300. Memorandum of Conversation, Washington, September 30, 1975.1 2
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Memorandum of Conversation
DATE: September 30, 1975
SUBJECT: Secretary’s Meeting with Foreign Minister Rithauddeen
PARTICIPANTS:
- Malaysia
- Foreign Minister Rithauddeen
- Ambassador Khir Johari, Permanent Representative to the United Nations
- United States
- The Secretary
- Assistant Secretary Philip C. Habib, EA
- Thomas Barnes, NSC
- William S. Shepard, Malaysia Desk, EA/IMS
DISTRIBUTION: S (Mr. Bremer, Mr. Adams), S/S, WH (Mr. Rodman)
The Secretary: Nice to see you. Profound apologies for having kept you waiting. The Spanish Foreign Minister was here and we have these base negotiations. Someone didn’t tell me that he was here, and so my meeting with him started one half-hour late.
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: I didn’t want to pester you.
The Secretary: You didn’t indeed, quite the contrary. The meeting was at my request. I asked to see you as I wanted to meet you. Habib told me you were an excellent host. I find that Habib’s happiness increases in direct proportion to his distance from me! How much time did you spend in Malaysia — two weeks, wasn’t it?
[Page 2]Assistant Secretary Habib: I was there twice last Spring. I went early to see Prime Minister Razak, and then returned.
The Secretary: How long will you be in New York?
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: I was meaning to stay longer, but my Prime Minister is going to Australia, and he wants me back in Kuala Lumpur before he leaves. I’ll be returning the day after tomorrow.
The Secretary: What do you think about our bilateral relations?
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: They are very good.
The Secretary: What are your views on the security situation in Malaysia? Are arms coming in from Vietnam?
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: For the moment, there is no conclusive evidence that arms are coming in with the fall of Vietnam. We do find that some M-16s are turning up, and they did even before the fall of Vietnam. Infiltration is a problem, and we must cooperate with other countries.
The Secretary: You mean in the border areas. How are you getting along with your neighbors in that regard?
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: Our cooperation is better with the Thais, and it is good with the Indonesians as well.
The Secretary: Is anything coming in by sea?
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: No, but about a year ago there was an attempt to smuggle in arms by boat. But we patrolled and sank it and since then it hasn’t been resumed. Our country is tough to patrol. We have a very long coastline, and then there are Sabah and Sarawak as well!
[Page 3]The Secretary: We have an interest in your territorial integrity as well and if we can be helpful we will be glad to do what we can.
Assistant Secretary Habib: We have talked with the Malaysians about this. We sent out a team, and we are now exploring the team’s recommendations to see how we can best be helpful. As a start, we are expediting procedures for licensing of M-16s that the Malaysians are ordering.
The Secretary: Wonderful. That is exactly what I want.
Assistant Secretary Habib: Also, there are FMS credits. We are including $17 million in the request for FY-76, and we have so informed the Malaysian Government.
The Secretary: Fine. How did you arrive at $17 million? I always wonder how these figures can be so precisely determined,
Assistant Secretary Habib: That was done in consultation with the Malaysian Government.
The Secretary: The credit approach is a good one if we can be helpful in that way.
Assistant Secretary Habib: Yes. With credits, though, we have to bear in mind that Malaysia is not a poor country. It is very rich by comparison to some other countries.
The Secretary: What is your population?
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: Eleven million, including sub-islands.
Ambassador Khir Johari: We are interested in technical military help, particularly in the handling of booby traps.
The Secretary: Yes, and Phil Habib speaks for me in these matters.
[Page 4]Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: We need these things badly. We are testing M-16s, and our soldiers prefer M-16s.
Assistant Secretary Habib: We are expediting approval of the M-16s, with an initial shipment of 16,000. Is that the figure, Bill?
Mr. Shepard: The first shipment will be 10,000 rifles.
Assistant Secretary Habib: Yes, that’s right. I’d forgotten the exact figure.
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: We want assistance of a technical sort, but we can look after ourselves. You can give us what we need so that we can remain sovereign. We have had good talks with Mr. Habib. We will use the money (credits) for the necessary hardware. Now, we are facing booby traps when we go out into the jungle.
The Secretary: We never solved that in Vietnam. Only the Koreans solved it, by marching villagers over the booby-trapped fields in front of their soldiers. That would hardly be an acceptable solution for Malaysia!
Assistant Secretary Habib: There are some techniques which the teams talked about, but they are limited in their effectiveness.
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: They discussed using dogs, but their sense of smell is not always sufficient for the job. We have also heard about a small sort of tractor machine, about five feet by 2 feet, which is a sort of flailing robot.
The Secretary: The problem is that you don’t develop a technology unless you have a need for it, and we do not have a need for it. How many insurgents are there now?
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: There are 1,500-2,000, including supporters
[Page 5]The Secretary: Are you working with Singapore?
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: Yes. And on operations we are working with the Thais.
Assistant Secretary Habib: That has its ups and downs.
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: We can get decisions from the top, but then there are problems of implementation. We have meetings, and then...
The Secretary: Well, I wanted to see you to tell you of our goodwill towards Malaysia. We will try to help you. The nations of Southeast Asia continue to have our support within the limits that we all understand. Any nation such as your country which wants to defend itself has our support in its endeavor.
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: ASEAN is important to us as well. There is a standing ASEAN invitation to other Southeast Asian countries to join, including Vietnam.
The Secretary: The Vietnamese are tough cases. They may put out their hands, but when you take them, they throw you over their shoulders!
It is conceivable to me that Cambodia will get concerned over the Vietnams.
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: At Lima, there was less Vietnam-Cambodian dialogue than might have been expected. The North Vietnamese are playing their cards well. They are pushing South Vietnam more into the public light to show that they are not under any sort of bondage. That is the impression that I got.
The Secretary: Were you in Hanoi then?
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: No, those were my impressions when I was in Lima for the Non-Aligned Conference.
[Page 6]The Secretary: Well, I think it will be run from Hanoi. I spent four years with Le Duc Tho, and I now wish him onto someone else. They have a very high opinion of their own abilities. But it is up to the countries of the area to decide how to handle things.
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: Yes. We have had faith in ASEAN over the past 7-8 years. Until we can be sure of our new friends, we remain sure of our old friends.
The Secretary: You can be sure of our friendship.
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: Some kind of discreet association is helpful to us.
The Secretary: Phil Habib was very encouraged by your basic attitude.
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: We are trying to be independent in our foreign policy, but there are things that we have to arrange discreetly.
The Secretary: It was very good to see you. I’m always glad to conduct a little foreign policy in between my dealings with the Congress!
Foreign Minister Rithauddeen: Good-bye.
The Secretary: Have a good trip.