problem is that of the uncertainty on our side. We cannot foretell the actual size of the appropriation for future years. This means we can only do advance planning within limits.
The Secretary: Can we engage in long range planning with any country?
Mr. Abramowitz: No, we cannot.
The Secretary: As long as the Indonesians understand the problem of Congressional appropriations, why cannot we engage in planning while taking that uncertainty into consideration?
I have always thought of Indonesia as the key country of Southeast Asia. We have Congressional constraints. I don’t see why we must also have planning constraints.
General Sumantri: We would like to plan with you for a longer period.
The Secretary: Who is at fault in this? If it is ours, I would like to know.
Mr. Habib: There are problems on both sides. The Indonesians are also changing some of their priorities.
[Page 4]Ambassador Rusmin: We need some additional options in procuring equipment. We hope to get some types of equipment from other countries, for example VO-15 helicopters from West Germany.
Mr. Abramowitz: As an example of the difficulty that uncertainty over appropriations creates in the planning process, the Administration asked Congress for$19 million in grant aid for Indonesia this year. We are getting $13 million. That is a 3 percent shortfall. This makes planning difficult.
General Sumantri: We have experienced this difficulty in previous years, too. We have learned from experience not to plan more than two years ahead.
Ambassador Newsom: The long uncertainty over the security assistance legislation in the Congress added to the difficulty this year.
The Secretary: There is no question that it is hard to deal with a nation as noble as we are.
I am personally sympathetic to your problem, and will see what can be done. That is one advantage of these meetings. I am able to find out personally what has been going on. I told my colleagues this morning that $13 million in military aid was ridiculous for a country such as Indonesia after the fall of Vietnam.
We will also get better terms for PL 480 next year.
Mr. Abramowitz: There is another problem of FMS credit terms.
The Secretary: Who decides those terms?
Mr. Abramowitz: Treasury.
Ambassador Newsom: Our friends are patient with us.
The Secretary: But I’m not. If you had not come to Washington, Mr. Minister, I might never have known about this. I will talk to Treasury about PL 480 terms. And about FMS credit terms if it is not too late.
[Page 5]Mr. Abramowitz: It is too late for the FMS credit terms for this year. But not for next year.
Mr. Habib: We worked out with the Indonesians a program this year for $30 million in grant aid. This was cut to $19 by OMB, by switching the balance to FMS credit. And then Congress cut the figure to $13 million.
The Secretary: I didn’t know anything about this.
Mr. Parker: There is an additional problem. It is only 36 hours until the end of the fiscal year and the Senate has not yet passed the appropriation. Senator Inouye agreed to pass the bill if we would tell him what our planning on Africa is.
The Secretary: (to Mr. Habib) Can you take care of this?
Ambassador Newsom: At least there is some good news for our Indonesian colleagues. This year’s economic aid is well ahead of last year’s.
Mr. Habib: And I have also just heard that Senator Bentsen is prepared to introduce an amendment removing the ban on GSP benefits for the OPEC countries that did not join the embargo.
Mr. Rogers: Once we get it through the Senate there will be the problem of the House. Mr. Minister, is the GSP issue of significance to you?
Malik: Yes, it is.
Ambassador Newsom: It is a very touchy issue in Jakarta, not only in substance but in feeling.
Mr. Habib: The Portuguese elections came out well.
The Secretary: Yes, very well. Eanes got over 60 percent of the vote. The next one was the leftist.
Mr. Minister, I am not going to make a speech, but I want you to know that Indonesia is very important to us. And I want you to know that you are among friends here. We look forward very much to our consultations.
[Page 6]Malik: We too have been looking forward to the consultations. Our country is facing a difficult time now, but we are looking to the future.
The Secretary: I appreciate the effort you made to get here. It has been a long trip. Jet travel usually doesn’t affect me, but even I have troubles with trips that long.
Malik: After our meeting here I am going on to Pakistan and then to Thailand. Then I must be home for the visit of the Foreign Minister from Hanoi.
The Secretary: I met Trinh only once, in Hanoi. He didn’t come to Paris for the negotiations.
There were two things that led to the collapse in Vietnam: the cut in our aid and the collapse of executive authority in the United States.
Ambassador Newsom: There was also the collapse of Congressional authority.
The Secretary: Yes, that worked against us. After the elections things will be better, with an elected President. With a Nixon undamaged by Watergate, the course of events in Vietnam would have been different.
Mr. Minister, how do they treat you in Hanoi?
Malik: As second class citizens.
The Secretary: Even in first class, they don’t treat you very well. I wonder if they treat the Soviets well.
I can recall during a visit to Hanoi they put me in a place called the Grand Palace. They had things really worked out precisely to cause maximum discomfort. In the bathroom there was both hot and cold running water. But the sink had only hot water and the tub only cold water. And then there was the plug in the tub. Not an ordinary plug but one with a long wire on it that had to be fitted precisely into the fixture or it wouldn’t work. It was a half-hour task just putting in the plug.
[Page 7]The room they gave me was a huge one, about the size of this dining room. There were about fourteen different light fixtures in it, each one with a separate switch. Some of the switches were down along the baseboard, some were high up on the wall. It took most of the night to get the lights turned out.
We were the first American non-prisoners to visit Hanoi, and they left us very much alone after they deposited us at the Palace. So the three of us went for a walk. When we returned to the Palace, the guards wouldn’t let me in because I didn’t have a pass. But when I asked for a pass, they said that heads of delegations didn’t get passes.
I did notice during that visit that the signs of bombing were far less than had been reported. Reading the press, you would get the impression that Hanoi was in ruins from our bombing. But I saw scarcely any signs of bombing, despite the complaints of the intellectual community.
I spent many hours negotiating with the North Vietnamese. I recall that they once made a public proposal and at the same time a secret proposal to me. They told us privately that they did not want to negotiate on their public proposal. So we negotiated for six months over the secret proposal while their propaganda was blasting us for refusing to negotiate their public proposal. We finally had enough so we published both. That surprised them.
Actually, the North Vietnamese were only tractable in negotiations after we had bombed them. When we met them in Paris after they had taken Quang Tri, they were completely arrogant. But after the Christmas bombing they were far more accommodating.
Ambassador Newsom: I was greeted on my arrival in Washington by seeing my name in Jack Anderson’s column.
The Secretary: For what?
Ambassador Newsom: For sending too many contraceptives to Indonesia.
[Page 8]The Secretary: Why did you send so many?
Ambassador Newsom: Actually, an AID cable went out over my name asking that 51 million be sent. Oddly enough, Anderson ended up praising me for resisting.
The Secretary: We have a little time before the meeting. (To Mr. Habib) Perhaps you could take the Foreign Minister to your office so that he could freshen up.